Olive Season in Morocco

Would you buy this liter of brownish stuff in a recycled Coke bottle from a roadside stand in Morocco? Neither would I—until now. If you did, you might well be getting the finest of traditional olive oil for about $2 a liter. It’s olive season in our area and now is the time to stock up. We have been fortunate to experience both the olive picking late last year and the olive pressing which is currently going on.


One day in late December, our host family invited us to go with them to their farm in the valley where they grow olive trees, almond trees, and a large vegetable garden. It was a pleasant day, like a fall Montana day, with warm sunshine and crisp cool air. We all shed our coats except for our host mom who is made of steel. (She wore her long black wool coat all during the picking, eating lunch, and the hour’s walk back to the road.) Some people beat the olive trees with sticks until the olives fall off, but not our host family. They treat their trees kindly, and we picked every olive on the tree by hand, dropping them into a canvas spread under the tree. The olives were then hand-sorted and put into bags, ready for pressing. On the walk back to the road to catch a taxi back to town, we passed by a spring where a cut-off soda bottle had been left as a drinking cup. Our host mom rinsed out the cup and offered us a drink from the spring. She gave it to her daughters too, so we put aside thoughts of giardia or worse and swigged it down—as yet to no ill effect. When a taxi finally came by, it had three people in it already. There were five of us but we all piled in anyway, with one person sitting to the left of the driver. Luckily it was a short trip home.

Last week, we were invited to spend the day with another family to participate in the pressing of olives into oil. Again, it was a beautiful winter day. The small mud and concrete building that houses the press is on a hillside overlooking the valley, and the view from there is stunning. First we loaded sacks of olives onto a donkey and hauled them to the press. There they were dumped into a large circular stone mill with a huge grinding stone hooked to a horse that walks in circles around the mill. While the horse was doing his work, we ate fresh bread dipped in olive oil and drank coffee. After the first grinding, the mash was put in shallow baskets which were stacked in a column under the hand press. The weight was slowly tightened on the baskets while the oil poured through the basket mesh into a tile container in the floor. Hot water heated over a wood fire was added to aid the oil flow. The water and oil naturally separate while sitting. The mash in the baskets was then dumped back into the grinder, and the process was repeated two more times. After the third pressing, the oil in the floor was skimmed of impurities and funneled into various plastic containers. The men then lugged about 15 gallons of olive oil back to the road. As you can imagine, this is a time-consuming process. I spent part of the day sitting on a rock outside in the sun looking out at the mountains across the valley and listening to the squabbling of chickens and the sound of horse’s hoofs plodding around and around. The next time you buy a bottle of traditional olive oil from the store, think of the labor of men and women, donkeys, and horses that went into it.

Winter in Morocco

It snowed this week and I’m colder than I have ever been. This is not the Morocco of scorching desert sands. This is the Morocco of the Atlas Mountains. Even though we’re from a cold climate, the difference is that here the houses are just as cold inside as the temperature outside—often colder. You know you’re in Morocco when you have to go outside to warm up, or when you have to put vegetables in the refrigerator to keep them from freezing during the night. And as usual during inclement weather, the power often goes out. There’s nothing quite as dispiriting as being cold and damp in the dark. Condensation drips down the concrete walls and dampens every surface. If a sunny day comes along, every rooftop across town sports a colorful variety of blankets as the women haul all their bedding up to the roof to dry out. I hope one day Moroccans will discover the benefits of insulation. The upside is that the view of the snow-capped mountains is a stunning sight and the valley turns a glorious green. February promises to be a long month, but as Shelley wrote, “When winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

Moving In

I imagined moving into our own house and fixing it up by painting and decorating, maybe with Moroccan carpets and handicrafts. Ha! The reality is that the PC allowance for settling in doesn’t even cover the basics of appliances and furniture. So we moved into a fourth floor walk-up apartment and are learning to overlook the cracked windows, shutters missing slats, doors that don’t close (which the landlord will fix, inshallah), chips in the paint, a lopsided sink, and a funky odor coming from the ventilator shaft. (And really, isn’t it just common sense to put a drain in the lowest part of the floor or sink or whatever you want drained?) It’s back to college living with cardboard boxes for end tables and plastic lawn furniture in the living room. Our kitchen consisted of a counter along one end with a sink in it. There were no appliances, or cupboards or shelves. But it does have stunning views of the Middle Atlas mountains, is close to transportation, our counterpart co-ops, and is just up the street from a great little coffee shop with outdoor seating that welcomes western women.

