Warm smiles and Warm heads

Jeff and I bought woolly beanies before in Taghazout whilst travelling there for Christmas in 2008. They were warm and thick and made of wool straight off a sheep’s back. Jeff’s even got a little wet and smelt exactly the way I imagine a wet smelly sheep would.


Anyway, while swapping the mayhem of Marrakech for laidback Essaouira, with my visiting mum and aunt, we stumbled across Otman. He was perched comfortably on a goatskin, knitting thick colourful cotton beanies or bonnets, welcoming us with warm a smile and friendly eyes. I had heard about Otman from other teachers who escape to Essaouira once in a while. He and his father knit the beanies and sell them along Derb Laalouj near the rampart walls for 50 dirhams each. Not a bad deal at all. If you like, he will even knit you a customised beanie in an hour and a half.

While my mum and aunt looked for their favourite coloured beanies as great gifts for family and friends, I had a chat with Otman.

Jellaba wearing Otman began making beanies at just 12 years old, alongside his father as a family business. He used to make them from sheep’s wool, but found that customers were complaining of the intense heat and itchiness that the wool produced. As well as fabricating bonnets Otman is also studying French. Many Moroccans speak French very well, but are limited when it comes to reading and writing the grammar intense language. Otman is currently 22 years old and he told me he would really like to study English, but at the moment there are no English language centres in Essaouira. Not a bad business idea I thought...

My mum and aunt had selected their beanies and Otman helped to finish them off, by adding extra tightness around the edge and stretching some where necessary.

With his friendly, calm and inviting manner Otman is sure to delight more tourists with his colourful and practical wares. With emails and business cards swapped, we were on our way with a bagful of beanies and snugly warm heads.

Yes, I have been to Morocco, how can you tell?

I did it. I finally did it. I have wanted one for a while and was wondering how long I could resist the urge. I held off for 9 months. I knew which design and color I wanted, and the price point. So I bought one.

Guide books tell you that you are really out of the ordinary if you leave Morocco without a carpet. Other teachers at my work have bought carpets. My friends visiting from Australia bought carpets. Even my mum is the proud owner of a Moroccan cactus fibre and cotton hand woven carpet. So it was my turn. I found the desgn and colors I wanted and was intrigued to find that my particular carpet was made out of camel hair. Definitly not as silky smooth as the cactus fibre, or as soft as the sheep wool, but as strong and sturdy as a camel itself.

Jeff and I had visited the same carpet sellers house on our Moroccan trip back in 2007. We were backpacking then and although we loved the carpets and wanted one badly, we could not afford one or bear to carry it around with us. So upon walking through the mud bricked entrance of the berber house, I knew this was it.

Carpets are everywhere in Morocco. But how do you know if one is handmade? Well, let me tell you. Look at the ends. One end will have tassels, and the other, knots to show how the carpet weaver tied the fibres to the loom to begin the weaving process.

My mother was first. She was taken withe a saffron dyed cactus fibre and cotton carpet. Very silky smooth and bright, with the all seeing eye embroidered in the middle.

Then it was my turn. I played coy to get the price down. Then when the seller would go no further, we shook hands on the deal. A handmade, one of a kind, bright, berber, camel carpet all for myself!

Saharan Sunset and Sunrise

I had been to the Sahara desert before, in 2007. Unfortunately, the photographic evidence was lost, along with the contents of my bag, on an overnight train from Madrid to Barcelona. So this time, I took as many photographs as I could. My mother, aunt and I went on the same trip as Jeff and I had previously done 3 years earlier. I was surprised to find that we stayed at the same hotel, stopped at the same photographic vantage points, and even slept in a campsite in the desert very, very close to where I originally stayed.

I love the sand dunes. I especially love them when the sun sets and amazing shadows are cast upon the monstrous dunes. I love the texture, the ripples, the color.

We rode our camels for about 45 minutes from the Kasbah Yasmine in Erg Chebbi to our campsite. From there, a stroll up the sand dunes led to views of an amazing sunset. We ate delicious berber tajines, drank sweet, minty mint tea (Mum - Tastes a bit like Colgate, don't you think?), and attempted a tune on the goatskinned drums.

