A face from home :)

I moved on Saturday, November 12 (by the way – I don’t have a Vonage phone anymore), and on Monday my friend Dan flew in for a visit. He had a little break from his European tour, so he popped down to Africa for a few days. Being so close to Europe has some advantages :) My goal is that he would have such a good time that he gets "home" he’d convince the rest of my Greenville friends to come for a visit! The day he arrived the King declared that all the schools – public & private – would be closed Wednesday through Friday in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Independence. Woohoo! Great timing!

The first day he was here we visited the most important monument in the country – the biggest mosque in Africa. It was really interesting to take the tour and see the great hall, the ablution rooms and the hammam. It was incredible to imagine how many men could fit into the hall for prayers. There were balconies above for the women. The ablution room was full of fountains – I think the guide said there were 40 of them. She explained the process of washing 3 times in order to be clean for prayer. The hammam is not yet in use, but eventually will be open as a public hammam.

The Grand Mosque

Some Tourists & The Men's Ablution Room

Dan offered to do a house concert while he was here (if you don’t know Dan – check out his website link on the right & you see what he’s all about and hear samples of his music). It was a really encouraging night for all of us that got together. Thanks, Dan!

House Concert @ Elissa & Melissa's

We couldn’t miss walking through the medina and poking into a few shops here and there. I have NEVER been offered hashish (marijuana) before, but walking around with this blond guy the offers never ceased. You’d think that was the only reason we were visiting the medina! We had the usual assortment of “guides” that wanted to help us find whatever we were looking for. After saying “lah, chokran” (no thank you) a few times they normally give up, but one was particularly insistent. He kept asking me in various languages what language I spoke. Finally he said, “You do speak French, right?” I said yes, and he started asking me if I was from France or this country or that one, but I wasn’t answering. Finally he asked me “where are you coming from?” and I answered him with the name of the city in Arabic. “Oooo-oh,” he answered and laughed with me and smiled and waved and turned to find another tourist. Wow! That was easy! I have to remember that.

The Medina

Before Dan arrived I asked him if there was anything he knew he didn’t want to miss out on while he was here. His answer was the Hammam Experience. Since the men’s and women’s hammams are separate, I recruited some fellow hammam lovers to go with us – Mary & Abdul Muhib. Abdul Muhib TRIED to convince Dan that we should go to the traditional hammam where I had my first hammam experience, but I put my foot down and insisted that we go to a nice hammam since Dan would only get to go once while he was here. We spent three hours getting scrubbed and massaged. This time the scrubbing girls even remembered me and Mary and welcomed us back. Wow! Every time I go I am amazed at how relaxing it is. You feel so incredibly clean walking out of there.

Afterwards we stopped and tried some panachés and pastillas. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture until after we had finished eating. A panaché is a type of drink they make here by blending fresh fruit with either milk or orange juice. They are kind of like smoothies without the ice – my favorite is mango-nectarine, although mango-avocado is pretty good too. A pastilla is a round pastry wrapped in what looks like phyllo dough with powdered sugar & cinnamon on top. Inside is a mixture of chicken, almonds cinnamon and I’m not sure what else all ground together. It is delish! It’s my favorite “fast food” here. Dan loved it too – he kept saying he was going to have to have one everyday until he left. But we were too busy trying other delicious local cuisine to fit those in again.

On our way down to the beach one afternoon (yeah – the beach in November! You guys all need to come visit! I won’t post the pictures for fear of false advertising when you see my turtleneck ;) ) we had to stop to sample the chwarma. You can find it pretty much anywhere in the city, but my favorite place so far is in a traditional neighborhood where they speak almost exclusively Arabic. Pitta House in Greenville still holds the record though for the best chwarma (although a place up in Tangier is a close second)! Anyway, the traditional neighborhood afforded another occasion for some picture taking – a portable fruit stand and little hanout.

Fruit Cart & Hanout

Of course THE most important thing to check out in any city is the good coffee! Dan is probably pickier than I am about coffee (yes that IS possible!), so while he was here we stopped at my favorite café for mochaccinos one afternoon.

Mochaccinos at Cafe L'Estranot

OK - I have spent a 1/2 hour trying to upload pictures! It is so frustrating! I keep getting the "done" button popping up on the picture upload screen, but when I hit done & get flipped back over to the posting page, the pix never show up. Aaah! I can't even email them to myself & upload them from work because since the office is moving locations this week I won't have internet access from there until December 5th. I am calling about DSL tomorrow (if we have phone service in the office - they turned it off on Wednesday b/c they received the request to turn it off on Dec 3rd)! Eventually I'll post them - Dan's a great photographer & I stole a few good ones.