Back in Action

Turns out getting back to class can kill a vacation high really really fast - all it took was two hours of MSA. I'd better record it before it's completely gone.

I flew with my friend Laura to Ouarzazate, a town just south of the Atlas mountains. We landed at night and it was a very windy 9 degrees Celsius. Ouarzazate is a Tamazight (Berber) name that means "without noise" - and so it is. It's a sleepy, beautiful town with gorgeous views of the mountains as a backdrop. We explored the kasbah, which is made of mud and straw with reed ceilings - it made me think of the pseudo-mazes in party spaces for young kids, except it was truly labyrinthine. We picked up a very nice but nevertheless false guide, who led us to his friend's store after our tour to look at lots and lots of beautiful jewelry. He also dressed me and Laura in all sorts of Touareg and Berber costumes - pictures forthcoming! We also visited the movie studios just outside of Ouarzazate, where the highlight for me was The Mummy set - maybe you've heard me gush about this super campy movie, maybe I've managed to keep it under wraps... I have a Rachel Weisz weakness, what can I say?

We took a day trip out of Ouarzazate further south into the Draa Valley, an endless palm oasis full of towns built like the kasbah. After about four hours of driving we hit the Merzouga dunes - not quite the Sahara - but we stopped there for a short camel ride. Camels are very funny, with squishy feet and long eyelashes. I did a report in 9th grade on Knut Schmidt-Neilsen, a biologist who figured out why/how camels and sea birds never have to drink, and he's right, the camel's nose is pretty amazing.

We moved on to Agadir after a couple of days, a beautiful, clean beach town. Spent a few days in the sun and eating delicious fresh fish, grilled as well as fried, at the local stands by the harbor.

The south stood out for two reasons: One, an excess of beautiful things. Jewelry, pottery, carpets, rose products. Two, the nice Moroccans live there. For example, Rabat's salespeople are aggressive, and indignant when you aren't interested. In Ouarzazate and Agadir they actually let you browse if you want to browse, and they invite you home for tea whether or not you buy anything. That bit seemed sketchy to me at first, but the more people asked the more I realized it's a legitimate thing to do. New Yorker instinct says nice people are always bad news.

In the south they never get tired of saying "Li zirbu, matu" - in English, "those who hurry are already dead." And they live that out, which is how sitting down to tea can take two hours. I have a feeling the rest of my semester will be, in Berber terms, pretty dead.