We got back from our trip to the North-- to Chefchaouen, Ceuta (for literally 5 minutes), and Tangier (where I would have loved to go again but unfortunately didn't make it)-- and it was November 1. One and a half months left. I had that feeling I always get towards the end, it seems like there's not enough time to do anything, but you don't know exactly what to do. Still reading for French, struggling along in MSA and loving learning and practicing Darija in the streets, and researching women's issues and emigration; started volunteering to teach English once a week at a wafa', a youth association in a neighborhood of Rabat, where two students spoke English like kids on nickelodeon shows and the rest knew close to nothing or anywhere in between. The bus rides from the program to the wafa' were adventures in themselves-- finding the bus stop meant actually finding it, as it wasn't marked but was probably where all those people were crowding around on the sidewalk across from the 3rd café with a green awning; get out your 3 dirhams and 65 "dirham-cents", prepare to grab on to people who clearly don't want you grabbing on to them or would rather be grabbing on to you, and slowly try to osmosis-ize your way onto the middle of the bus so that you can actually pay the bus worker for the ride. Once, I had been pushed to the very front of the bus, and was alternately yelled at for blocking the front rear-view mirror or taunted/encouraged to speak Arabic to the driver. He thought I "tetkelum al arabia mazayna!", hamdolah. ("Speak arabic well!", thank god.)
The weekend after the North-- free. Stayed in Rabat and went to Casablanca Saturday night with some friends, to see the nightlife (as opposed to the business-life, the only other real thing about Casa). There, I collected more experience finding lodging and food, ate some questionable harrira in the medina before frantically trying to find the exit as we realized it was almost dark and the people were looking more and more unfriendly, and discovered where all the gay moroccans live-- at The Village, on the corniche strip in Casa between the hours of 11pm and 4am on saturdays. Safi (that's all). It was a one-way ticket out of traditional, day-to-day Morocco for a night, and into any major cosmopolitan city you could imagine. And man they were fun.
The next weekend-- the Sahara Desert. THE SAHARA DESERT!!!!! Yes. Me and four friends left on a train from Rabat to Fez on Thursday afternoon, arrived 4 hours later in Fez, stocked up on rations consisting mostly of these delicious cookies in a purple bag, and around 8pm boarded the 12 hour overnight bus to Merzouga, the small desert town near the Algerian border. No conversion attempts this time around, and we reached Merzouga somewhere between 6 and 7am on Friday. It was the last stop on the bus-- at one rest stop on the freezing cold night bus, our friend Anna bought the most rediculous men's red sweatpants, impossible to tell which way was front, and wore them the rest of the trip; mind you these "rest stops" usually consisted of soup stalls, "cafés" with tv's inside and men sitting with café noir and cigarettes at all and any hour of the night, and fresh butchered meat just hanging there at the sandwich stalls, so I'm not sure where she found the sweatpants. So we arrived at Merzouga bleary eyed, and Raechel's bag had disappeared-- after a brief "oh no!", she thought that maybe she'd find it on the bus back, and humored the crazy bus driver who was joking and helping her look for her stuff. "Meshi mushkil, makain mushkil" (no problem). Still laughing but fully expecting to spend the next few days in the same clothes, she and the rest of us watch as the bus driver opens another compartment over the bus wheel... and pulls her backpack out. Laughing hysterically at his joke. Even at 7am, after an all night drive, hama9 bazaf (really crazy.).
