My first weekend in Asni and the girls are all gone. They go home every weekend after school on Saturday. After working so hard during the week, they go home and work all weekend cleaning the house, helping with the cooking etc. Their parents pick them up when they come into town for the weekly souk (huge market) in town. As they all left the house there were lots of kisses...left cheek/right cheek and then a little giggle. One of the girls, Asma, who is the best student in the school and is 12 always calls me Ann Lopata. When I told her she could call me Ann, she said that she liked Ann Lopata better. I will post pictures of this cutie pie in a later blog.
Speaking of pictures, I am going to post most of them to Facebook because it is much easier to post them and I don't want to be double posting (is that like double dipping? ). Those of you who aren't on facebook....send me an e-mail (if you are 21st century enough to do that) and I will send you the link that will enable you to view the pictures. May figure out a better way to do the pictures in the future. I will see.
So Gretchen and Latifa and I stayed in the house for the weekend. We went to the souk in the morning with everyone else. A souk is somewhere between a farmer's market and a flea market. The one in Asni is famous and people come each Saturday for their vegetables etc. Everyone gets dressed up in their jellabas and meets with their friends etc. Interestingly, mostly men come to buy the food. The women stay home and cook I guess and the men have the money anyway. Gretchen and I were the only non Moroccans among hundreds of people and Gretchen's blond hair makes her stand out even more.
For dinner, Latifa made Moroccan pizza with tuna (yes Roy...they even have tuna here) and of course we had the obligatory mint tea. For most of the day we just hung out...I sat on the roof in the sun and read. It was all very relaxing after a busy week.
Today the three of us went into Marrakesh to do errands. There isn't much that you can buy in downtown Asni where there is now a bank (opened two days ago), a cafe, two little groceries, and mobile phone store, a butcher and not much else. I will take pictures at some point. We even now have sidewalks which have been installed the last week.
The journey to Marrakesh began with the three of us cramming into a taxi with 3 other people and the driver. Although seat belts are required in private cars, apparently we are allowed to sit on top of each other in taxis. For 15 durham (about 1.75 dollars) we went about an hour into the big city of Marrakesh. We went to a large mall which, like the Margane mall in Rabat, could have been anywhere. Wifi was free throughout.....there was a modern Carrefour department store; a Benetton etc. I very happily bought a french press since we have only been having Nescafe instant each day.
Then we went to the city center which, since I have now been in the medina in Marrakesh three times, I have now mastered. Latifa had to go to a fabric store to buy new slip covers for the sofas in the salon. Everything in Morocco takes about 3 hours longer than you would think that it would so we waited about 4 hours for the fabric and the payment etc. Meanwhile we had....you guessed it.....mint tea. Bought an arabic children's writing primer so that I can learn to write the beautiful script of the language...now if I could speak more than a few words i would be so happy. The weather was beautiful and it was Marrakesh at its best....
Tomorrow I will write about Latifa and the daily schedule in the house. My roommate Gretchen is leaving and will be moving over to one of the other houses in an even more remote area about 15 minutes away by taxi...everything is by taxi. So I am losing my other American but have been schooling Latifa in American ways so perhaps that will do.
Here is a picture of Latifa at the fabric store, studying her mobile phone which everyone clutches in their hands at all times.
Speaking of pictures, I am going to post most of them to Facebook because it is much easier to post them and I don't want to be double posting (is that like double dipping? ). Those of you who aren't on facebook....send me an e-mail (if you are 21st century enough to do that) and I will send you the link that will enable you to view the pictures. May figure out a better way to do the pictures in the future. I will see.
So Gretchen and Latifa and I stayed in the house for the weekend. We went to the souk in the morning with everyone else. A souk is somewhere between a farmer's market and a flea market. The one in Asni is famous and people come each Saturday for their vegetables etc. Everyone gets dressed up in their jellabas and meets with their friends etc. Interestingly, mostly men come to buy the food. The women stay home and cook I guess and the men have the money anyway. Gretchen and I were the only non Moroccans among hundreds of people and Gretchen's blond hair makes her stand out even more.
For dinner, Latifa made Moroccan pizza with tuna (yes Roy...they even have tuna here) and of course we had the obligatory mint tea. For most of the day we just hung out...I sat on the roof in the sun and read. It was all very relaxing after a busy week.
Today the three of us went into Marrakesh to do errands. There isn't much that you can buy in downtown Asni where there is now a bank (opened two days ago), a cafe, two little groceries, and mobile phone store, a butcher and not much else. I will take pictures at some point. We even now have sidewalks which have been installed the last week.
The journey to Marrakesh began with the three of us cramming into a taxi with 3 other people and the driver. Although seat belts are required in private cars, apparently we are allowed to sit on top of each other in taxis. For 15 durham (about 1.75 dollars) we went about an hour into the big city of Marrakesh. We went to a large mall which, like the Margane mall in Rabat, could have been anywhere. Wifi was free throughout.....there was a modern Carrefour department store; a Benetton etc. I very happily bought a french press since we have only been having Nescafe instant each day.
Then we went to the city center which, since I have now been in the medina in Marrakesh three times, I have now mastered. Latifa had to go to a fabric store to buy new slip covers for the sofas in the salon. Everything in Morocco takes about 3 hours longer than you would think that it would so we waited about 4 hours for the fabric and the payment etc. Meanwhile we had....you guessed it.....mint tea. Bought an arabic children's writing primer so that I can learn to write the beautiful script of the language...now if I could speak more than a few words i would be so happy. The weather was beautiful and it was Marrakesh at its best....
Tomorrow I will write about Latifa and the daily schedule in the house. My roommate Gretchen is leaving and will be moving over to one of the other houses in an even more remote area about 15 minutes away by taxi...everything is by taxi. So I am losing my other American but have been schooling Latifa in American ways so perhaps that will do.
Here is a picture of Latifa at the fabric store, studying her mobile phone which everyone clutches in their hands at all times.
No comments:
Post a Comment