So another exciting day in Morocco! This was the day our bus broke down, we ate at this restaurant that served us undercooked chicken, and we got to see a beggar man get into a pushing fight right by the doors to our bus, Really all these problems weren’t too bad and actually make for good stories and pictures. : )
So we fixed the bus problem by doing a rolling start…downhill. We all got out and pushed the bus! Good thing it was our little bus because out other big bus would have been a challenge. Apparently, we had blown a fuse.
Earlier that day we had visited some Oasis’. Basically they plant in tiers. The first tier is the palm tree, then the olive, then the fruit, and barley and wheat, etc. They are pretty small plots. The main thing that was stressed to us was the fact that what the farmers make today is actually the same amount they will make twenty years from now. Not a lot of room to expand or grow. We saw a variety of fruit trees; apricot, almond(nut) , and pomegranate. Katie, this reminded me of you. : ) Oh and this Kansas girl got her picture in a wheat plot! The cool thing about this oasis was that we drove out into the middle of a dried of river bed to get to it. It is crazy to think about how little water they get in the south. In the future the Moroccans will be a great model to look to when the United States faces water conservation problems. One thing I did notice was that along the roads, they would have ditches or aqueducts to move water through. They also have reservoirs that the government controls and uses to release little amounts of water at a time to help replenish the water table. We also talked a lot about how wheat was grown in Morocco for obvious reason that made since at the time it was introduce but that less wheat should be planted. It is a high water and low labor crop. Moroccans need a low water, high labor crop in order to survive. Moroccan find great success with their olive trees. In fact I can’t recall a meal when we didn’t have olives. With the pit of course. : )
So that oasis trip was very interesting. On the way there we traveled through breathtaking scenery. The roads were narrow and steep and curvy. Out bus was big and bulky. As you can probably imagine, it made for some interesting turns. Kurt made a funny comment on how we all needed to buckle our seatbelts for the next part of the journey. But we didn’t have any seatbelts! Kurt and Mustapha sure did like to play funny jokes on us. Anyway, we made it safe and sound to our next destination.
This place was another place I wish we had scratch and sniff photos! We toured a rose processing facility. It was pretty neat to see how they extracted the rose oil from the petals. I can’t remember the specific amount of rose petals it took to make one liter of oil but I don remember it was a an enormous amount. I guess that is the reason it is over 3,000 dollars to get some rose oil. Sorry friends, I am just not that rich to get you that good smelling stuff. Actually, Pamela, my roomie said it reminded her of a funeral home! : ) Anyway, we left that place and hit the road. We actually stopped along the side of road to get some roses form the little boys who were selling them. We bought to rose leis. Anytime our bus stopped on the road or in a city you better believe people would come to check us out or try to sell us stuff. Like the boys with the roses. That is were the beggar man comes into the story. We were eating our less than tasty meal (actually our only bad meal experience) and had our bus parked across the street so we could watch it. Well these men were standing around waiting to sell us stuff and ask for durams. Well we got our bus driver to drive the bus to our side of the street. When that happened the men changed side but most of us were on the bus already before they could get to us. This beggar man, who actually had a deformed leg got really mad at another man and pushed him down right by our bus door. We were all like “close the door!” So certain people won’t worry, I really didn’t feel threatened or in harms way. It was kind of exciting and by this point we had all had to deal with this type of thing. So then the beggar man sat right by our bus and screamed every now and then. About what? I have no idea. The funny thing about this was that Jill wasn’t on the bus when we got on and we were all looking at her to make sure she was okay. She mouthed to us to stopped staring at her because she didn’t want the people to approach her. It was kind of funny. Good thing Kurt was still out there to help Jill to the bus.
I think this was the day we also went to the market. They have their market on Thursdays. There is no other town in the region to have a market on Thursday so it eliminates competition. Let me tell you it was an interesting site to see. For some reason a Moroccan guy got mad at us when Mustapha asked about a calf. It started an argument between the guy and Mustapha. Kurt told us that Mustapha just liked to argue. : ) He also said the other Moroccans thought the mead, mad Moroccan was being to uptight. Just imagine a crowd of Moroccan people gather around all of us Americans arguing right in front of us about God knows what. Mustapha had it all under control though. And once again we never felt threatened. Most of the Moroccans were all very curious and nice to us. We even had two little boys follow us all around the market.
So we fixed the bus problem by doing a rolling start…downhill. We all got out and pushed the bus! Good thing it was our little bus because out other big bus would have been a challenge. Apparently, we had blown a fuse.