We were met by a man from the auberge we would be staying at, and he led us back and brought us a delicious breakfast and told us we would have "the eatin, and then the sleepin, and then the eatin the lunch, and then we go." Sounded beeeeeeekhair to us (reeeaaaally good). As promised, a few hours later we were mounting the camels, and trekked across the dunes led by Adi with Mostapha walking at our side casually carelessly strumming his guitar. Let me tell you-- this sand is orange, or is it pink? Or is it blue, or is Algeria really there in the distance or is it just Pride Rock, or is this real at all? I slid down a sand dune ski slope mountain and saw my friend stand like a dot the next dune over from me, and saw my own footprints stretch behind me and saw the sand go on forever and to be honest I don't think it ever stops... The sun just set behind those dunes over there, over where I know Merzouga is back in the distance but all I can see is dunes, and the sun drops and drops and drops and melts into the orangepinkblue sand and turns the sky orangepinkblue and all of a sudden it melts like the last bit of butter in a bowl and it's gone, and everything is hazy dusky grey. I think I was 5 again before the sun set on those dunes. Mostapha and Adi had left us to play, and had disappeared leaving vague directions. We walked to the tent/hut complex a ways away, and found them preparing vegetables and meat for the tagines for dinner over little gas spigots from the gas bottles. One permanent-looking tent for them, another for us. We sat and played music in their tent while the tagines cooked; Jeremy was observing Shabbat and couldn't play the guitars or drums, and was trying to avoid explaining his customs but eventually had to clarify that he wasn't not happy, he just had something he had to do because of his religion on that day. We were all kind of apprehensive about this, but it was understood and respected the rest of the night-- in a culture where religion plays such a focal role, I guess that's how differences are understood. Or maybe it's just the culture of these quasi-Tuareg Berber men. More playing and singing, and Llama appeared on his bike, apparently arriving as Anna was trying out the "desert toilet" for the first time-- aka the sand dunes. More drumming and singing with Llama, we ate the tagines with Anna and Mostapha having a romantic vegetarian tagine in "Algeria", "the frontier is closed!" (they took that seriously), more guitar dancing and turban-wearing and I was named Mama Africa, and we ran outside and walked on the dunes in the moonlight and laid on a blanket and looked at the stars and it was all so big. Llama re-appeared on the dune as a silent man in a turban, scaring us all, and shortly after we went to our tents to sleep and wake up at sunrise.
Woke up for sunrise, went back to sleep for a few hours while Adi and Mostapha prepared breakfast, then woke up again and got ready to get back on the camels (this was a bit painful). We went to a Berber oasis, and went to Llama's house to see his family, who made us "Berber pizza" (and we had more "Berber whiskey" (mint tea)... berber everything), and at one point we played Bananagrams on a blanket and Adi and Mostapha joined us, making for an interesting combination of words. and worlds. Took sand baths (apparently good for rhuematism) and walked to find the camels, then cameled back to Merzouga. Someone had to go with Adi to buy our return bus tickets home, so I hopped on a bicycle and rode to the bus stop and back to the auberge. We waited around, were fed yet another meal, paid peacefully and without hassle, then started walking all the way to the bus station. Adi and Mostapha walked with us, as did two other guys, musicians. I talked with one of them the whole way over, and he was going on about the importance of the Berber language, Tamazigh, and singing in that language in popular music about freedom for their culture and being proud of their past. He was a Tuareg whose family story stretched all over West Africa. Made it on the bus finally, and tried to sleep to the sounds of a woman comforting a crying baby-- all the way to Fez. We were back in Rabat, sleeping on our wall-couches, by 10am Sunday morning, before most of our family was even awake.
Next weekend-- Eid al Kabir, "The Big Holiday", where every Muslim family sacrifices at least one sheep. I say "every" and "sheep"-- it varies by personal practice, orthodoxy, and tradition, and I had a friend from Mauritius who says they usually sacrifice cows. They do this to celebrate the fact that god has provided food, so that Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Ishmael instead. Our family celebrated with our across-the hall neighbors, so between the two families 5 sheep were slaughtered. Our brother slaughtered ours for the first time this year-- I asked why this year and if it had to do with age, and he said it all depends, he was just ready to do it this year. Everyone prizes how fresh the meat is, and we had a potluck, Thanksgiving-esque lunch with salads the mothers had made earlier and fresh liver and dried-fat brochettes that the other students and I helped make. On every street around town that day and the next, there would be groups of shabaab grilling the sheep heads over makeshift grills on the side of the road. I didn't find this whole event disturbing, which maybe is strange in itself-- to me, what I noticed the most was how happy everyone was and how excited to see their family and carry out the traditions that have been around since forever and which are so central to their beliefs. The atmosphere was almost Christmassy, and everything shut down, everyone was doing the same thing we were doing with our family. I also made a point not to play with, think about, or name the sheep before seeing them sacrificed, which probably helped.