Every time we buy something like a plastic table or ponj or wash buckets, we have to hand carry it back to the apartment, which means passing in full view of all the patrons of the coffee shops and everyone in the streets and on their rooftops. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what we have purchased, and Moroccans never hesitate to ask you where you bought something and how much it cost. Then they will shake their heads and say “gali bezzaf! (very expensive!), knowing that they could have gotten a better price.


One of the goals of Peace Corps is to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of people served. I’m afraid we may have temporarily set back the cause when we recently bought a refrigerator. After visiting two or three stores two or three time each, asking prices, and having our host family ask prices, we finally settled on one. Two days later when we went back to have it delivered, the salesman led us to another model of the refrigerator we had purchased and launched into an explanation of …………something. We clearly didn’t understand so he went over it again, louder, with an increasing number of onlookers and a French speaking person who was called in to explain it to us in French which we didn’t understand either. Finally we just nodded in agreement and got in the truck for the delivery. Two men, not much bigger than me, hauled the refrigerator up four flights of stairs. After setting it up, we were admonished to wait until five o’clock to do…………… something—we weren’t sure what—but he kept pointing at the plug and the wall socket and the refrigerator motor. We both heard him say something about butagaz. When I don’t understand what’s being said, I sometimes make up my own dialog to fit the gestures. I thought he said he would come back at 5 with what we decided was a grounding wire or something we needed to save us from sparking an explosion. Five o’clock came and went and no one showed. So the next morning we went to the store and asked the owner what we needed. Again he pointed to a wall socket in the store that had a third prong, so yes, we were convinced that’s what we needed. Finally he sent one of the delivery guys back with us to do whatever needed doing so we could use the refrigerator. He grabbed the plug and………. plugged it in. That was it. He also showed us how to move the shelves to different levels and how to open the vegetable bin. I can’t imagine how helpless he thought we were to not know how to plug in a refrigerator. He may even think we had never seen one before. Apparently what he told us was to wait until five o’clock to plug it in because they had laid it sideways for delivery and the fluids had to settle. I’m also making this up but now it seems likely. It was another “lost in translation” moment.

Holiday Season In Morocco

On Christmas Eve, we went to Fes where we met up with some other PCVs for the holiday weekend. We had decided to treat ourselves to a riad in the old medina, but it turned out to be not much of a treat. It wasn’t up to my standards for cleanliness and it was cold. But there was Wi-Fi, so we did get to Skype with family. Christmas day, six of us met for a fabulous dinner at Café Clock, a British owed café in the old medina full of art, artifacts, and charm. We had a delicious three course meal including a glass of mulled wine which was just the thing for a rainy evening. There was pâté, calamari, pumpkin bisarra, roast lamb, turkey, roasted vegetables, fig pudding, pomegranate meringue, Christmas decorations, Moroccan music, and waiters that danced to the drumming. It was a fun and festive cross cultural event—a little British and a little Moroccan in the company of American friends.

New Year’s Eve was, as usual for us, a non-event where we didn’t stay awake until midnight. The most exciting part was that we were home in our own apartment for the first time, having moved in earlier that day. We can now be adults again and set our own schedules. The obligatory overeating four times a day so as not to offend our hosts is over. We can wash dishes in hot water, turn the lights up enough to read, and stay out as late as we want. Our host family is wonderful and we will miss them, but it is time to be on or own. The new year will be truly new.

