Vol 63 Day 15 Bhalil/Sefrou

I slept well. At dawn in Bhalil during Ramadan a man goes through town blowing on a long horn to mark the start of the days fast. There is also a siren that sounds at the beginning and the end of the fast. We got up around 9 or 10 as we had been up late the night before. This is typical during Ramadan. Stay up late, sleep in late. Hassan got a call from another couchsurfer saying he was on his way.

Knowing that I am not Muslim and not accustomed to fasting, Rabha made me a nice breakfast of cheese, bread and cakes, served with Moroccan tea. I discovered Moroccan tea shortly after I met Mahfoodth, here in Oman. It is green tea with fresh mint and sugar. And it is yummy. And it is even yummier in Morocco than it is in Oman.

Boiling water is poured over the tea, sugar and mint and it is left to steep. Then the tea is poured into a glass and returned to the pot, over and over. The idea is to blend the flavors and dissolve the sugar with out stirring up the leaves.

Hassan's mother, Itto and older sister, Rabha, do all of the cooking in his family and their kitchen is so different from our western kitchens I thought I'd show you.

There are no counters. Only a small, low table, that they organize the meal on, and a sink and drainboard. I forgot to mention something rather important. Only Hassan speaks English in his family. The rest speak Berber (Tamazight) and Arabic. So I had to use my limited Arabic with them and pantomime or ask Hassan to translate when necessary.

Rabha was shy at first, keeping her head down whenever I took a photo. They do all of the food preparation squatting on the floor. When they need to chop something they use a paring knife and cut straight into the pot or bowl.

I have too much to show and tell today! It was another awesome day. We began by walking around Bhalil.

Such a picturesque town. Rabha, overcame her shyness once outside.

There are only a few shops.

This one sells skeins of thick, shiny thread. All of the women and girls in the village share the same handicraft. They make woven buttons from this thread. They use a darning needle and a 1/2 centimeter slice of small drinking straw. By weaving the thread around the straw in a certain pattern they come up with this:

It takes about a minute or two to make 1 button. They gather them into sets of 42 buttons and sell them to makers of jellaba. Jellaba are the hooded robes that Moroccan men and women wear. women's jellaba have 42 buttons up the front and at the cuffs. Itto, Rabha and Souad try to make 2 sets of buttons each every day.

There are lots of bridges in the heart of town.

As I said before, Muslim women generally decline requests to be photographed but not so for the children. They love having their picture taken, especially if you then show the photo to them.

I have lots of photos of the village and the children but I will just show you a few, to give you an idea of how beautiful it all is.


In this photo you can see how the houses are built into the mountain. Hassan's house looks completely normal from outside. Once inside you discover that only the front wall is a regular wall. The rest is all rock.


Hassan and I took a taxi into Sefrou, the smallish city nearest Bhalil. Again, I have a ton of excellent photos of Sefrou, but I'll try to wean it down to the best of the best.



This is one of my favorite photos ever. I was so happy when he agreed to having his picture taken!



This is one of those photos I took with the zoom on max. I cropped it to this.

Same with this one. Sweet!

Morocco is one giant photo opportunity.

So many narrow alleys.

Another favorite.

Hassan asked if I was healthy. "Sure", I said. To which he replied "Good, then let's go for a hike". Cool.

We walked up to Chelal Falls.


Yup, that's a garbage donkey.

These people built a house out of odds and ends in front of a cave.

We walked up the mountain, first by gravel road, then just up the mountain. Now, I'm in reasonable shape, but I must confess I had trouble. It was those damned shoes again! Seriously! You try hiking up a mountain in slip-on wedge heeled sandals. My ankles were twisting and my feet kept trying to slide out of them. Hassan had to hold my hand and pull me up for much of the last bit.

We stopped to rest for a bit and got silly with the camera.

The view from the top was worth it, even if it was cloudy.

There was a mosque at the top of the mountain that was also a tomb for Sidi Ali Bousrghin. Once again, I had to poop. Non-Muslims are not allowed in Mosques but luckily the bathroom was located on the outside of the building so Hassan was able to get me permission to use it even though it is intended for men only. And now, a mini blog, within the blog.

