Wed, Thurs, Fri, Feb 10 - 12

Wednesday

I’m feeling it. You can only stay in someone’s home for so long before you start feeling like you are putting them out. This feeling is certainly coming from me, since they have given no indication that I am wearing out my welcome, and they did tell me to come and stay as long as I want, but just the same, I feel like I am in the way.

Transportation is part of the problem. We have three people and one scooter. Going anywhere together that is not close to the house is difficult. I think we are all ready to explore dinner places outside of walking distance. Construction is another issue. The house is fairly large, but they are redoing the ceiling on the top level where I live, so I’m forced downstairs. The two huge main lounge areas are full of boxes and moving stuff, so this large house has shrunk to one room where we all can hang out.

I spend many mornings between breakfast and lunch outside reading, and most days after lunch I go exploring, but there is still a good bit of time at home. Maybe my feet are just itching for more and I’m projecting that feeling. Tomorrow April will be here and everything will change.

Thursday

Excited! Up early because my sister April will be here soon. Tariq and I jump on the scooter and ride the 20 minutes to the airport, shivering in the cold morning air. It only took us a few minutes wandering around the airport before we spotted April hiking around with her huge back pack. Hugs and smiles were exchanged, and we went out to find a taxi.

April started her trip on Tuesday morning from Las Vegas. A layover in Atlanta, and a long layover and airline change in Madrid left forced close to 48 hours of non stop travel. Exhausting. Poor girl. She was able to get out of the airport in Madrid for a while and jump on the metro to explore. Still, she was tired. Food and sleep. I thought that was a good idea, so I slept too.
Lunch was again unbelievable. I can’t even describe it because I don’t know what it was, but it was delicious. A good start in Morocco for April for sure. I knew it was important for her to get on local time, so instead of more naps after lunch we did a trip into the city.

April is a bad ass. She’s been cranking through Cross-Fit for months and Bikram Yoga for years before that. She is definitely in shape. We jumped on the bikes and charged full speed into Morocco chaos. The bike ride with Aunti was fun, but I’m a full throttle guy and April can keep up. I’m sure it was crazy intense for her being in the middle of the traffic here for the fist time.

We rolled, we talked, we walked, we listened, we sampled, we laughed. Perhaps we looked and acted more like tourists than I do alone since we had a lot more encounters with people aggressively trying to put henna on our hands, or get us to eat their figs. It only took April a few minutes to learn how to effectively wave them off.

The little boy, probably four or five, who jumped on the back our bicycles while we pushed them was more determined! He’d jump on hers, run over and jump on mine, run back and jump on hers, she’d throw the bike into a wheelie to try dumping him off, he’d hold on for dear life till he slid to the ground then he’d run to mine and try again. It was damn funny for about 5 minutes, then it was just pesky. I tried putting on my mean voice: no, No NO, *roaring* NNNOOOOOOOO. And still this kid persisted. I’d pick him up by his arm and drop him away from the bikes, and back he’d run. Finally I had to give him the shoulder death grip. Ohh that just pissed him off. He looks at me with his little cheeks puffed out, mad as a hornet. He runs full speed at April and pushes her in the butt. I want to fall down laughing, but he runs at my bike and does a Charlie Brown kick at at it. He finally gets scolded by some locals, throws in a couple more token kicks and walks away with his mean face on. Now that was funny.

We met up with Aunti and Tariq around 9:00 pm, they rode the scooter together deep into the new part of the city and April and I sped behind them on our bikes. Every ride is an “ohh shit” experience, but I love every one. For dinner we had pizza that would have sucked in the states, but actually tasted good here. Strange.

The ride back became a race of wills, legs and lungs. We were really really far from home, but full of energy and on our own. We rode as fast as we could through the insanity and made it home with blood in our lungs and legs on fire. That rocked.

Sleep.

Friday

I could sense Anti’s stress growing. She need her printer, and she needed to see some progress on her house. The ceilings upstairs were done, so we could move some things into that room. One of the great rooms in her house is floor to ceiling boxes, bags, suite cases, and random oddities that she likes to collect. The amount of stuff she has is outrageous! Where to start is a big part of the problem and it kept everybody from doing anything. I determined to solve this for her. It helped that they were not going to be around to assist.

As soon as we all had lunch and they left, April and I dove in. It was the kind of chaos I like taming. We assembled contraptions to hang cloths on, we grouped like items together, we step up furniture in other parts of the house and when we were done, a massive room you could hardly walk into was a clean open space with walls organized with goods. Aunit was elated. She deserves some elation for being so generous with her hospitality.

At night Tariq, April and I rolled into the main square of the city. As usual it was wild; Monkey tamers, snake charmers, dancers, story tellers, hustlers, psychics, boxers, all with an audience. We wandered, talked and snacked sweets.

One of the highlights was a spice shop. Rocks and bark, powders of every sort and a very knowledgeable fella filled us in on what was what. Thousands of jars full of all kinds of everything made me feel like I was in a Harry Potter book. He crushed up some black seeds in a small fabric square and gave it to me to snort. Ohh what the hell, when in Rome… I took a long snort of this black powder, then did it again with the other nostril. Nice. The prophet Mohammed talks about this powder, Sanouj, as the cure all for many ailments.

Around 10:00pm aunti met up with us and we hiked to a little cafe and ordered a couple veggie sandwiches. Yuck. Thank god for hot sauce. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and swallow what’s on your plate. I’m sure tomorrow we will make up for the yuck food today.