Earlier that day we had visited some Oasis’. Basically they plant in tiers. The first tier is the palm tree, then the olive, then the fruit, and barley and wheat, etc. They are pretty small plots. The main thing that was stressed to us was the fact that what the farmers make today is actually the same amount they will make twenty years from now. Not a lot of room to expand or grow. We saw a variety of fruit trees; apricot, almond(nut) , and pomegranate. Katie, this reminded me of you. : ) Oh and this Kansas girl got her picture in a wheat plot! The cool thing about this oasis was that we drove out into the middle of a dried of river bed to get to it. It is crazy to think about how little water they get in the south. In the future the Moroccans will be a great model to look to when the United States faces water conservation problems. One thing I did notice was that along the roads, they would have ditches or aqueducts to move water through. They also have reservoirs that the government controls and uses to release little amounts of water at a time to help replenish the water table. We also talked a lot about how wheat was grown in Morocco for obvious reason that made since at the time it was introduce but that less wheat should be planted. It is a high water and low labor crop. Moroccans need a low water, high labor crop in order to survive. Moroccan find great success with their olive trees. In fact I can’t recall a meal when we didn’t have olives. With the pit of course. : )
So that oasis trip was very interesting. On the way there we traveled through breathtaking scenery. The roads were narrow and steep and curvy. Out bus was big and bulky. As you can probably imagine, it made for some interesting turns. Kurt made a funny comment on how we all needed to buckle our seatbelts for the next part of the journey. But we didn’t have any seatbelts! Kurt and Mustapha sure did like to play funny jokes on us. Anyway, we made it safe and sound to our next destination.
This place was another place I wish we had scratch and sniff photos! We toured a rose processing facility. It was pretty neat to see how they extracted the rose oil from the petals. I can’t remember the specific amount of rose petals it took to make one liter of oil but I don remember it was a an enormous amount. I guess that is the reason it is over 3,000 dollars to get some rose oil. Sorry friends, I am just not that rich to get you that good smelling stuff. Actually, Pamela, my roomie said it reminded her of a funeral home! : ) Anyway, we left that place and hit the road. We actually stopped along the side of road to get some roses form the little boys who were selling them. We bought to rose leis. Anytime our bus stopped on the road or in a city you better believe people would come to check us out or try to sell us stuff. Like the boys with the roses. That is were the beggar man comes into the story. We were eating our less than tasty meal (actually our only bad meal experience) and had our bus parked across the street so we could watch it. Well these men were standing around waiting to sell us stuff and ask for durams. Well we got our bus driver to drive the bus to our side of the street. When that happened the men changed side but most of us were on the bus already before they could get to us. This beggar man, who actually had a deformed leg got really mad at another man and pushed him down right by our bus door. We were all like “close the door!” So certain people won’t worry, I really didn’t feel threatened or in harms way. It was kind of exciting and by this point we had all had to deal with this type of thing. So then the beggar man sat right by our bus and screamed every now and then. About what? I have no idea. The funny thing about this was that Jill wasn’t on the bus when we got on and we were all looking at her to make sure she was okay. She mouthed to us to stopped staring at her because she didn’t want the people to approach her. It was kind of funny. Good thing Kurt was still out there to help Jill to the bus.
I think this was the day we also went to the market. They have their market on Thursdays. There is no other town in the region to have a market on Thursday so it eliminates competition. Let me tell you it was an interesting site to see. For some reason a Moroccan guy got mad at us when Mustapha asked about a calf. It started an argument between the guy and Mustapha. Kurt told us that Mustapha just liked to argue. : ) He also said the other Moroccans thought the mead, mad Moroccan was being to uptight. Just imagine a crowd of Moroccan people gather around all of us Americans arguing right in front of us about God knows what. Mustapha had it all under control though. And once again we never felt threatened. Most of the Moroccans were all very curious and nice to us. We even had two little boys follow us all around the market.
(Mustapha popping popcorn)
In the market we saw many things, ranging from movies to tools to cattle. It was all a lot to take in. Just imagine aisles and aisle of tents with spices, bread, meat, vegetables all crammed together. Then throw in a bunch of Moroccans and 14 Americans. We got a lot of attention. We ended up buying wool scarves from a lady. Then Mustapha help this man pop some popcorn and bought some for all the kids following us around. They really loved that. It was probably my favorite moment of the day. On our way out of the market we all had to cram to the side to make way for the meat trucks. They drove these trucks of meat down through the narrowest places imaginable. I was squashed up against the side as they drove by. As we left a very old lady asked me for durams, I felt sorry for her so I gave her 10 durams. I think I heard that many people live off of two dollars a day. I gave her a little over a dollar. So it was an interesting visit to their version of a Wal-Mart.
In the market we saw many things, ranging from movies to tools to cattle. It was all a lot to take in. Just imagine aisles and aisle of tents with spices, bread, meat, vegetables all crammed together. Then throw in a bunch of Moroccans and 14 Americans. We got a lot of attention. We ended up buying wool scarves from a lady. Then Mustapha help this man pop some popcorn and bought some for all the kids following us around. They really loved that. It was probably my favorite moment of the day. On our way out of the market we all had to cram to the side to make way for the meat trucks. They drove these trucks of meat down through the narrowest places imaginable. I was squashed up against the side as they drove by. As we left a very old lady asked me for durams, I felt sorry for her so I gave her 10 durams. I think I heard that many people live off of two dollars a day. I gave her a little over a dollar. So it was an interesting visit to their version of a Wal-Mart.
(Live animals at the market)
I hope I am not leaving anything out! There is just so much to see and to do! All I have is one more day about Morocco! Time sure does fly when you are having fun!
I hope I am not leaving anything out! There is just so much to see and to do! All I have is one more day about Morocco! Time sure does fly when you are having fun!
1 comment:
Good words.
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