my own house in Asni

I realized that I haven't written in a few days so here is an update on everything so far......I am alone in the house for part of the weekend and it has been great.  Moroccans have no concept of "alone time" and so I think that Latifa thought that I was a bit nuts when I said that I just wanted to stay home, cook myself some pasta, make chicken soup and chill.  Only thing missing is the TV which I now haven't seen for almost 3 months.  Went yesterday with Latifa to the hammam for a few hours and also refreshed my hair henna rinse.  Perhaps I can build a hammam in the backyard of my California house...hmmmmm.


Trip to Casablanca: Another saga in the passport story.  It was a very long two days.  At 8 am went in the Grand Taxi, sitting in my usual place on the gear shift (the best but certainly not the safest place in the taxi) for the hour ride to the staging area for the taxis in Marrakesh.  Then took petit taxi to the train station.  Because, of course, I arrived early at the station, I broke down and had coffee and some sort of wonderful cheese balls for breakfast at...YES...McDonald's! At 11 Aziz and his van driver whose name was Omar Sharif arrived (Moroccan time..they were supposed to be there at 10) and we set out for Casablanca.  As we neared the airport we stopped for lunch at a true Moroccan dining experience.  I feel that I have become very acclimated to Morocco, I can

1. Wash my hands from the communal water supply
2. Eat everything with my hands (I pretended to be insulted when Aziz offered me a fork)or bread
3. Say Bismillah before I eat
4. Drink the water without any problems
5. Try unusual foods.  This was the first time that I went to a barbeque where we went around and picked out the meat which they then cooked and brought us.  So I had liver brochettes which were yummy and calve's legs (which were more interesting in their appearance than taste..not a lot of taste) and then, yes....sheep's testicles (good taste but, understandably, a little fatty :-).  Would have been nice to drink it all down with a beer but whoops...no alcohol here.
6. Feel very comfortable surrounded by men all speaking a tongue that I have yet to master. Ofcourse they still spoke to me in pidgen French...and Aziz spoke in English and Omar the driver spoke to me in Tashelhit.  What a multilingual society I am living in.

Then we get to the airport and Aziz and Omar wait for Aziz's tour group and I hop on a train to the city (another 45 minutes) and then get a cab to the hotel during which I get a proposal for either marriage or a night that will change my world......I could understand what the cab driver was proposing in French just wasn't sure how far he wanted me to go with it :-).  Anyway, I just pretended that my French was not good enough and I couldn't possibly understand what he was saying.  We then drove through the most insane Casa traffic for another hour and I finally arrived at the hotel at about 5.  Long, long day.  Walked to the American consulate which was two blocks away to scope out things for the next day.  Had a drink in the bar (yeah....my first since Rabat).  Dinner at a wonderful hole in the wall genuine Moroccan only place down the street from the hotel which cost me 37 DHM....$6.00.  So since I saved so much money, I bought a big box of french pastries for the girls on my way back to the hotel and then carted the box all the way back to Asni the next day, including sitting once again on the gear shift in the grand taxi. 

Next day I went to the Consulate and that was fairly anticlimactic.  I waited in the line across the street for about a half hour (of course I arrived early for my appt) with all the people, primarily women, waiting for their visas to go to the US.  Once inside the compound and through all the layers of security, they went their way into a big waiting room and I went through the door into the very empty American citizens room.  Only snafu was that the pictures that I had taken in Asni and had told them that I needed for an American passport, were too small so I had to go to another place in the city to have them retaken.  So now I have two passport pictures.  All seemed OK and the passport is supposed to be in in a week or so, at which time I have to go back up and get it which I will probably do in a very, very long day instead of staying over again.  

Then waited 2 hours for the next train to Marrakesh.  Got on the train.  Checked my e-mail etc with my trusty 3G connection.  Three and half hours to Marrakesh.  Petit taxi to the staging area.  Waited for a hour and half for 5 other people to show up to share the grand taxi to Asni.  The box of pastries, gear shift and I drove the hour to Asni.  Arrived back home at 5 PM with lots of hugs and kisses from the girls.  Almost made the trip worthwhile.

I promise I will now hold on to my passport with my life.  Never going through this again.  It definitely could have been worse and it was a long way to go just to eat sheep's testicles!!

Life at the house: The week with the girls has been hectic.  They are starting to have their end of the year exams and they are even more wound up than usual.  Trying to get them to come in for French and English review has been like herding sheep which seems an appropriate analogy for this area. 

We also had a visit from a school in London (we get visits at least once a week).  There were 5 girls, five of whom were Muslim...two from Libya, 1 from Pakistan and one from Somalia. The fifth girl was half Ukranian and half Nigerian.  They played music with the girls and games and we all danced the Macarena and sang We are the World.  It was a great afternoon.