Team Morocco
Photojournal
We have seen, heard, tasted, and learned more as a group than can be expressed with mere storytelling. Words can only go so far, especially in the Spanish Sahara, where one has to see a lot of things to believe them. Hopefully these pictures can begin to tell the tale.
“Arrivee”
After an international airplane marathon (4 different flights, spanning over almost 30 hours of travel time), we finally resurfaced in Agadir craving fresh air and sunlight. The weather greeting us there could not have been more perfect. We all let our big smiles and sighs of relief, and all of the stress from almost two days of travel melted away. As we walked towards the van awaiting us, eager to get started on our adventure, I stole a second to capture an image—to capture a moment—when everything that lay before us was still unknown, and all we had was “Arrivee (Arrived).”
“Tagines”
It’s weird how something can be totally off your radar for your whole life, and then in a matter of days become so familiar to you that you barely even notice it anymore. It’s like that with tagines. Tagines are clay pots that are used for cooking meat or vegetables directly over the stove. They can either be plain (the kind that are used to cook) or ornamented and painted with exotic colors (the kind that are sold to tourists and purely decorative). We have eaten many meals from tagines, and it’s almost impossible to go into a souk (market) or home and not see one sitting on a shelf or over a stove. Some of us have even bought them for our parents. In a way, I think that we feel compelled to bring back a piece of Morocco with us—not just a postcard or keychain—that represents our daily life here.
“The Fog”
We’re here in Morocco because we are trying to find ways to bring water to incredibly arid mountain communities where people go to impossible lengths to find it. The irony is that our lives in Sidi Ifni itself could not be any more soggy.
I call this chapter of my life “The Fog.” We are preoccupied with fog: How do we capture it? Where can we store it? How did everything get so wet? The reality of the situation is that the high pressure essentially traps the fog at low elevations, so that the foggiest month in Sidi Ifni (July) happens to be the one in which literally zero fogwater is collected on Boutmezguida, the mountain.
Pressure or no pressure, the situation is beyond poetic. We spend our days preoccupied with drought, and we go home to our hotel room where our unused towels and sheets have spent the day getting damp. The picture above was taken on a beach we visited last weekend, which I will always remember with love as the soggiest weekend of my life.
“The Nutcracker”
Among the many unique experiences we’ve had, we’ve gotten to visit a cooperative for the production of Argan oil products. Argan trees are plants that literally only grow in this region of Morocco (roughly between Agadir and Ifni) whose fruit (and the nut inside) can be used for many purposes. There are multiple shells making up the pit, and inside is a small nut (like an almond) that can be pressed to give the miracle oil. Many women here use the oil in their skin and hair to make it soft and healthy.
Women who work in this cooperative make 100 Dirhams for every basket full of Argan nuts that they crack open. It might sound easy, but cracking them actually requires skill. Or maybe I just don’t have the magic touch…all I know is that I wouldn’t be making too many Dirhams working at that co-op.
“The Place of the Mosque”
On Tuesday, we hiked up Boutmezguida and spent the night there so that we could do more extensive research on the possibilities for our fog collection project. I’m certain that this was one of the most isolated places that I’ll spend a night for a long time, if not forever. The closest people were miles away; I found the silence almost deafening at times. We awoke yesterday morning to find that all of the distant peaks we’d gotten to know the day before were gone. They had drowned in a sea of fog, leaving only the tops of some mountains that looked like rocks over the ocean.
The girls woke up first. We made our way out, settled on some rocks and sat gazing at the horizon for almost an hour in silence. That’s sometimes difficult to achieve. Yesterday, it was effortless.
Boutmezguida literally means “the place where there is a mosque.” It’s true: there are ruins of a very old mosque that can be seen on the very tip of the mountain. Years ago, people went to the top of that mountain to worship. Yesterday, we sat in awe on this mountain, sharing a holy moment that few people, especially outside of Morocco, will ever experience.
“Team Morocco”
Maybe it’s because we’re Americans in a completely foreign place, or because we are Rice kids, but we’ve all gotten incredibly close on this trip. Every experience, both good and bad, has been filled with laughs and memories shared. It’s sad to think that the internship will be coming to a close so soon—I definitely expect frequent reunion dinners when we get back to the States. Regardless of where we all end up next year, or whether we see even each other, we will always have our times in Ifni and the hilariously foreign experiences we’ve had to tie us together. Together, we’ve all walked along the same, remote beach, climbed the same mountain, and eaten from the same tagine. Team Morocco has a bond that few will ever understand. This picture, taken on a beach near Ifni, represents this sentiment.
“Our High Horse”
We did it: that thing that everyone does when they go to a new place despite their better judgment. We rode a camel, once around the market, forcing our friends to take photos, hold our bags, and watch us make fools of ourselves in front of the villagers. I like this picture because it’s the only one in the roll where we actually look like we know what we’re doing. Who knows how that happened—some twist of fate led to a moment where we both had our hands up, the camel looked moderately at ease, and it was impossible to see the looks (half excitement, half fear) on our faces. Somehow, we made it all the way around, back to where we started, and off the camels without a scuff. We even succeeded in bargaining it down to just 10 Dirhams for the ride. That’s right. We did it.
“Thanks, Donkey”
This picture is a shout-out to the mules and donkeys of the world. There’s nothing special about these creatures that compels them to carry peoples’ belongings and walk up a rocky path on their tiny hooves. I mean, really really tiny hooves. I’m always slightly shocked when they actually make their way up unscathed. I have a theory that the entire system of lugging stuff (blankets, couscous, water, backpacks, people) up mountains relies entirely on the fact that donkeys can’t talk. Someone has to do the work, and it sure can’t be someone who can express discomfort.
If donkeys could talk, they’d probably yell loudly. So here’s one for donkeys. Don’t know where I’d be without them. Three cheers for mules, too.