Nora's sister came to spend her Thanksgiving break in Rabat a few days after Eid (the family eventually got over the initial confusion over why she couldn't change her travel plans to get there for Eid). We went to Marrakech on Wednesday, so she could fly out on Saturday and we could stay on with our school, which had planned our final group trip to Marrakech that weekend. We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at "Al Fazia", a fancy guide-book recommended restaurant in the new city in Marrakech. It was no turkey, but was delicious nonetheless. Marrakech may have been my favorite city (not place) to visit. It is currently the biggest tourist city in Morocco, but without the haggling, hassling mean people of the Fes medina. The Djemaa al Fnaa, the main square, is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can find monkey-tamers and snake-charmers and vendors, dried fruit stalls and cafés, fancy horse and buggy cart rides, and the entrances to the souks right off the square. At night, white tented, lighted numbered restaurant stalls appear, and walking through you hear their owners yelling in any language you can imagine trying to get you to eat at their place. There are also Berber whiskey vendors, who served the best spice tea in hot little glass glasses, and offered spice cakes which looked like turd cakes and tasted similar. We walked through the medina many times, through an olive tree farm on the site of an old pool/courtyard, and through the Yvès St. Laurent memorial and garden, full of exotic plants and bamboo and everything brightly painted in blue, yellow, and orange.
In between finals and final papers and never-ending Arabic homework and French reading, Christmas was coming... Nora and I played Christmas music in our house and watched the occaisional Christmas movie, but were surprised to see signs of Christmas around Rabat besides in our room. Some store windows on our way to school in Agdal had displays, of trees or ornaments, and once we heard Christmas music at Al Houda, our new favorite café on the tramway. Our sister had just gotten her license and wanted to practice driving with us, "the sisters", so we made a deal with her-- we would drive with her if she drove us to Marjane. Marjane is like the Wal-Mart of Morocco. There's even a Pizza Hut inside! We had heard a rumor that they sold fake Christmas trees, and sure enough as soon as you walk inside it was all right there in the first isle. We bought a tree, fake snow, and some ornaments and red lights. I remember coming home and setting it up in our room, all the family members would walk inside to check on the progress, and said none of their students had ever done this before. We thought we were going to keep our wonderful bright little tree to ourselves, but Nora's birthday was a few days later, and the tree was taken into the living room as a party decoration... and we never got it back. I was glad the family liked it-- I guess it's pretty self-explanitory, but there was never any real discussion about the tree, they just knew we were really happy about it. For Nora's birthday party, our friends on the program and our across the hall neighbors and even some extended family members came over to celebrate. Our mom made two tarts from scratch, and bought a cake, and had tons of soda and had made chocolate-covered popcorn, and Nora and I wore djellebas (Nora wore the sparkly bedazzled purple one) even though I thought I was all set with my party sweater (dark green almost-v-neck-- craaaazy I know). We sang Happy Birthday in all 3 languages, and danced constantly. They really know how to do birthday parties over there. One night that weekend we went to a hotel's restaurant/bar/lounge to hear live music, which was fantastic-- the band played old American tunes like Billy Joel, and our waiter promised he was a "champion dancer" back in the 70s.
The last full week of school, nothing too special... I believe around this time we started playing a lot of Rummy, and then taught ourselves Gin Rummy and my mental math skills returned. We had heard that Ifrane, a small Swiss-style town inland, usually has snow in the winter, so we wanted to try our luck and check it out as our last trip before we left the country. Nora and I went with two of our friends and our brother and two of his friends. It was another instance of travelling with Moroccan men, like the "wedding" trip, where they're an asset because they know what they're doing, as they do live there and are the ones who have the capacity to get things done, but they're a pain because no matter what the male-female ratio is, the males always seem to trump. We had a good time and walked around Ifrane a bit (after we finally got there, due to an over-endulging sandwich hunt, grocery shopping/delivering, and hanout (corner-store) hopping, even though I was pretty sure they all sold the same things; all this before we even got out of l'Océan, our neighborhood; we were slowed again by a road block, and had to double back and around before reaching Ifrane 5 hours later). Our first stop was to find a place to stay. Again, we were with the guys who knew how to get a good place cheap, and who could-- that's key-- so we ended up, essentially, renting a house in the ghetto of Ifrane. Sure, it was Swiss-style... chwyiiia. Dirt cheap, though, which was what we were looking for. But they guys knew the people they were renting from from before, and were Moroccan, and were men, and we didn't make an appearance when they were negotiating the house, so it all happened fine. The next day, we left the house and walked around a beautiful park with waterfalls and rivers and we rode horses, before driving to Azrou to see monkeys. Really! Not in a park, closed-in area, we had to walk through a forest where everyone just knows the monkeys live. We fed them Family Cookies, these awful wafers we had eaten in Casa, and they walked right up to us. Then we started the drive home, and after one ridiculous but unavoidable (because of the men-in-charge thing) rest stop, finally made it.
