"Hey guess what, we're going to Figuig this weekend'
"Oh Figuig!
"You've heard of it? Have you been there?"
"Oh no...too far!"
This is a basic recount of the conversations that we had in the lead up to our weekend of travel. Almost everyone we spoke to had either heard of Figuig but never been there, or hadn't heard of it at all and wanted to know more. We could not oblige when asked about it however, as the guidebooks said very little!
We spent laast weekend in Figuig, and it was without a doubt the highlight of my stay so far. Because there was also a week of placement and other happenings in between I have decided to split this post in two, because there is still a fair bit to talk about in between last weekend and now, Monday afternoon.
Last week held some unexpected surprises and happenings. John left on Saturday (that's your last mention by the way) and the night went swimmingly! Beer was drunk, friends (with bar tabs) were made and merry times were had.
Placement went well once again, and I was back into it this morning. The volunteers from high school have mostly left, as they are back into school and exams (good luck guys!). However, a few were around last week, and it was so nice getting to meet more people! So far even though I have seen some amazing places, this trip has really been about the people I have met (as you will see in part 2 of this blog). It has made me appreciate diversity even more. The most important part of last week was the creation of a program that this week we are going to start implementing into the organisation so that the children can continue learning even when they are sick. It is going to be tough as most of the program centres around learning French and English, and then using games, arts and crafts to reinforce the learning, however the children have very little French and no English (and their writing skills of Arabic vary greatly). However, I've spoken to most of the other volunteers and we're confident that we can get it to work, even though it might take some getting used to for the kids.
In other news, Lexy and I have a new Monday night ritual. We go and buy pancakes from the pancake ladies and then spread nutella on top and watch a movie. Such a good way to start the week. We complement our pancakes with Clementine Mandarins, also spread with nutella.
Fact 1: Everything tastes better when spread with (a lot of) nutella.
Fact 2: Walking is my friend. .
On Tuesday night, we caught up with Cassie for ice-cream, and we had a most random evening. Whilst sitting in the cafe next to the ice-creamery, we were met by two strangers, Jean-Claude and Tarik. Jean-Claude is a 35 (debatable) dj (also debatable), who mostly djs raves in Holland and England, and who loves attention. In a nutshell, he will do almost anything to continually be the topic of conversation.Needless to say, this included speaking with accents, trying to do martial arts (in reference to Lexy being Chinese) and then doing magic tricks. Yes, magic tricks. He managed to make Tarik's cigarette disappear, and then make a full telephone with cord and antenna come out of his pocket. So of course we accompanied them to dinner at McDonalds (where the aforementioned appearance of antenna and phone happened). Cassie (bless her cotton socks) then arranged for me to meet Tarik the next day at the Hospital to practice my Arabic and teach him English. Long story short, his number is now blocked and he is mad at me becuse I "have" a boyfriend.
Boo hoo. I'll play my sad violin.
Moving on!
Wednesday night was our get-together and this time it was spent at a lovely little restaurant called Dar Naji, about 5 minutes walk from the Medina. I love that way in which Moroccans mix fruit with everything. Who knew that caramelised oranges, bananas, and strawberries would go so well with chicken and rice with raisins-not forgetting the dark chocolate drizzle and the orange sauce! Let's call it "a culinary experience". We also had many laughs; mostly at the fact that Tarik called and between the 3 of us (Lexy, Cassie and myself) we had an 11 minute conversation about nothing. We also found out tht Youssef was leaving Projects to study. This was sad, but understandable with the work-study balance being so hard to acheieve.
On Thursday Lexy, Cameron,, Matthew and myself went dancing. I am a big fan of dancing, especially to latin and reggae music-there's just something so easy about the beat, so this pleased me greatly. We were going with Tarik and Jean-Claude (the number blocking only happened after this) which was good, even though Jean Claude seemed to not know the way to drive to Yakouts, our destination. The club was quiet when we arrived at 9:30ish (should've been 9:20, but again-directions are not Jean-Claude's strong point...) so to liven things up, Jean-Claude me his way to the stage, where he promtply took over the drumkit for a few songs. We assumed he knew the drummer, but we never confirmed it so at the moment it's just a random happening that made us roll on the floor laughing. We started a danceflor (I sense a pattern happening after Amnesia) and the night really kicked off. We had a lot of fun, but the night ended somewhat sourly (for some) when Tarik claimed he would "cry himself to sleep" over the fact that I "have a boyfriend back in Australia". My hum-drum response (between fits of giggles) was "C'est La Vie" and he didn't quite catch on to the ring of sarcasm underneath. I have no sympathy. With regards to being a single female in Morocco, I feel like I'm becoming a bit like ice-woman, but you get so many offers and comments on the street that you very quickly develop the ability to not feel bad about being rude and ignoring people.
Friday heralded the weekend. Yay! In between the dancing, socialising and working this week, Lexy and I had been (attempting) to do some planning. We wanted to go to Figuig, a small town of about 12,000 (yes, small) on the border with Algeria.
Now Mum don't worry! The border is closed (we only really looked over it from a distance anyway)and Figuig is relatively safe, and as such it was an amazing weekend. However, planning was difficult.
We have managed to get into a really good habit of throwing together our weekends at the last minute. Two days in advance we take out the Lonely Planet and decide on a hotel to stay in (normally the cheapest hotel that sounds nice) and then the night before look up train timetables. However, this was not possible with Figuig. There is an air of mystery surrounding Figuig that made us all the more curious and determined to get there. Google searches returned little about hotels, things to do and how to get there. I won't lie, by Thursday night I was sceptical that we were even going to succeed. Our plans consisted purely of "catch a bus to Oujda and then find/hope for one to Figuig". When the idea was originally raised we had no idea how we were going to get there, only that we wanted to succeed. On Thursday night we still had no idea. However, we ran into Simmo, Lexy's friend, who apparently knows everybody, and he helped us out by getting his friend to give us discount bus tickets. the rest is history. We were in the headset of "get there, tick the box off the Top 18 in Lonely Planet, and get home". We had lost sight of the reason we wanted to go in the first place (something about an Oasis...) and and started thinking along the lines of just being able to say we had been. Figuig had become our mission, and we were eager to embark on what would undoubtedly be an adventure.
