Aid Al Adha part deux

Last year I posted about this holiday (Click here for a refresher), but for whatever reason I didn't get the full Aid experience.

Something I was vaguely aware of at that time, but not affected by, was the existence of teenaged boys wandering the streets dressed in the discarded sheepskins. It seems they travel in packs, preying on the unsuspecting, whacking them on the backside with a sheep's hoof (paw? foot?) when they're not looking. The idea is they collect money for a neighborhood party, to be held at the end of the three-day Aid holiday.

I witnessed scores of young kids and teenagers running down the streets, shrieking with excitement as they were pursued by these monsters, only to be rewarded with a thwack on the rear when they were caught. It looked like good fun, if I were 10 or 15 years younger. At any rate, we got some fuzzy zoom-lens photos of a couple of these characters, taken from Shan's living room window.


This year I happened to be traveling in the days leading up to Aid, so I got to see a few villages' makeshift sheep markets, which consisted of lots of people milling around looking at lots of sheep, haggling over prices, and eventually carrying one home strapped to a motorbike. So many sheep balanced acrossed motorbikes -- live sheep, that is -- and I only saw one fall off. Pretty amazing. Here's a photo of the sheep market in a village halfway between Agadir and Marrakech (dunno the name of the village).

Visiting the In-laws

Aid Al Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) fell on 31st December this year, and we went for dinner at Lahcen's family's house. Mom got to meet his sisters and brother and his mom. Above is a photo of Nejma, Mom, Lahcen, Fatima and Lahcen's mom, Fadma. Despite the language barriers we all had an enjoyable time, though we're not entirely sure we were understood at all, as Lahcen gets a kick out of translating incorrectly. Like sometimes when I say "You smell like a goat" he'll translate it as "I love that dress you're wearing!"

Christmas in Morocco, part 1

Okay, I have a list ten miles long of what I want to blog about, so better just dive in.

First, Happy New Year and belated Merry Christmas to everybody. I have been crap at emailing the last several weeks. I am ashamed but hope you still love me.

Mom was here for three weeks and we had a great time. she got to spend a lot of time with Lahcen because I was working for two of the three weeks. They seemed to get on really well and liked each other -- phew!

Funny story about Christmas: So, the moms were here so we of course wanted to do a big Christmas dinner. I boiled up a mess of chicken on Saturday afternoon to make broth for the stuffing and gravy. Sunday morning spent an hour or so sifting out bones and pulling meat off for the stuffing. Made a really beautiful, rich broth. Made some chicken and dumplings with part of it on Sunday, then back into the fridge. Then Monday morning set the pot back onto the stove, was chopping onions and whatnot, chatting away to Shan. Lahcen was washing dishes, like a good little husband-to-be. At some stage I noticed that Lahcen had washed the big pot the broth had been in, and I asked him where he had put the broth. He tells me he poured it down the drain. Quit joking, I say. Where is it? Uh-oh. Seems he thought it was "dirty water" and he was just trying to help by washing that pot. I lost my cool for a little while, because I mean, aside from all the hard work that had gone into making that broth, HOW ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH can we have Christmas dinner without broth?!!!! After I apologised to my good husband-to-be, who had, after all, only been trying to help, we had buillion-cube broth and the dinner wasn't too shabby. God bless us, every one.