New Year’s Day was equally non-eventful. It’s a holiday in Morocco, but in our little town it seemed like business as usual. The carpenter across the street turned on his buzz saw bright and early and the rooster that likes to crow all night long was still at it. In the afternoon I visited my host family to do henna with my host sisters—apparently a tradition for the New Year. There was a delicious cake along with the usual afternoon “snack” of bread, jam, honey, zmeta, cookies, tea, and coffee. At night a lot of children were running and yelling in the streets and horns were honking. This could have been a new year’s celebration—or not. There’s a lot that goes on that I don’t understand.

Changing Acronyms and Moving On

Much has changed in the last few weeks. We have left our community based training center in Midelt, become full-fledged volunteers(PCVs) instead of trainees (PCTs), moved to our permanent location, moved in with a new host family, gone to a craft fair in Marrakesh, and started our service with the co-ops.

Our swearing-in ceremony was memorable and took place in Rabat, the cosmopolitan capital of Morocco. The US Ambassador attended as well as various dignitaries of the Moroccan government. The speeches were short and to the point, we all took the PC pledge and then adjourned to a fine lunch on the beautiful grounds of the Peace Corps headquarters. The day was sunny and warm and the menu was turkey cooked several different ways since it was the day before Thanksgiving. We got to stay in a nice hotel in the heart of Rabat with private baths and hot water. Luxury!

Thanksgiving Day was spent on local transportation traveling to our permanent sites. As usual, whenever we have to haul our luggage around, it rained. We did manage to get to our site in time to enjoy the American version of Thanksgiving dinner with Pete, our youth development site mate who is an excellent cook. We had roast chicken instead of turkey and chocolate chip cookies instead of pumpkin pie, but otherwise it was a traditional and delicious meal.

The PCV craft fair in Marrakesh, Marche Maroc, came just days after moving to REK, our new site, so it was a learning experience for us. The fair wasn’t a big success for the artisans, which was disappointing. There were a lot of people in town for the international film festival but they didn’t seem to make it to the Artisanal Ensemble where the fair was held. Those who came seemed to be only buying small items which would fit in a purse or suitcase, or shopping in the Ensemble shops where credit cards were accepted. Our co-op’s only carpet sale was to a PCV. The next fair will be in Fez in April, and we all hope for a more successful market there.

Marrakesh is in some ways an overpriced tourist trap, but still a fun place to visit in a stunning setting, and the warm weather was much appreciated. The main square, Djema el Fna, is full of performance artists, snake charmers, musicians, and various hustlers. At night there are brightly lit food stalls where food is cooked in bubbling pots and over smoking grills. You can even have a goat head complete with eyeballs if you like. We ate kabobs there twice and they were tasty and fragrant. The most fun for me was relaxing on various rooftops overlooking the medina and the magnificent Koutoubia mosque.

We recently attended our first wedding. It was a two day affair. The first night was a henna party for the bride and the second night was the actual wedding. Everyone was dressed in their shiny, sparkly, lacy, sequined, gold and silver best. This included me in my borrowed caftan resplendent with crystal beads. Our family made quite a showing in our finery as we walked to the wedding with our host father pushing a wheelbarrow with a 50 pound bag of sugar—a traditional wedding gift. At the home of the bride, we were greeted at the door with drumming and chanting, and our usually quiet host mom burst forth with an astonishing ululation. The men and women were separated in different rooms, and I have to say the women appeared to have a lot more fun. There was dancing on the table, line dancing and belly dancing. Some of the older women could shake it with the best of them. We ate dinner around 10pm, first the men, then the women. I helped polish off the chicken tagine with the requisite round of bread when another course of meat tagine appeared. This was followed by couscous, and finally by a fruit plate. At that point, I decided to call it a night, but the party went on until 3am. The sensible part about wearing a caftan is that underneath all that shine and glitter, there may well be a pair of heavy knit leggings or pjs.