"But wait!" I hear you say. "You're leaving it here? You're not going to tell us what happened next?" My dear friends, that is what Part 2 is for. By this time tomorrow night, there will be another blog post up, complete with a witty title and photos, just for you.
Until then,
Love Love!
Clem xx
"Oh Figuig!
"You've heard of it? Have you been there?"
"Oh no...too far!"
This is a basic recount of the conversations that we had in the lead up to our weekend of travel. Almost everyone we spoke to had either heard of Figuig but never been there, or hadn't heard of it at all and wanted to know more. We could not oblige when asked about it however, as the guidebooks said very little!
We spent laast weekend in Figuig, and it was without a doubt the highlight of my stay so far. Because there was also a week of placement and other happenings in between I have decided to split this post in two, because there is still a fair bit to talk about in between last weekend and now, Monday afternoon.
 |
| John's last night. Damn we are sexy. |
Placement went well once again, and I was back into it this morning. The volunteers from high school have mostly left, as they are back into school and exams (good luck guys!). However, a few were around last week, and it was so nice getting to meet more people! So far even though I have seen some amazing places, this trip has really been about the people I have met (as you will see in part 2 of this blog). It has made me appreciate diversity even more. The most important part of last week was the creation of a program that this week we are going to start implementing into the organisation so that the children can continue learning even when they are sick. It is going to be tough as most of the program centres around learning French and English, and then using games, arts and crafts to reinforce the learning, however the children have very little French and no English (and their writing skills of Arabic vary greatly). However, I've spoken to most of the other volunteers and we're confident that we can get it to work, even though it might take some getting used to for the kids.
In other news, Lexy and I have a new Monday night ritual. We go and buy pancakes from the pancake ladies and then spread nutella on top and watch a movie. Such a good way to start the week. We complement our pancakes with Clementine Mandarins, also spread with nutella.
Fact 1: Everything tastes better when spread with (a lot of) nutella.
Fact 2: Walking is my friend. .
 |
| Why? Because I haven't added photos of capture the flag yet. Don't ask. |
On Tuesday night, we caught up with Cassie for ice-cream, and we had a most random evening. Whilst sitting in the cafe next to the ice-creamery, we were met by two strangers, Jean-Claude and Tarik. Jean-Claude is a 35 (debatable) dj (also debatable), who mostly djs raves in Holland and England, and who loves attention. In a nutshell, he will do almost anything to continually be the topic of conversation.Needless to say, this included speaking with accents, trying to do martial arts (in reference to Lexy being Chinese) and then doing magic tricks. Yes, magic tricks. He managed to make Tarik's cigarette disappear, and then make a full telephone with cord and antenna come out of his pocket. So of course we accompanied them to dinner at McDonalds (where the aforementioned appearance of antenna and phone happened). Cassie (bless her cotton socks) then arranged for me to meet Tarik the next day at the Hospital to practice my Arabic and teach him English. Long story short, his number is now blocked and he is mad at me becuse I "have" a boyfriend.
Boo hoo. I'll play my sad violin.
Moving on!
Wednesday night was our get-together and this time it was spent at a lovely little restaurant called Dar Naji, about 5 minutes walk from the Medina. I love that way in which Moroccans mix fruit with everything. Who knew that caramelised oranges, bananas, and strawberries would go so well with chicken and rice with raisins-not forgetting the dark chocolate drizzle and the orange sauce! Let's call it "a culinary experience". We also had many laughs; mostly at the fact that Tarik called and between the 3 of us (Lexy, Cassie and myself) we had an 11 minute conversation about nothing. We also found out tht Youssef was leaving Projects to study. This was sad, but understandable with the work-study balance being so hard to acheieve.
 |
| So. Good. |
 |
| Pouring tea from a great height.My photography skills amaze me; my lack of editing ability more so. |
Now Mum don't worry! The border is closed (we only really looked over it from a distance anyway)and Figuig is relatively safe, and as such it was an amazing weekend. However, planning was difficult.
We have managed to get into a really good habit of throwing together our weekends at the last minute. Two days in advance we take out the Lonely Planet and decide on a hotel to stay in (normally the cheapest hotel that sounds nice) and then the night before look up train timetables. However, this was not possible with Figuig. There is an air of mystery surrounding Figuig that made us all the more curious and determined to get there. Google searches returned little about hotels, things to do and how to get there. I won't lie, by Thursday night I was sceptical that we were even going to succeed. Our plans consisted purely of "catch a bus to Oujda and then find/hope for one to Figuig". When the idea was originally raised we had no idea how we were going to get there, only that we wanted to succeed. On Thursday night we still had no idea. However, we ran into Simmo, Lexy's friend, who apparently knows everybody, and he helped us out by getting his friend to give us discount bus tickets. the rest is history. We were in the headset of "get there, tick the box off the Top 18 in Lonely Planet, and get home". We had lost sight of the reason we wanted to go in the first place (something about an Oasis...) and and started thinking along the lines of just being able to say we had been. Figuig had become our mission, and we were eager to embark on what would undoubtedly be an adventure.
"But wait!" I hear you say. "You're leaving it here? You're not going to tell us what happened next?" My dear friends, that is what Part 2 is for. By this time tomorrow night, there will be another blog post up, complete with a witty title and photos, just for you.
Until then,
Love Love!
Clem xx
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