The adventures were ending-- the last week we had our last few classes, then a day off and an AMIDEAST dinner at a fancy restaurant buried in the medina with all the students and professors. We went visiting the extended families for the last time, saw all the cousins and babies, and had our last few, delicious meals with our family. There were tears, bazaaaf. A cab came to get Nora at 1am, and another came to get me at 7am. More tears, until I passed out halfway to Casa. I did notice something about the drive though, with the sun rising and warming the cool-ish coastal air-- the fields which had been so dry and barren on that first cab drive from the Casablanca airport to Rabat were a lush green now. The rainy season is starting, which is how winter presents itself here for the most part.
I don't know how to end this... corny "this was the best time of my life" or "this has changed me forever" or "well, so that's Morocco!"... I am going back. I loved it. I met amazing people and learned about a country and a culture that is in my opinion stuck, one word stuck, between traditions that have so much to do with a religion but also so much more, and between the modern world and developing. Morocco is Europe Middle East Africa... it is everything, so it is nothing? There were times when I felt a sense of identity crisis and frustration that just led to a complacency with the status quo, a dejection or disillusionment with the idea of change that is just plain alien to me as an American of today. I learned more about myself, and came to appreciate so much more my American-ness and what that allows me to do. But I realized better things here too, a style of life that is slower, where people enjoy things, enjoy simple comforts I know this sounds cliché. They will sit and enjoy a coffee with someone until far past their next engagement which wasn't exactly pinned down anyways, hence Africa time and I'm pretty sure Morocco must have it's own version of that. Things are hard but people are happy. Family is important, so important. Religion is important-- I am going to miss the call to prayer-- and dignity is important. It's a work in progress, but it is progressing and there are signs of that.
Basalaama al maghreb, ana tawa7chtek wa lakin inchallah radi kanmeshi fik outani. :)
(Goodbye Morocco, I miss you but inchallah I will go to you again)
The weekend after the North-- free. Stayed in Rabat and went to Casablanca Saturday night with some friends, to see the nightlife (as opposed to the business-life, the only other real thing about Casa). There, I collected more experience finding lodging and food, ate some questionable harrira in the medina before frantically trying to find the exit as we realized it was almost dark and the people were looking more and more unfriendly, and discovered where all the gay moroccans live-- at The Village, on the corniche strip in Casa between the hours of 11pm and 4am on saturdays. Safi (that's all). It was a one-way ticket out of traditional, day-to-day Morocco for a night, and into any major cosmopolitan city you could imagine. And man they were fun.
The next weekend-- the Sahara Desert. THE SAHARA DESERT!!!!! Yes. Me and four friends left on a train from Rabat to Fez on Thursday afternoon, arrived 4 hours later in Fez, stocked up on rations consisting mostly of these delicious cookies in a purple bag, and around 8pm boarded the 12 hour overnight bus to Merzouga, the small desert town near the Algerian border. No conversion attempts this time around, and we reached Merzouga somewhere between 6 and 7am on Friday. It was the last stop on the bus-- at one rest stop on the freezing cold night bus, our friend Anna bought the most rediculous men's red sweatpants, impossible to tell which way was front, and wore them the rest of the trip; mind you these "rest stops" usually consisted of soup stalls, "cafés" with tv's inside and men sitting with café noir and cigarettes at all and any hour of the night, and fresh butchered meat just hanging there at the sandwich stalls, so I'm not sure where she found the sweatpants. So we arrived at Merzouga bleary eyed, and Raechel's bag had disappeared-- after a brief "oh no!", she thought that maybe she'd find it on the bus back, and humored the crazy bus driver who was joking and helping her look for her stuff. "Meshi mushkil, makain mushkil" (no problem). Still laughing but fully expecting to spend the next few days in the same clothes, she and the rest of us watch as the bus driver opens another compartment over the bus wheel... and pulls her backpack out. Laughing hysterically at his joke. Even at 7am, after an all night drive, hama9 bazaf (really crazy.).
