Wa aleikum salaam, Madame!

So let's write about where we are right now... it's 10 pm and we're in a riad, Riad Arabesca, chez Gita Sellman. What a place... and what a hostess.

R: Gita's hair is as bright on fire as the lights of the motorcycles we see in the streets of the rose colored medina here in Marrakech.

SPW: We had a full day today beginning with breakfast here at Arabesca: two kinds of bread, three kinds of jam (including figue - j'adore) , hard boiled eggs, cheese (Gouda et La Vache Qui Rit), cucumber, a kind of ham/bologna. Ruby just said that in Botswana it's called Polony.

R: I feel very taken care of, here. The rooms are so beautiful. The one that looks like a honeymoon suite is so romantic.

SPW: and there are so many decorative aspects to our rooms: the fine pottery, lanterns, beautiful woven bed spreads like the textiles we saw being woven in Fes, copper topped coffee tables, the poofs for our feet (ottomans). One student bought one the other day... shhhhh it's a gift...

R: color coded robes, towels, plastic shower slippers, the blankets, the carved walls - on clothes it would be embroidery - and the showers are "real."

SPW: and all the rooms open up onto the courtyard. We are wrapped in lovely shawls and woolen wraps borrowed from the riad - we just learned that it snowed in the mountains where we're headed and none of us has mittens or parkas here!

R: and it has been pouring! My pants were soaked. Today we went on two tours: a museum tour which was interesting and I did learn a lot about the jewelry and instruments and clothes of Morocco's past.

SPW: this museum was Dar Si Said - a house that probably 20 sons and their families lived in. And the palace we saw afterward was the Stork Palace! Badia Palace.

R: We could see the Atlas Mountains from the terrace. And afterwards, we had a tasty lunch.

SPW: more incredible FOOD!

R: We tried lemon chicken which was awesome with the bread. And the kebabs were... ah! I don't know the word.

SPW: Ldid? (= delicious in moroccan arabic)

R: and the dessert: I felt like I was having cookie dough! Then we basically went shopping in the rain. After we all went to the herbalist.

SPW: and some of us had 20 dh shoulder massages as we learned about oils, flowers, saffron grown in Morocco.

R: I got saffron for my Mum which was so inexpensive here. And some mint tea for my family to try.

SPW: I got herbs and spices, too. Since last evening in the Place Djma el Fna I've had tea (spice tea, mint tea or ginger tea) five different times!

R: speaking of tea, the glasses are beautiful. And so are the teapots. In the souk (market) I saw a lot of beautiful cutlery, and not just that. The carpets, scarves, shoes (baboush), lamps,

SPW: aprictos, mint, spices,

R: oranges,

SPW: dates, nuts,

R: everything, really...

SPW: we're forgetting the friendly (??), eager vendors!

R: then we had the men singing for the dikhr.

SPW: this was back at Arabesca, between our two blocks of free time: an hour-long introduction to sufi chanting/singing/prayer. Candles lit, us around the salon on the low moroccan sofas, some of us meditating, some dozing, some studying the backs of our eyelids, some watching - here was just another aspect of this culture. OH! We totally forgot this morning's talk/lecture on the Berber culture! Wonderful Mohamed Soudani. Great to see and hear him again.

R: I didn't take any notes, but he was really engaging. It didn't feel like two hours! I was really happy to learn about the positive differences between the women of the Berber cultures and the Arabic city culture.

SPW: and that each of Morocco's kings has had a berber or common (or muggle!) wife. Right up to Mohammed VI whose wife is a Fessie (woman from Fes).

R: I don't know if it's because of where we've been, but more women are covered, here.

SPW: but also, they ride mopeds through the medina, even in their jellabas and veils.

R: I'm trying to end this blog entry: maybe just end with the Friday couscous that we had. Which we cleaned. It was really good: beef, not the usual chicken. And you can talk about the dessert -

SPW: fresh squeezed orange juice mixed with finely shredded carrots! Another delicious moroccan treat.

R: Eeyah, Ldid!

SPW: mizzyan bezzef!

