Life's best adventures come when you don't expect them. That was certainly the case in Morocco. Don't get me wrong - all the activities that were planned during the trip were awesome but it was often the ones that weren't planned that ended up being the most memorable for me at least. This is exactly what I like about traveling. When you're at home (wherever that is... Doha is definitely home to me now b/c my lifestyle has become quite normalized here), you have a schedule. That schedule is usually a combination of working, eating, sleeping, maybe exercising and working out, and maybe going out on the weekends but rarely is there ever a time where you get to go and explore something completely new and different unless you work really hard to create an opportunity for that. Doha had that feel when I first moved here but it's not quite like that anymore. When I'm on vacation, I do like having a little bit of structure (it's good to think ahead in terms of when things are open vs closed and how far away things are from each other vs how long it takes to get to each place) but unstructured time always lends itself to adventures you could never have planned. I guess that's the definition of adventure, though. No really it is... check out OED's definition of adventure. Here's a brief synopsis of some of the better ones...
One thing we didn't take as much advantage of on my September trip was interacting with Hossein's family. Hossein was our local guide up in the mountains and his was the guesthouse we stayed in while up there, called a "Gite." We had one more day at his place on this trip which ended up giving us a better chance to get to know the family. Not only was there a group of students hanging out in the family's kitchen before several of our meals (including one early morning to bake bread at 5am!), but more family members started joining us for meals as the days progressed. Most of the students said in their feedback that this was the most impactful part of the entire trip.
One night of the trip was spent in the camp of a nomad family. We stayed at a different camp in March than we did in September which turned out to be a good thing because the family in March was a much more interactive one. We spent most of the evening in the dark given there was no electricity (and also no running water), so the evening ended fairly early. We had some tea when we got there at dusk (had to hike about 2 hours to the place), listened to some excellent drummers while waiting for dinner, ate dinner together, and then most of the group went their separate ways. That is, all but a few of us. The 5 or so remaining CMUQ people stuck around to make a bond fire, roast marshmallows (see reference from previous post about the marshmallow experience), and continue the drumming and dancing. We did a lot of drumming and dancing during the trip but this session was different. It felt so much more real, authentic, and raw to be standing around a blazing bonfire with no lights but the billions of stars in the sky to guide you, listening to the incredibly skilled drumming coming from people who know this as their lifestyle and not just as a night of cultural learning. You couldn't help but move your feet. It was as if the rhythms and the beats had always dwelt in your soul and the drumming was releasing it from the constraints of normalcy and social repetition. I'm disappointed in myself for having left the group early for my not so comfortable "bed." Apparently the others that stayed up got to hear stories and jokes and partook of a 2nd meal of stew that was unlike anything we'd yet tasted on the trip. And I know that's something only a select few ever get to experience.
The most interesting adventure of the trip for me was on our last night at the Gite. One of the students got an eye infection, so two other students, Moha (our awesome guide), and I decided to take a quick hike down to the village of Imlil to get some meds from the pharmacy. We were practically running down the trail to Imlil (I think it took us about 20 minutes vs the 60 minutes it took our group to hike up the first night we were there) but still got there after the pharmacy was already closed. Next option: local hospital. The only hospitals I've ever been in are those in the states (smallest one was in my home town) and two in Doha (a public hospital and a brand-new state-of-the-art sports hospital which rivals UPMC). As you might imagine, this one was different. The entrance was right across from the village school which was in a completely different part of town that tourists don't go to. Inside was a tiny room maybe twice the size of my office and packed with mothers and children. The walls of the waiting room were plastered with posters in both French and Arabic produced mostly by UNESCO and UNICEF, mostly on topics of child care and child health. It was a good chance to ask Moha more about the national health care system. There was a full-time nurse who worked at the hospital and a doctor from a village 70km away came 3 times per week for serious cases. This community hospital never saw foreigners - they're almost always helicoptered into Marrakech. Anything that locals couldn't have treated here was treated in the village of the visiting doctor, which was an hour's cab ride away. When we (or rather Moha) described the ailment of our student, all he had were some expired medications, so we hopped in a cab and took that hour-long cab ride to the next town. And when I say "cab ride" I mean an old Mercedes (that's what most cabs are in Morocco) driven by a guy who fancies himself as a rally car driver, given his manner of driving on a very windy mountain road. We got to the town quicker than we thought we would, picked up the meds at the first pharmacy we saw, and headed back to Imlil. One last hike in complete darkness to make it back before the unveiling of the goat we would have for dinner (see next post). I could have easily gone on this trip and never learned anything about social services in Morocco.
There's a theme here if you haven't picked up on it yet. All of these "adventures" were about discovering how real Moroccans live. Not how tourists attempt to "experience" Moroccan culture (I'll admit, I'm guilty of that phenomenon myself in more places than just Morocco) but how life happens on a day to day basis for Moroccan people. Isn't it ironic that we consider that an "adventure"... ?
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