Our caravan
Sunset over the dunes
Adi playing the drum; tea
Sunrise over Algeria
Bananagrams in the Sahara
Woke up for sunrise, went back to sleep for a few hours while Adi and Mostapha prepared breakfast, then woke up again and got ready to get back on the camels (this was a bit painful). We went to a Berber oasis, and went to Llama's house to see his family, who made us "Berber pizza" (and we had more "Berber whiskey" (mint tea)... berber everything), and at one point we played Bananagrams on a blanket and Adi and Mostapha joined us, making for an interesting combination of words. and worlds. Took sand baths (apparently good for rhuematism) and walked to find the camels, then cameled back to Merzouga. Someone had to go with Adi to buy our return bus tickets home, so I hopped on a bicycle and rode to the bus stop and back to the auberge. We waited around, were fed yet another meal, paid peacefully and without hassle, then started walking all the way to the bus station. Adi and Mostapha walked with us, as did two other guys, musicians. I talked with one of them the whole way over, and he was going on about the importance of the Berber language, Tamazigh, and singing in that language in popular music about freedom for their culture and being proud of their past. He was a Tuareg whose family story stretched all over West Africa. Made it on the bus finally, and tried to sleep to the sounds of a woman comforting a crying baby-- all the way to Fez. We were back in Rabat, sleeping on our wall-couches, by 10am Sunday morning, before most of our family was even awake.
Next weekend-- Eid al Kabir, "The Big Holiday", where every Muslim family sacrifices at least one sheep. I say "every" and "sheep"-- it varies by personal practice, orthodoxy, and tradition, and I had a friend from Mauritius who says they usually sacrifice cows. They do this to celebrate the fact that god has provided food, so that Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Ishmael instead. Our family celebrated with our across-the hall neighbors, so between the two families 5 sheep were slaughtered. Our brother slaughtered ours for the first time this year-- I asked why this year and if it had to do with age, and he said it all depends, he was just ready to do it this year. Everyone prizes how fresh the meat is, and we had a potluck, Thanksgiving-esque lunch with salads the mothers had made earlier and fresh liver and dried-fat brochettes that the other students and I helped make. On every street around town that day and the next, there would be groups of shabaab grilling the sheep heads over makeshift grills on the side of the road. I didn't find this whole event disturbing, which maybe is strange in itself-- to me, what I noticed the most was how happy everyone was and how excited to see their family and carry out the traditions that have been around since forever and which are so central to their beliefs. The atmosphere was almost Christmassy, and everything shut down, everyone was doing the same thing we were doing with our family. I also made a point not to play with, think about, or name the sheep before seeing them sacrificed, which probably helped.
Making liver brochettes
Nora's sister came to spend her Thanksgiving break in Rabat a few days after Eid (the family eventually got over the initial confusion over why she couldn't change her travel plans to get there for Eid). We went to Marrakech on Wednesday, so she could fly out on Saturday and we could stay on with our school, which had planned our final group trip to Marrakech that weekend. We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at "Al Fazia", a fancy guide-book recommended restaurant in the new city in Marrakech. It was no turkey, but was delicious nonetheless. Marrakech may have been my favorite city (not place) to visit. It is currently the biggest tourist city in Morocco, but without the haggling, hassling mean people of the Fes medina. The Djemaa al Fnaa, the main square, is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can find monkey-tamers and snake-charmers and vendors, dried fruit stalls and cafés, fancy horse and buggy cart rides, and the entrances to the souks right off the square. At night, white tented, lighted numbered restaurant stalls appear, and walking through you hear their owners yelling in any language you can imagine trying to get you to eat at their place. There are also Berber whiskey vendors, who served the best spice tea in hot little glass glasses, and offered spice cakes which looked like turd cakes and tasted similar. We walked through the medina many times, through an olive tree farm on the site of an old pool/courtyard, and through the Yvès St. Laurent memorial and garden, full of exotic plants and bamboo and everything brightly painted in blue, yellow, and orange.
