Subjective Happiness.

Lying in bed exhausted seems to be the order of the night these days. But it is with a full day of new sights, sounds and smells fresh in mind, and each new day seems to show so much more than the previous. 

My Morocco Mantra today: I am so, so lucky. 

In saying that, I don't feel any pity for the Moroccan people, they don't need it. They are so content with the way they live and the world they're surrounded by. I am sure they look at the Western lifestyle in mock humour. "They have to sit on their arses all day and stare at a computer screen?" 

There are aspects of life here that make the Western, first world style look ridiculous.   

While walking around a Berber market this morning at the crack of dawn, as the sun was still rising, the air was cold and the dust was being swept up by the newly arriving donkeys, still laden with market supplies, I couldn't help but smile. 

I am sure they would be cracking up at the prospect of our self checkouts. 

This market was once a week for the Berber people, the nomads who travel across Morocco freely with only their family and camels or donkeys for company. Camping in tents wherever they can and visiting these markets when they are able to to get their produce for the week ahead. Some people visit the markets simply to know what is going on in the world. Television is in both Arabic and French here but the Berber people (aside from infrequently being even near a television) often do not speak either of these languages. Uneducated due to their nomadic lifestyle, they speak only Berber. They attend the markets often not to buy but to simply socialise, communicating with those that speak Berber and either Arabic or French in order to know what is happening. This whole concept both baffles and excites me and I looked around the market and watched the many Berber's (identifiable by their typical dress: a KKK style coat that drapes long over their arms and legs and forms a cone style shape at the top of their head) as they roamed the markets, stopping here and there to chat or buy produce, content. 

In this sense, the idea of a self checkout, removing any minimal contact in place when buying food, probably seemed ludicrous. We buy our food from a giant, identical store with almost no human interaction and no idea of where the food has come from, what is in it or how it was packaged. If that's first world, I'd take their set up any day. Shopping is an activity rather than a chore, interspersed with gossip, news and talking story, a location to meet up with friends and family and share information. 

Today we travelled through a number of small towns where it was evident just how little the people had. Yet everyone was busy, had something to do or a chore to complete. They were happy in their busyness and they knew no different. Many of the older generations simply sat outside on their porches (if you could call their broken gate and run down chair a 'porch') and observed their surroundings, their gaze steadily following our van as we rolled past, merely waiting for their sons, grandsons, brothers or friends to bring home food or animals or another agricultural development. 

I have fallen in love with their active, communal and simple lifestyle. Their lives are basic and happy. They live communally and place importance on each other and the land, putting in hard work to reap the results and the satisfaction is evident. They don't have a lot and they don't seem to care. Obviously they don't know any different, but why should they change the good they have going?

We visited a stunning gorge and a valley where Ahmed is from and lived all his childhood, where giant palm trees and beautiful grass grow along a fertile plain surrounded by the dry, barren desert, a stunning contrast. We took photos and stared. When we got back in the van we ate fresh bananas, mandarins and dried dates (which I feel partly stupid and partly 'local' for eating given the things I saw being sold around the dates and the people handling them). We had lunch at yet another delicious restaurant recommended by Ahmed where we have to call up in advance so that the food is available and ready and arrives in record speed, perfect for our grumbling bellies. We were lucky enough to watch crazy people rock climb up the giant cliff faces of the gorge, becoming tiny ants by the time our stomachs were full. 

We have now arrived in Moroccan Hollywood, Ouzararate, where a lot of films have been made for the gorgeous landscape and have just finished dinner in a delicious restaurant where we all succumbed to the overload of Moroccan food and chose, yikes, pizza. Back to tagine, cous cous and kefta tomorrow. 

We are exploring this town tomorrow before heading on to Marrakech! So excited! I can't wait to visit the Moroccan Mecca (not the literal Mecca, of course.) A hammam is optional for Friday and I stupidly forgot my togs! To nude or not to nude... ;) A thorough scrub and hour long (!!!) massage would not go amiss right now. 

Off to bed early tonight, breakfast involves freshly made pancakes and we've all set aside an extra 30 minutes... Haha.