...can keep a Fellow from doing workshops! Whew...we just returned from a doozy of a trip to Ouarzazate, a town at the gate of the Sahara. It was quite the adventure because it was the WORST rain we have seen in Morocco and the likes of which I haven't seen anywhere except in the heart of Monsoon Season in Tucson. Here is a little retrospective...
The trip started off great with a viewing of a traditional olive press site and of course, a delicious roadside tagine.
The plastic bottles you can see in the background are collected from dumpsters and other places around town to be reused as olive oil containers.
After the tagine lunch we hit the road east and soon encountered clouds....then rain, then DOWNPOUR, and plenty of lightning and thunder. As it grew darker the lightning illuminated the mountains in the distance...and the road...the narrow, winding road we would drive through those mountains.
After a 20 minute stop at a petrol station because we couldn't see the road due to the downpour we headed into the mountains with cars trying to pass, us passing large trucks, and a general tension coming from the front seat where I tried not to be too obvious about holding the door handle. We made our way through the mountains only to find that a small bridge, newly constructed, had been washed out by a flash flood type river. The water was so high we had to turn back, go OVER the mountain AGAIN and try to find a place to stay in one of the villages. After finding two closed hotels, we found a desert outpost-esque boarding room type hotel and called it a night. It reminded me of the road trip Laura and I took through the southwest when we slept in our sleeping bags on TOP of the beds. A huge hail storm with plenty more lightning and thunder in the middle of the night and a 6:30am departure meant very little sleep!
The village at day break...
Back on the road with the fog and clouds behind us we didn't know what to expect when we crossed the mountains for a third time and came to the bridge. The cars were backed up and some, including a tour bus full of people spent the night there! Youssef goes to check out the scene...
Other passengers waiting...
Here is a video of the excitement...
Talk about having an audience while you work!
We finally were able to cross after they filled a path with stones and soil. As we made our way to Ouarzazate we had to cross other flooding bridges like this one...
Here is a little Oasis by the river. Enough water to stay lush and green.
We forged rivers and makeshift roads but finally made it in time to do an afternoon workshop. The students waited patiently and were so engaged and wonderful. It made all the effort worth it.
A new English Language Fellow, Khalid, just arrived to work with the university in Ourazazate. His colleague Hanane, my colleague Youssef, and not pictured closely, my bloodshot eyes.
Our hotel riyad had so many sweet features like these lanterns along the stairway!
View from the room which is on a palm oasis...ahhhhh.
Here are most of the workshop students. We combined my Critical Thinking and Reading workshop and Youssef's ICT for Education workshop into one in order to get on the road before the sun went down!
Along the way we got a little Americana. Youssef said: "Here, you are back in the US." It is straight out of a lonely Nevada highway, isn't it?
A dam/reservoir in the distance...
Poor Youssef's car which took a real beating on this trip!
Two days later the makeshift road looks solid and they are back to work on the original road.
As you enter different regions in the south there is often a large gate or bab (door) that demarcates the new region.
Lots of sheep and goat crossings on the return! See video:
Some of the arid parts of Morocco remind me of Arizona or parts of eastern Washington and Oregon...
One of the mountain towns we passed through is world famous for saffron. Youssef wanted us to try saffron tea which is made like the traditional Moroccan mint tea, but with saffron instead of mint. It is very aromatic and tasty. Pictured here is Youssef, the professional. Note the sugar cubes...Moroccans don't mess around when it comes to sugar in tea.
This picture is a perfect image of why the muscles in my back are tense. My friend Owen gave me a jazz song once titled, "If I Sleep The Plane Will Crash" the sentiment applies here. If I don't watch the road and watch every time we pass a car or a car passes us, surely death is imminent. The problem here is how narrow the road is and that going off the road means a drop off or going into stones or sand. Often trucks are wider than their lane! We saw a completely flipped tour bus in a ravine, a long truck that had been carrying cement that disappeared over a mountain wall and left only torn cement bags and cement dusted everywhere, a grand taxi and a truck were crashed off the road from a separate incident around the same curve. I've seen such wreckage on I-90 during snow storms, so it is not necessarily particular to this place, but real focus is necessary with all of these elements...even the focus of anxious passengers!
I'm continually impressed with how HIGH the stacks on some of these trucks can be. Sometimes all that is holding it down is a couple of ropes around a tarp. With only one road to some of these villages, they have to get products and materials out there as efficiently as possible. Glad to be home is an understatement, but the very next day it was back on the highway to visit a group of high school students from villages outside of Agadir. It was a fantastic group and every event we go to instantly washes away any travel related annoyances. More on that trip to come!