Morrockin Awesome

Sorry I haven't updated in the past two days! We haven't had internet access. : ( But A LOT has happened! I actually have been trying to type a little each night, even when I don't have internet. Here is what I wrote Tuesday the 22nd.

So I am pretty sure if I went home today all the money I have spent would have been well worth it. We got up around 6:00 and had some breakfast. The breakfast was crepes with honey, orange jam, or strawberry jam. I tried the orange but didn’t like it at all so I used the good ole strawberry instead. : ) Then we had slices of grapefruit, weird yogurt, and yummy bread. I also drank a lot of orange juice. Morocco seems to be like the U.S.’s Florida in that respect. It is great!

Today we visited COPAG it is a farmers cooperative that has orange processing, dairy feedlots and manufactures dairy products. We had a short meeting with them and got to sample all their dairy products. It was great fun. Some of the things we tasted were a little sketchy….We ate a whole lot of what we thought was strawberry yogurt (ish) but then found out we were eating cream cheese like a person eats yogurt. It was good though! Of course we also got orange juice and orange juice with peaches, milk with yogurt in it and pastries! I really feel that we get treated like VIP’s. It is so weird to get treated like we do.

We also got to see their feed mill in full operation. It was a lot larger than the feed mill we saw the previous day. A cool thing we saw in their feed mill was that they use Pioneer seed for the corn the produce. We all thought that was pretty cool.

After the feed mill, we went to see were they package their dairy products. They had machines do most of the work. I got some good video of the machine packaging yogurt and also milk.

Unfortunately, most of their orange facilities were up today. However, we still toured the plant and got to see what happens to all the “bad” oranges. They really aren’t bad just too small or big or wrinkly, etc. This part was my favorite part. They use these oranges in their cattle’s feed. So because of this we came to this conclusion: Happy cows may come from California but healthy cows come from Morocco! : ) I so wish everyone could have been there to smell those oranges. Too bad pictures aren’t scratch and sniff.

Next we got the opportunity to visit their feedlot. They are also currently expanding the feedlot. It was a dairy feedlot and the farmers of the coop bring their calves in at a young age. They pay a certain amount of money that is different for each animal to be able to keep their animal there. The heifers are AI and then after so many months they are taken back by the farmer to their farm. This coop in very sought after by farmers in the area and many farmers are even turned down to join.

Next we went across the way to a banana greenhouse. It was very big! Also to get to the banana field we had to cross a field of alfalfa! Everyone was smelled in that alfalfa smell and taking pictures. Kurt of our leaders laughed and said only farmers would take pictures of grass! We also had to cross this NARROW bridge that we could hold onto wire to steady ourselves. It was kind of wobbly but it was definitely worth seeing the banana trees! I can’t wait to show Jackie and Lindsay all the greenhouse pictures! For those of you who don’t know, they are two of my amigas that just graduated with Horticulture degrees.

We had another amazing lunch. We got to chat with a younger Moroccan man who studied in Japan last year, He knew English pretty well even though he thought he didn’t. He was pretty funny and showed us all the proper way to eat some of the food, speak a little Arabic and learn the names of food. He told a joke that went like

this: What do you call someone who knows three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. On language? An American. It was funny but I do believe there is a lot of truth in that joke. Practically everyone over here knows French or some other language. It is a very big mixture of languages. Another cool point to add about lunch was that we sat at very small tables and some people on little cushions. After lunch we went to this spot overlooking the town we just ate in to have tea. The COPAG people also gave us gifts. They presented each one of us with Moroccan slippers! We all thought this was the coolest thing ever and it was very unexpected.

The next thing we did was probably the highlight of my day. I think I mention briefly yesterday about the Argan tree. Well we went to this women’s coop were they crack the nut from the Argan tree and then use it to make oils, soap, and spread for you to eat. It was very hole-in-the-wall and off the beaten track. The women actually wanted me to sit and crack open the stones with a rock right by them. So I sat myself in between two Moroccan women and they showed me how to crack open the nut with just a rock and a stone. It was harder than it looked and if you weren’t careful you could really smash your fingers real good. Today I finally feel like I am in Morocco. I have definitely never had an experience like that before.

To end the day, we got to see some of some goats climbing the Argan tree’s. We took pictures of the goat at the very tip top of the trees! I still don’t know how they do it! The goat owner went around and asked us for Duram for taking pictures of his goats

Last but not least we finally made it to our new hotel and are trying to get rested up for another eventful day.

The Traveling Bogart,
Kasie

PS-It is about 12:30 in the morning here. My usual bedtime! I really want to tell you all more but I am tired! I will hopefully post more soon! We eave for Egypt tomorrow night and will be in the same hotel for the rest of the trip. Hopefully they have internet!

Be looking forward for news on oasis's, snakes, belly dancers, Wheat, and moroccan rugs and markets. I have so many good pictures to show you!