Vol 63.5 The Trouble with Squat Toilets

The trouble with squat toilets is that I can't squat.

I have not been able to squat as far back as I can remember, even when I was a kid. I can't kneel either. Or sit in the lotus position. It's my knees, they hurt like hell if I try. I inherited my mothers knees (thanks so much, Mom). Now, Morocco is a squat toilet country. Everywhere I went, it was squat toilets.

For those of you who have never seen one, here is a photo I took of the toilet on top of the mountain.

Here's one from Casablanca. Not a particularly clean one. Love the sign. Just so you know; these toilets are not typical of squat toilets. They are generally much cleaner and nicer.

Instead of sitting, you stand with your feet on the footpads on either side of the bowl, squat down, do your business and wash up. There's no toilet paper, just water. Either water provided in a bucket or, in a nicer bathroom, with a sprayer hose like we have at our kitchen sinks. Muslims use their left hand to wash and their right hand to eat. You don't put your dirty hand into the bucket, you pour the water over your left hand and your bum, over the bowl. When you're finished washing you pour the rest of the bucket into the bowl to clean it. There is a faucet to refill the bucket.

But I can't squat. So what do I do? I've learned to pee in a hunkered position, no biggie. The tricky bit is pooping. I hunker a bit, ummm, start the process, then squat down at the last possible second, supporting my weight with my hands on the floor of whatever bathroom I'm in (and rarely is it a floor I want to put my hands on) then stand back up the instant I am done. My knees scream at me the whole time. I do all my washing up while standing.

Too much information? Too bad. It's my blog and I'll write about what I want to. At any rate, this may help to explain why I took a cab to a nice hotel back in Casablanca just to poop. And now back to the regular blog.


We walked back down the mountain, stopping at a school for teenage dropouts that teaches them how to weave. The woman there showed us how the weaving is done. The kids had all gone home.


Seriously, donkeys are everywhere. Those are live turkeys in the saddle bags of both donkeys.

In Sefrou we bought vegetables for Iftar and dinner.

This is cardoon.

We returned to Bhalil and I watched as Rabha made the tajine for Iftar. Potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin and saffron. I also got to watch her making bread. She had already made the dough when we arrived and was ready to punch it down and form the loaves.



The couchsurfer arrived. I will admit that I was not thrilled when Hassan had told me in the morning that another couchsurfer was on his way. What if he spoiled the fun? Boy was I wrong to worry. Mark is Irish but is living in Spain, working on an organic farm and he is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He speaks English, German, French and Spanish and did his best to learn Arabic while in Morocco. He is a master of pantomime. Instead of asking Hassan to translate for him he just acted out everything he wanted to say. So funny. He did it everywhere we went. He was an inspiration to me. People loved it and him.

We sat down to Iftar and once again it was delicious. The potato tajine was yummy and the fresh bread was incredible. Again, we had Harira, the traditional Ramadan soup for Iftar.

I needed to bathe but the houses in Bhalil don't have facilities. Instead, the town has a hammam, a Turkish-style bath house. It is open to men during the day, and women at night. Rabha agreed to take me while Hassan, Mark and Hassan's friend Mohammed went out for tea.

Of course, I have no photos of the hammam. I would have been arrested to even bring a camera with me. So I will describe it to you.

Rabha, Souad (the younger sister) and I walked down the hill towards the hammam and we were soon joined by Mina, a friend of Rabha's. Mina was so sweet. She was trying to communicate something to me with lots of finger pointing at my head and arms and lots of chest thumping which I think meant, "Really, from my heart". She carried my bag of toiletries and change of clothes and held my hand the whole way there, which prevented my ankles from turning in my stupid shoes. She left us once we reached the hammam.

Rabha paid our admission and in we went. While I was in Turkey my guide book had suggested visiting a hammam if possible but I had been shy about it. Now I found out why they suggested it.