So for travel-related health reasons that will go unnamed, I wasn't really participating in today's exciting adventure, but I did a lot of vicarious adventuring and took so much pleasure in soaking up the beautiful views and the laughter and shrieks of our kids and their El Araki hosts as they zipped across a most beautiful landscape at Terre d'Amanar in the mountains outside of Marrakech. (www.terresdamanar.com) Check it out!

The weather was spectacular and after four hours of high-rope bridge crossing, Hotchkiss student and El Araki student, Hotchkiss and so on, we enjoyed yet another amazing tagine with poulet citron.

The students are speaking so much French - even with their very competent English speaking hosts, the linguistic mix is very impressive. Our few days of Darija lessons back in Fes also still come in handy - our Moroccan hosts appreciate our few words and gestures. Their pride and delight in sharing their country and culture are absolutely heart-warming.

Our next and last stop of the day, before delivering the students back to their host families for the evening, was at at Enfance Espoir, an orphanage for babies and toddlers run by the Moroccan Ministry of Health. We left the fifteen minutes that turned into a half hour that turned into an hour, along with the lovely tea ritual. When we got back on the bus, we realized that we'd left Claire, Ruby and Mme Wilson in the newborn room, and I don't think they'd have noticed that we'd left until around midnight.

Tomorrow we head for Ouarzazate, and we will make a number of very varied stops along the way.

We hope you are still following us - we look forward to sharing all this with you in person, but time is going too fast now...

Layla Saida,

Wendy

As we prepare to leave the rose city of Marrakech and embark upon the final leg of our journey, I think back on all the things weve done, everything we have accomplished over the last week (has it only been a week?!). In particular, I'd like to share with you two poems written by Gita Sellman, our gracious host for part of our Marrakech stay. On our last night in her lovely riad, she read these poems to us as a fond bon voyage:

La Mélodie de ta Vie

Il faut chercher,

il faut trouver

la mélodie de ta vie

Il faut la chanter

il faut la danser,

si non, tu n'es qu'une poupée

And one more...

Printemps du Monde

La joie est toujours là,

calme et profonde.

Elle est pleine comme une rivière

au printemps du monde.

Et le temps ouvre ses ailes

pour voler aux cieux.

La distance n'est plus réelle.

elle prend ses adieux. 

 Thank you, Gita for these lovely poems and your generous hospitality at Riad Arabesca!

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...we drove through snowy mountains and desert and verdant valleys all in one day yesterday. It's because we see 14^th century casbahs within kilometers of cybercafes. It's because we're hearing (and trying to say) "Uhu" and "La" and "Non" and "No" in a single conversation... it's because the architecture changes with each city, and the petit taxis follow suit. It's because our senses are challenged and stimulated regularly. Moroccan air greets with a chill and sun and snow flurries and driving rain! There's contrast in the patterns of the rugs we've seen on looms, expertly handled by weathered and agile hands - these very patterns exist in reality in the hills we drove through today as a wide rainbow led us to Zagora. Choukran, El Maghrib!    -Sarinda

there are many different sides to this country. While we were in the city in Marrakech, I could've sworn that we were in the U.S; there were the same types of stores and boutiques, taxies going left and right, and of course there was a McDonalds. It was modern and beautiul at the same time. On the drive to Ouarzazate, Our surroundings transformed from the bustling city to snow capped mountains, to the vast, sandy desert. Approaching the occupied part of Ouarzazate, the scene was incredible. If you looked to the left, you saw mountains drenched in snow. To the right, sand dunes that reached toward the night sky. Looking forward, the bright lights of the city twinkled like a cluster of stars in the distance. It's incredible how you can find so many drastically different environments in the same place. -Claire