Then it was wakey wakey time at 5:30am for a camel trek to a stunning sunrise and back to the kasbah for a breakfast of msemen (Berber crepes) with honey, olives, sweet bread and fresh orange juice.

Our guide Mohammed, with a Saharan Salamander

A colorful sunset over the dunes

The setting sun

The moon still in the sky at dawn

My mum watching the sun rise

Dawn on the dunes

Our camels wandering off for the morning feast

Mmm, Moroccan Strawberries

I love eating fresh, seasonal fruit. Mandarin season is now over. So mandarins out, strawberries in.

At the moment, strawberries are going for 10 dirhams a kilogram. I think the Aussie dollar is at $1 for 7.5 dirhams. So needless to say, strawberries are cheap!

Strawberries can be found by the crateful in the supermarket chain Acima, street stall vendors and roaming vendors. I have bought and tasted kilograms from all three sources and they are all as delicious as each other.

I love living in a country where produce is seasonal and tasty. I love indulging in fresh fruit, knowing that it hasn't crossed continents or oceans to land in my mouth.

Which fruit will be in plentiful and cheap supply next?

Go and Get Plucked

I had been putting it off for too long and knew the consequences. Pain. Agony. Watery eyes.
Nice, shapely eyebrows come at a price. So it was time for my first visit to a Moroccan Esthetician for an eyebrow wax. My friend had been to Salon Smira before and liked it for its cheapness and smooth results. So off I went to the small Salon in the building next to mine.

Salaam alikom. Eyebrow? Shcccccct (finger pointed at eyebrow).
Oui. Eyebrows. No problem.

So I sat in the chair, head reclined in a small red pillow. Then came the unexpecteed. Tweezers. Ok, I thought, a bit of a tidy up before the wax. But the plucking did not stop. Ouch. Ow! My eyes were clenched shut and watering, my toes curling and feet squirming. Just say it. Say 'wax' I kept telling myself. No! This is how they do it and this is what you get for neglecting your brows. It can't get worse than this. It felt like 15 brutal minutes passed by. Then came the scissors - snip, snip. Oh my.

Look in the glass.

Hmm. Not bad. Not bad at all. Really good actually.

Ok, sit back.

Oh no. Here we come again. Beauty comes at a price. Especially in Morocco.

The Pitter Patter of Kitty Feet

Marrakech is full of cats. For the vast amounts of cats roaming the streets, I am surprised I have not seen more of the dead variety (just one laying in a garden and one, ironically, laying outside the walls of a graveyard). We have a couple of cats living in our building, just like any other apartment block or restaurant. There is a black one who liked to hiss and bear its teeth and also liked to sit on our washing machine. There is also a lithe grey one that likes to dart down the stairs as we are walking up. You see, cats are not really our friends. So we were more than a little surprised to open the door and find two kittens, less than a day old, on our door mat. They were extremely newborn and abandoned. The placenta and blood was nearby;  but no mother was insight. We followed the blood trail downstairs, but still no mother.

Kittens must be born everyday in Marrakech, with no vetenary care and no human contact. But I felt some ownership for these kittens on our door mat. We waited inside for the mother to come back. Perhaps she just needed a rest. However, after some internet research, I knew that the kittens would soon die if they were not kept warm and fed every two hours. So I made a little shelter out of an old kettle box and some kitchen towel and carefully placed the kittens inside. Every five minutes we checked for the mother. Still, she had not come. I went downstairs again and found the mother resting in the sun in her usual place. It was the grey cat that likes to dash down the stairs. However, she was not lightning quick, but sore and bloodied.

I brought the kittens downstairs and left them there for their mother. Later, when we left our apartment, the grey mother leapt out in front of us, spooked by the openning of our door. She dropped one of her kittens but picked it up quickly. I was relieved to see the kittens being taken care of.

I spotted the mother for the first time in over a week today. I will keep an eye out for the kittens too.