Azrou - Home Stay 10-26-08

We crossed the high Atlas mountains and middle Atlas to the town of Azrou close to a snow skiing area.

Hadefa is 28 and lives with her extended family of unmarried brothers, a sister that is traveling and her parents.

Her brother, Mustapha, age 40 met us as we exited the bus. The tour didn't really tell us to unpack a few things in a small bag, so we had lots of luggage for a primitive place. They hired a man and a cart to hall our luggage up a the hill 4 or 5 blocks to her apartment. Americans we are amazing with all our stuff and always seem to be adding more to the collection. Mustopha is an artist and decortive house painter.

After the first flight of steps there is a great room used for festivals. The furniture and large cusions are stacked in the corner as are the carpets that are rolled up standing upright against the wall. There is a western style bathroom on that floor. Yea.

Then up to the main floor where the reception room or living room has table on rollers and a Moroccan style sofa set the covers all walls of the room. A TV is in one corner. A couple of 15 foot square bedrooms and a squatter (eastern stype toilet) are next door. One flight up is where Mustapha has his room, next to his 2 brothers room off the roof. That night we could see the sunset over the Atlas mountains.

He is an artist and here is his email is mustlotoi@hotmail.com.

Mustopha is more then a decortive painter. He did not finish school but continued to study on his own. Both Hafida and Mustopha speaks several languages, French, Arabic Berber, and English. Mustopha showed us his art work and explained the meaining of each piece. His philisophical insights about life, love and relationships reval what you would expect while chatting with Socrates.

He decorated the walls in his room with different textures; such as exposing the brick, crating textured scenes like doorways and one wall smooth like silk and colored like marble. He offered us an antique key. He has one too to remember our visit. Key to haret, mind, live and life. He played us a Franch folk song on his guitar.

We joined his mother in the reception room (living room). Their mother Fatima, age about 65, has the typical Berber tatoo on her face. A wider mark on her forehead between the eyes and a line drawn from her lips to chin, with dots on either side. Her mother lived to be 108 with no speical diet. Just good simple living.

Fatima had prepared mint green tea rich with sugar, bread similar to the round flat yeast bread we have seen around Morocco. She also had small platters of olives, a crumbly substance with a nutty peanut type flavor which I spooned on a corner of bread. There was also a small plate of jam made from an apple type fruit. We didn't try this until the next morning when the same type food was served except olives. We saw the apple type fruit in the open markets. It is bigger than an apple yellow and lumpy.

Mustopha explained his mother spoke Arabic, Berber, French, no English and could not read anything. She enjoyed looking at the photos we had taken of her children, Hadifa and Mustopha, on our camera at the evening welcoming dinned at a local hotel.

We had all piled into our bus with our hosts, Hadifa and Mostapha until the bus was too full. Others came by other means. We were greeted by the hotel by a friensy of music from young men whereing cream colored tunic pounding drums, bongos, 18 inch tamborins, tooting five foot long horns and chanting to a variety of beats all at the same time. Our hosts joined in loudly clapping their own beat. This went on outside the hotel along with some dancing and arm swinging from quite a while. Then the parade moved inside. The trumpets blew toot, toot, toot on the same note. The tamborine player spun his instrument on one figure in time with the music.

We were treated to vegatable soup. Then they brought out several baked chickens which several shared by tearing off peices that we wanted. Of course several servings of flat yeast bread. Dessert was small cookies stuffed with nuts and dates. Before the bones of the chicken was removed our co-travelers slipped out the chicken's wishbone. I shared a wish with Mustopha. He won and wished for happiness. It was a delight.

The next morning we all piled into an older bus for a tour of the mountain. We stopped in a French style ski village so different in contrast to the city of Azrou nearby.