There was a large tiled changing room with benches on which sat 25 women in various states of undress. There was also a number of small children. I was the only westerner. This village has no hotel. There is a tour bus that comes through a couple of times a week. The tourists pile out, take ten minutes to walk around, are shown the cave dwelling of one of the villagers and then they're back on the bus and onto the next site. So I stood out a little.

I followed Rabha's lead. She took off her head scarf. I took off my jacket. She took off her shirt and undershirt, I took off my shirt and bra. Next our pants came off. We left our panties on. Souad stayed to watch over our stuff and chat with her young friend.

We entered the bathing rooms. A large tiled room led to another large tiled room which led to another large tiled room. They were devoid of any furnishings. Just tall tiled walls and floors. Each room was filled with about 25 women and children. It was very warm and steamy. And noisy in an echo-y way. The women were all chatting and the kids were all laughing.

The third room had a hot water faucet from which Rabha filled the 4 buckets she had brought. 2 for her, 2 for me. We found a spot in the corner of the floor of the first room. Rabha scooped some water out of my bucket with a plastic bowl and rinsed the floor. Then she laid down a thin foam mat, scooped some water onto it to warm it and gestured for me to sit. She sat kitty corner to me and started to bathe. I copied her, pouring water over myself with the plastic bowl.

I soaped myself, washed my hair and rinsed and was done fairly quickly. But she wasn't. She had barely begun. She had a rough mitt on her hand that she was using to scrub herself with. She scrubbed everywhere, taking her time. I looked around. All of the women were using these mitts to wash with. They scrubbed each others backs, chatting all the while. It was amazing to be in that room with those women. They were all shapes and sizes. Some were old, with drooping breasts, some were young with perfect bodies. Most had panties on. Water was sluicing across the floor into a drain in the center.

Rabha untied her hair and started combing it. She has long, beautiful wavy hair under that scarf. Then she started the long process of washing and conditioning it. So I washed everything again, just to keep busy. And to use up my water. I hadn't even used one of my buckets up.

There was an older woman seated behind me and she gestured for me to come sit between her legs. You know I never refuse an invitation, so off I went. "Kiss?" she asked. ""Huh?" I shrugged. She held up her mitt. "Kiss". I waved my hands "La, la" I said, indicating I didn't have one. She nodded, pulled hers on and proceeded to scrub my back for me, vigorously. It hurt a bit but mostly felt fantastic. I'm thinking Moroccan women must have super soft skin if they scrub themselves like that every time they bathe. She rinsed me off, waved her hand towards my spot and I thanked her.

Rabha was still not done so I left her and rejoined Souad and her friends in the changing area. I dried myself off and began to get dresses. A small crowd of little girls formed around me. Staring. Eventually I realized they were staring at my bra. No other woman in the room was wearing one. They just wear an undershirt or camisole. My black, underwire, Victoria's Secret bra was an oddity.

I pantomimed to Soaud and her friend that I had clothes to wash and they took me outside to show me where I could wash them. There was a long cement wall with ten pipes sticking out with water running out of the pipes, into a trough. 5 or 6 women were washing their clothes and dishes. The girls helped me to wash my clothes and we rolled them up into my towel when we were done. Rabha joined us and we walked back up the hill to the house to make dinner.

Rabha made a cardoon (a plant similar to the artichoke but you eat the stems, not the flowers) and chicken tajine for dinner. There was eggplant tajine for me. She made a salad of barely cooked carrots and olives and another salad of chopped tomatoes and onions. Again, we enjoyed the homemade bread.

During dinner Mark made a faux pas. He sucked the food off of the fingers of his left hand to show how much he was enjoying it. Hassan's family sort of paused. So he did it again, determined that they know how much he was enjoying the meal. They were still on pause. I informed him that Muslim's eat with their right hand and wash their bottoms with their left, so he was inadvertently grossing them out. "Oooohhhh!" he said and wiped his hands on a tissue. Then we all laughed our asses off.

That night there were 4 of us sleeping in the living room. After we turned the light out I was tempted to say "Goodnight John-Boy" but I didn't think any one would get it.