5 years....

Yep, 25th of November, 5 years of BnT...

Some numbers to go along with those 5 years, or 1825 days or 43800 hours, 2.628.000 seconds...

• We have lived in 4 houses we called home;
• We have visited 24 countries, with a total of 272 stamps in our passports;
• We have had over 38 keys in those past 5 years;
• Gone through 4 iPods, 6 cameras (me taking over 33.000 pictures) and 8 vehicles;
• Accumulated 3,5TB of movies and series;
• Played an estimated 120 nights of werewolf;
• Did a combined 23 parachute jumps;
• We spoke 13 languages during those five years;
• Drank 5475 coffees;
• And I posted 313 blog posts since then and received 661 emails from T;
• And we have had 5 children appearing close to us, though not always close enough... ;)

On picture mission with UN Volunteers

ElMouddaa's fields: notice the difference of the irrigated hills and the ones surrounding.

Through the Volunteer agency of the United Nations, I went with Thomas and another France Volontaires to take pictures and document the work done by a Peace Corps and local and volunteers, supported by UNV in deep rural Morocco. After 4h of train and 4h in 4x4, in the snowy mountains close to the highest mountain of Morocco, the Toubkal, we visited ElMoudaa. This tiny village of 300 people has organized itself in a CBO, AMSING, supported by a Peace Corps Volunteer and UNV. They have greatly improved the infractruture of the village, building a water tower, two reservoirs and several kilometers of irrigation canals, many underground. Previously, they had to mobilize everybody, women and children included, for two weeks every year to dig out the canal.

Proudly opening the valve to the water reservoir.

  This was a meeting they 'staged' for us, so we could get a group picture.

They hardly get any visitors, being so remote, let alone foreigners, so we were treated as royalty. The local Sheikh, or Amgar in the local berber language, welcomed us into his house and offered us tea. While Thomas did interviews with Claire, three guys took me around, and with lots of sign language and broken French and darija, would explain the projects to me. They were so proud, it was heartwarming.

I wanted to get the guy to wash his own UNV T-shirt, since it is usually only done by women. In the end, he just posed with the wet T-shirt...

They managed to build 11 gabions, or dams, to protect them from spring floods, which previously had destroyed several houses and crops.

They of course offered us a tajine, and killed a goat especially for us. Honestly, after Aïd, I felt I had seen (and eaten) enough goat, but hey, how can you refuse greasy skewed goat liver when it's been killed especially in your honour? 

Ouarzazate: les décors des films

Le weekend passé, on était à Ouarzazate, dans le sud du Maroc. On a pris le temps après une petite mission de filmage et prise de photos de volontaires, de visiter le studio où on filmé plusieures scènes, dont celle de Astérix: Mission Cléopatre, film cult et préféré de Thomas.

 Une des scènes d'ouverture du film...

 Et là, on construitait une grande allée avec pleines de statues,
qu'on appellera "la grande Léna avec pleines de statues".

Dans le bain de lait, attention, c'est très très tiède...

Ourzazate: Mission Volontaires...

For Aïd: Third stop: Chefchouan

And beautiful Chefchouan, the blue village, to finish off our weekend and the trip.

For Aïd: Second stop: Fès

We spent the two next nights at Fès, in a beautiful riad in the median (Dar El Hana - la maison de la paix). 

Le dimanche on a visité un peu, jolie ville, médina très animé et vivante. 

Ainsi, on a vu le tout premier université du monde, et pleins d'examples de l'architecture typique. 

 

Ensuite, le lundi, c'était l'Aïd, quand chaque famille qui en a les moyens sacrifie un mouton. Durant les jours qui précèdent, on voit des moutons partout, dans les voitures, tirés par des gens, attachés sur un vélo ou motto, avec la tête qui sort du coffre. Quand on estime que par dix marocains, on tue un mouton, cela veut dire que près de 3 millions de moutons ont péri ce lundi. 

L'ambiance est très particulier: tout est fermé, une odeur de viande grillé, des petits feus où les enfants grilles les têtes (souvent utilisés pour bouillir les cerveux ou les préparer pour être utilisé comme carburant dans les hammams).  Les bouchers courent les rues, avec d'énormes couteaux à la mains et les vêtements tâchés de sang. 

For Aïd: First stop: Moulay Idriss and Volubilis with Hanna and Kai

Last weekend was a long weekend, since Monday and Tuesday we had the day off because of Aid el-Kebir: la 'Grande Fête' or the sheep holiday. We had Hannah, our German friend from Zimbabwe coming with her boyfriend, Kai, for the long weekend. So nice to see each other again after over a year, and catch up on the many changes. They spend one day visiting Rabat and Saturday morning we went on a road trip through the north of Morocco.

First stop was Moulay Idriss, a beautiful pilgrimage city nestled in the rocks, and the nearby Volubilis, roman ruins. It's close to Meknes, and really pretty, with a rich history, both spiritually and culturally.