I have seen the veiled women walking silently on the male-domained, narrow streets of Medina and I have laughed with girls of my age so loudly on the wide roads with cars running by us. Seeing both sides of Morocco made the trip intense and interesting. My host sister and a bunch of her friends took me to a shopping center, where I found Zara and other brands. I have never expected to see those familiar brands in Morocco. When I walked into the shops, people from all over the world were doing shopping as in the states. It is hard to imagine that one day ago, I was in the market and bargaining for a leather bag from an unbelievable high price to an acceptable one. Moreover, when we walked into the private school, girls were all in heels, jeans, which was really contradictary from what we have heard or seen days ago. Even the food varied from places to places. In the host family in Fez, we had traditional bread, tajine, couscous., This time in Marrakech, I had the best pizza and cakes made by the host mother. The contrasts we experienced in these days made me think about China, the USA and other countries that I have been to. I want to be here with my parents, to see all the contrasts with them. That's one idea that the contrasts didn't change in my mind. -Nera

Safe journey back to the US tomorrow and "until next time in Maroc".... 

At this point, as you know, your globetrotting teenagers are on a plane flying back over the Atlantic Ocean. Stories and pictures are still to come, especially from our desert excursion, but for the meantime, I leave you with this.

Geordie "Does this Come in Peach?" Henderson One of Geordie's goals on this trip was to find gifts for all the important women in his life. He always had his eyeballs peeled for the silken scarf in that perfect shade of peach - his girlfriend's favorite color. Finally, one day he returned to our house in Marrakech with a glowing smile stamped on his face, shouting at us, "Guys! I found the scarf!" Pulling out a brown plastic bag with exuberant enthusiasm, he showed us a gorgeous silken scarf in the lightest, pastel-like shade of peach. From then on, we all teased him whenever we saw something peach: and every time, his eyes always lit up.

Mackenzie "Johnny" Moore Sitting around the fire in the desert, after what seemed like hours of drumming and singing, the group broke into the necessary scary story telling session. We had just visited the movie set of the B-horror movie, "The Hills Have Eyes" and so Geordie was inspired to share his own scary story about Johnny, a one-legged axe murderer-- "hack-hack-hack"... he freaked Mackenzie out so much that she flinched and squealed when an Amazigh dressed in glow sticks came close to approaching her. But that was only the beginning of her paranoia. Later when she was en route to the bathroom to brush her teeth, another Saharan nomad followed her and screamed out in Arabic. Mackenzie swears that he said "Johnny," so she screeched, sprinted to the bathroom, dropped her things on the ground and feared that Johnny was going to cut her legs off and she would be stuck in the Sahara forever. Geordie and Nick had a great laugh when they walked in the bathroom to find her on the brink of hyperventilation in the middle of the floor.

Our Morocco trip is over and once again, I still have sand in my shoes from our magical night in the Erg Chicaga dunes. I'm having a hard time expressing myself but there are certain images of that desert excursion that I'll always carry with me. Here are a few to ruminate on:

...by the end of our trip we had gotten so good at our quick egress-photoshoot-remount into the van that it was no different when we pulled up to that dusty roadside scarf shop in Tagounite. It felt like a rite of passage to buy the blue-tinted scarves and have the shopboys symbolically wrap our heads to protect them from the sun and the wind. Like a force to be reckoned with, we came, we bought, and in no time we were back in the van, heads wrapped and full of anticipation...

...we passed the last gas station with 'cold/oolo beer for 200 miles' (except this was the fake gas station that was part of the movie set for 'The Hills Have Eyes') and then we really passed "the last gas station"...

To Wendy and Sarinda: While the students were passed out in the back of the van (really-- how DID they do that??) I have a feeling you were rocking out to some of my Moroccan music, like Hoba Hoba Spirit.

This is my favorite song by them and is sung in mostly French and Darija. The song, 'Fine ghadi biya khoya," literally means, 'Where are you going, Brother?' and is a modern day interpretation of a Nass el Ghiwane song from the 1970s with the same name.

To our partners at El Araki: thanks for all of your hard work in setting up the homestays and our adventurous day ziplining in the mountain. Also, thanks for turning me onto this Moroccan group, Jil Jilala-- I've already bought two of their CDs and have been listening to them nonstop as I continue my trip throughout Morocco.

And finally, to the students: Not quite our Saharaoui serenador from the last night in Ouarzazate, here is a classic rendition of the famous song, Aicha, by Algerian Cheb Khaled.

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