L-Eid L-kbir

I would be surprised if there is a PCV in Morocco who did not blog or call or email about their first L-Eid l-kbir experience which took place yesterday. L-Eid l-kbir is the annual sacrificial feast derived from the feast of the atonement, Abraham’s substitution of a sheep for his son in sacrifice. It is the central feast in Islam, and is accompanied by purification rites, prayer, and alms-giving. Every family who can afford it, buys a sheep for sacrifice on the given day. Although the animals are treated with respect, the slaughter is a traumatic occasion to experience, even for those of us who grew up with wild game hunting. I think it is the sheer magnitude of the event that was so unsettling—literally millions of sheep were killed with a knife slash to the throat at mid-morning yesterday. Everywhere I looked from the rooftop, there were groups of people bent over a dead sheep, and blood was literally running in the streets. The sheep are then skinned and hung to cure (ours was hung in the window next to our bedroom) and the innards are extracted, cleaned and eaten. I stayed in the kitchen for the bloodshed, but didn’t escape the evidence; soon there was a pan of intestines in the sink, a stomach on the drainboard, and a pan of liver and lungs and a charred sheep head on the table. Some of these were cooked over a wood fire grill that evening, but we declined to eat them, so they grilled a rabbit haunch just for us. It was quite tasty even though I knew it was from the rabbit hutch on the roof. The process of meat eating is very clear here. Four of us PCTs got together later to watch the movie “Love Actually” on the computer as a feel good way to end an otherwise distressing day.

The night before, as is traditional, our host sister applied henna to the hands of several of us women. The designs were beautifully artistic although they look much better on young hands. We had a little party during the painting with cookies, little pastries, and tea. It was a lot of fun. We were told to wear socks on our hands until the color was set, but I abandoned mine about half way through the night, so it now looks like a skin disease.

Today, the second day of the holiday, I was dressed up in a beautiful jallaba and the women of the family went out visiting. We drank tea, ate cakes and cookies, and I sat and watched cartoons in French on TV since I only understood a few random words of the rapid conversation. L-Eid l-kbir is over. L Hamdullah.

Quite a Week

This was quite a week. We left for Azrou a week ago but it seems like ages. In Azrou we learned where we will be living for the next two years, then departed the next day, on our own, to our new site and another host family. We managed to negotiate a series of three taxis in the pouring rain to get us there. Our new site is in a town of about 10,000 and is an hour from Fez. The town isn’t much—lots of cement block buildings with flat roofs or unfinished top stories and vacant lots filled with trash and/or rubble, but the setting is beautiful with a snow capped mountain range and a deep valley at the bottom of the high plateau. We are very fortunate to be replacing a super-star PCV who left us with all kinds of information and possibilities. We will be busy. Our new host family is gracious and welcoming, and the mom is a fabulous cook.

Four of us went to Sefrou to see our delegate and see a little of the city. We road in a nuql, which is a van carrying several more than its capacity. When the van pulled into the parking lot, the crowd rushed forward and pushed their way onto the van while the passengers were trying to get off. Since there were four of us and we all had to get on, we joined the pushing crowd and managed to get in through the rear doors and snagged a seat. A little way out of town, the driver stopped by an auto shop for a new battery. We then took off again and went only about 10 yards when we heard the thumpity thump of a flat tire. We backed up to the shop, the tire guys came out and, like a pit crew, had the tire changed with all of us still in the van and the motor running.

In Sefrou at a café, we saw a young Moroccan man come in wearing a Yellowstone Park sweatshirt. He spoke excellent English and we discovered that he had spent six weeks in the US in a leadership program. Two of those weeks were spent at Montana State University in Bozeman, and he seemed excited to meet someone who had lived there and graduated from MSU--another small world story.

The week in our new site was full of meeting people, checking in with the gendarmes, exploring the community, and spending some quality time sitting in the sun at a corner coffee shop that is welcoming to women. We managed to meet several of the people we needed to meet as they walked by and stopped to talk to Lynn, the PCV whom we are replacing. We visited the weaving co-op where I will probably be spending most of my time, and also met with some other associations which are interested in marketing help. Doug was especially interested in the olive oil pressing and hiking tourism opportunities. There will be plenty for both of us to do. We are ready for the training part to be over and the real work to begin.