Djema al Fnaa at night, Marrakech
Yvès St. Laurent gardens, Marrakech
In between finals and final papers and never-ending Arabic homework and French reading, Christmas was coming... Nora and I played Christmas music in our house and watched the occaisional Christmas movie, but were surprised to see signs of Christmas around Rabat besides in our room. Some store windows on our way to school in Agdal had displays, of trees or ornaments, and once we heard Christmas music at Al Houda, our new favorite café on the tramway. Our sister had just gotten her license and wanted to practice driving with us, "the sisters", so we made a deal with her-- we would drive with her if she drove us to Marjane. Marjane is like the Wal-Mart of Morocco. There's even a Pizza Hut inside! We had heard a rumor that they sold fake Christmas trees, and sure enough as soon as you walk inside it was all right there in the first isle. We bought a tree, fake snow, and some ornaments and red lights. I remember coming home and setting it up in our room, all the family members would walk inside to check on the progress, and said none of their students had ever done this before. We thought we were going to keep our wonderful bright little tree to ourselves, but Nora's birthday was a few days later, and the tree was taken into the living room as a party decoration... and we never got it back. I was glad the family liked it-- I guess it's pretty self-explanitory, but there was never any real discussion about the tree, they just knew we were really happy about it. For Nora's birthday party, our friends on the program and our across the hall neighbors and even some extended family members came over to celebrate. Our mom made two tarts from scratch, and bought a cake, and had tons of soda and had made chocolate-covered popcorn, and Nora and I wore djellebas (Nora wore the sparkly bedazzled purple one) even though I thought I was all set with my party sweater (dark green almost-v-neck-- craaaazy I know). We sang Happy Birthday in all 3 languages, and danced constantly. They really know how to do birthday parties over there. One night that weekend we went to a hotel's restaurant/bar/lounge to hear live music, which was fantastic-- the band played old American tunes like Billy Joel, and our waiter promised he was a "champion dancer" back in the 70s.
3id milayd sayeed, Nora!
The last full week of school, nothing too special... I believe around this time we started playing a lot of Rummy, and then taught ourselves Gin Rummy and my mental math skills returned. We had heard that Ifrane, a small Swiss-style town inland, usually has snow in the winter, so we wanted to try our luck and check it out as our last trip before we left the country. Nora and I went with two of our friends and our brother and two of his friends. It was another instance of travelling with Moroccan men, like the "wedding" trip, where they're an asset because they know what they're doing, as they do live there and are the ones who have the capacity to get things done, but they're a pain because no matter what the male-female ratio is, the males always seem to trump. We had a good time and walked around Ifrane a bit (after we finally got there, due to an over-endulging sandwich hunt, grocery shopping/delivering, and hanout (corner-store) hopping, even though I was pretty sure they all sold the same things; all this before we even got out of l'Océan, our neighborhood; we were slowed again by a road block, and had to double back and around before reaching Ifrane 5 hours later). Our first stop was to find a place to stay. Again, we were with the guys who knew how to get a good place cheap, and who could-- that's key-- so we ended up, essentially, renting a house in the ghetto of Ifrane. Sure, it was Swiss-style... chwyiiia. Dirt cheap, though, which was what we were looking for. But they guys knew the people they were renting from from before, and were Moroccan, and were men, and we didn't make an appearance when they were negotiating the house, so it all happened fine. The next day, we left the house and walked around a beautiful park with waterfalls and rivers and we rode horses, before driving to Azrou to see monkeys. Really! Not in a park, closed-in area, we had to walk through a forest where everyone just knows the monkeys live. We fed them Family Cookies, these awful wafers we had eaten in Casa, and they walked right up to us. Then we started the drive home, and after one ridiculous but unavoidable (because of the men-in-charge thing) rest stop, finally made it.
Ifrane
The adventures were ending-- the last week we had our last few classes, then a day off and an AMIDEAST dinner at a fancy restaurant buried in the medina with all the students and professors. We went visiting the extended families for the last time, saw all the cousins and babies, and had our last few, delicious meals with our family. There were tears, bazaaaf. A cab came to get Nora at 1am, and another came to get me at 7am. More tears, until I passed out halfway to Casa. I did notice something about the drive though, with the sun rising and warming the cool-ish coastal air-- the fields which had been so dry and barren on that first cab drive from the Casablanca airport to Rabat were a lush green now. The rainy season is starting, which is how winter presents itself here for the most part.
View from my apartment window-- oh tramway, how I'll miss you.
Basalaama al maghreb, ana tawa7chtek wa lakin inchallah radi kanmeshi fik outani. :)
(Goodbye Morocco, I miss you but inchallah I will go to you again)
