Vol 65 Day 17 To Grandmother's House We Go

I awoke to this beautiful sight. Rabha was playing with this neighbor girl.

Hassan, Rabha, Mark and I headed to Sefrou in a taxi.

We passed a donkey and I could not resist another photo. The donkey's are just so photogenic.

A butcher shop in Sefrou. On the left is a lamb and hanging from the lamb are it's testicles. Seems boy lambs are yummier than girl lambs so they leave them on.

This was the cutest donkey I saw in Morocco. He's loaded down with cilantro (coriander leaves).

Dude selling herbs and chilies on the sidewalk. After wandering around Sefrou for a bit, looking for something to take to Hassan's Grandmother, we were joined by Zouhair, Hassan's brother.

Hassan's Mom, Itto, had suggested he take us to her Mother's house. So we jumped on a mini bus and we were off to......

..... the middle of nowhere. We got off the bus and walked down a narrow road until we reached an apple orchard. Hassan started talking to one of the apple pickers then handed him a bag of clothes, received a bag of apples and we started back to the main road.

We asked him who that was and he said it was his father. He had not been home the whole time I'd been staying at his house because he was working all day in the orchard. Hassan was bringing him clean clothes and the apples were to take to Grandma. I snapped a quick picture but his father is not in this photo; he'd already wandered back to work when I took it.

When we reached the main road we walked to a tiny village of maybe 6 houses. There we met Hassan and Rabha's cousin and her kids. Everyone in the village heard that we were there within minutes and they all gathered around Hassan's cousins doorway. Maybe 6 women and 12 kids. They were very curious and very shy. Mark was playing with them, trying to get them to chat but they were too shy so we chatted in the house for a while with the cousin and her kids. The doorway had become quite crowded with the ladies and children peeking in. Mark jumped up and spooked them and they ran away screaming and laughing.

In no time they were back at the doorway, giggling. Mark really is a lot of fun. One of the young ladies, Noelle, got bold and came inside. She and Mark started chatting, with Hassan acting as translator and me drawing what they were chatting about. Within minutes Noelle had proposed to Mark. She suggested he come and live in Morocco with her as Ireland would be too cold for her. She was so sweet and pretty. In this photo Rabha is showing Mark how to make those buttons. That's Noelle's arm in red on the left (she declined having her photo taken) and those are my snazzy walking shoes on the right.

Family photo of Zouhair on the right, Rabha in the middle and their cousin with her 3 children. There were no men in the village, they were all off working somewhere.

When it was time to go some of the kids got brave and let me take their photo. Most went running and giggling away. Zouhair stayed behind in the village.

These structures were all over, at the side of the road. They are filled with onions as they are harvested, covered with straw and plastic and the onions keep through the winter.

We walked further down the road.

It was all so picturesque. We kept walking until a taxi picked us up then dropped us a while later.....


..... here. In the middle of nowhere. Hassan pointed into the distance. "Grandmother's house is this way". I was happy to be wearing my new comfy shoes.

We walked across a field.....

..... through an apple orchard.....

Up a hill and then we were there. And there was Grandma, who looked about 100 years old (no offense Hassan, but your grandmother does look really old). She was friendly and sweet. She fed me an apple (yay, food!). We sat on the floor in the house and I listened as the family chatted in Berber. I was so comfortable I fell asleep. A bit embarrassing but there it is. I pretty much slept through the whole visit. When I awoke I needed to pee. Rabha took me outside to show me where to go. Once outside she made a broad, sweeping motion to indicate that the entire outdoors was the toilet. Hmmmm. Where to go. It was all exposed. So I went to the corner of the house, near a sheep pen, and peed there. Kinda like camping or hiking but with more exposure and neighbors who are maybe close enough to see. I was glad I didn't need to poop.

This is a rug that Hassan's grandmother was working on in one of the rooms in the house. As we were leaving I asked if I could take a photo of the sheep I had seen when I was peeing but Hassan said that a dog was now laying there, guarding the sheep so that wasn't a good idea.

I was taken back into the house, a door was opened and there was this sheep in a room. Just chillin'. All by his lonesome. In the house.

Grandma did not want her photo taken but here is her view.

And here is the graveyard beside the house.

And then we walked back down the hill, through the apple orchard, across the field to the road where we waited and waited and waited for a ride. While we waited we played silly games. Simon Says. Eye Spy. Mark and I tried to teach Hassan and Rabha how to juggle.

Eventually a taxi stopped for us and took us back to Sefrou. We bought a bunch of different types of breads and headed back to Bhalil, arriving just in time for Iftar.

Because no one had been home that day to cook, Iftar was a Breadfest. Plus the harira soup. Yummy.

After Iftar/breakfast (at 7pm) we headed back into Sefrou to visit the shower house. Guys on one side girls on the other. Not as social as the hammam had been because I had my own shower stall but some women tried to chat with me as I was drying off. It was pretty funny as my Arabic is so bad.

We headed to an internet cafe where I burned CD's of the photos I'd been taking. I burned copies for all of us- Hassan, Mohammed, Mark and myself. 12 CD's for $7.65 US. Sweet deal.

We headed back to Bhalil where we had dinner (at midnight) at Mohammed's family's house. Cous cous tajine with carrots, cabbage and pumpkin.

On the walk back to Hassan's house, Mohammed gave Mark a gift. A souvenir t-shirt from the Michael Jackson "Dangerous" tour.

On the front it just has Michael's eyes.

On the back is the tour information.

I gotta tell you, this t-shirt led to all kinds of silliness. As I mentioned before, Mark is a really funny guy and he launched into a whole Michael Jackson routine, dancing his ass off. I took a little video of him.

We were cracking up pretty good when Mark tried wearing the t-shirt on his head. Too funny. We called him Burka Jackson and we all laughed our asses off. I took more video of him.

Then I recalled these 2 photos from earlier in the day:


I had been playing with my camera, scrolling back and forth between the 2 photos and commented how it looked like amateur animation.

By this time is was really quite late, like 2am or so. We were all giddy with laughter and we didn't want the night to end as it was to be my last night in Bhalil before returning to Casablanca the next evening. I started taking photos of the guys wearing the Burka Jackson t-shirt on their heads. I had an idea for a video. I even took a turn with the t-shirt.

By the time we were done it was dawn and my face hurt so much from laughing. It was the funniest night ever and I am happy to share it with you with this video:



The guy with the horn is the man who goes through the village just before dawn, waking people who want to eat something before the day's fast begins.

Such a great day. Unbelievably great day.