Oued Ifrane

Welcome to the Berber village, Oued Ifrane!

This is the view of the city I stayed in with a Berber family. It has roughly 2,000 people none of which are used to Americans unless they are tourists stopping by on Sunday to see the souk.  They run on "old time" because they have daylight savings time like most of Morocco does so it was an hour behind.  Molly and I were living here with Mustafa and his family and his brother's family. They are also a host family for peace corp worker Cheryl, or Sharizad to them.  Three white people staying in the town was big news! When Josh and Addison dropped us off the family served us a version of afternoon tea: mint tea/coffee, miloui bread, honey, jam, olives, and a peanut and sesame food that I can never remember the name of. It was very good and then we said goodbye to our teachers.  They showed us our room which consisted of rugs on the floor, a twin mattresses on either side of the room on the floor, a blanket for over and under us, a pillow made with foam pieces stuffed in it, and a table in the center.  It was actually much more than we were expecting.

Cheryl brought us to her apartment to show us the view of the city from her roof. She then showed us a little of the town and brought us back to Mustafa's.  We sat around with three of five kids watching Hannan, Mustafa's wife, make a rug to sell.  Both Hannan and Fatima, are minimally literate in Dharija (Moroccan Arabic), while both the men are educated through high school and the children are all currently in school.  Dinner consisted of chicken tajine (mix of meat and vegetables) which was delicious.  We ate it with bread and with our right hands.  It was fantastic until we realized they gave us more bread if we ran out.  We ate faster than we should have, and ended up eating way too much.  Dessert was pomegranates which Molly's friend accurately described as the skittles of the world. After dinner we went to bed because we were exhausted from all the excitement.  

We slept in and woke up to breakfast which was the same as tea the day before. Then Hannan took us and her youngest daughter, Nouhaila, to the hammam! So we paid to strip down to our panties and join a steam room full of other women to wash up. We had a special bucket for water and a stool to put our stuff on.  When I first tried to refill the bucket, I accidentally filled it with nearly all hot water thinking it was cold because we were overheating cause we were in the hot room.  We had to use up some of that before we could put more cool in it but thankfully Hannan took some of it for us.  Hannan then gave us each part of an apple to eat while we were in there! Who would have thought to bring food into the shower? Finally an hour and a half later, we walked back to the house for lunch which was the same as dinner the night before, except we ate a little slower this time, and then naptime for the entire family, and me. When I woke up, Molly and I went for a walk around the town.  In the picture above is the only source of water for the entire town.  It is fairly dry right now but it fills up more in the winter when it rains the most.  We got lots of kisses from little kids who had heard of the American's in town and a little bit of rudeness from older kids but we just played ignorant and politely said, "Salam."  When we got back to the house, dinner was something similar to quiche that was delicious.  It had a little bit of egg just to keep it all together and then chicken, pepper, onion, tomatoes, and other vegetables in little squares.  Dessert was apples and grapes. Then I brought my Arabic homework downstairs.  Mustafa and his cousin were looking at my vocab words and comparing them to his notes from the English class he is currently taking with Cheryl.  We went to bed to the sounds of a parade going on the main street of town for a wedding that went on the whole night. 

When we woke up we attacked by flies! Literally, they would go after our eyes and mouth and head.  We had cover everything with our blanket, except the room was too hot to use blankets so it was a very unfortunate situation.  We had breakfast and headed out to get a closer look at the river.  We saw a man washing his clothes in it, children playing around it, and donkeys drinking from it.  It was souk day in the town so there were lots of donkeys around. They even had a sort of donkey parking lot for it.  The streets are all lined with sellers, and tourists and other townspeople crowding around to make purchases.  On the way back we found this white donkey and his mom which was also pretty adorable and abnormal.  We got back to the house and Addison was already there with Cheryl to bring us back to the school.  We kissed the family goodbye on the cheeks and headed out.  

Except for Mustafa who is taking Cheryl's English class and  a boy who is almost fluent in English from watching American movies, no one there spoke English. A few speak French but they can understand Foussha, or Modern Standard Arabic, even though they speak Moroccan Arabic. We couldn't talk much with them (although I have to say I was impressed with myself for how much I was able to speak and hear in Arabic, but it still wasn't much), but we still could communicate a little bit and learned quite a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there and the visit to the hammam was probably my favorite part of this whole trip.  We are going back later to give them some presents from the school. Molly had brought sugar, and I brought cookies and a calendar but WPI felt it necessary to pay them for their hospitality, which I fully agree with.  The family, although not the worst off in the village, have almost nine people living in a house that is a third the size of mine and yet they even invited us in additionally.  I can't wait to see them again!