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Published: January 22nd 2007
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No Shade
in the Atlas foothills, but in January the sun isn't too bad and we managed to stay out all day without any problems. For the New Year (by the Islamic calendar) I went to visit another volunteer who lives in the Marrakech region. She had planned a hike with some of her students and we left town, headed for the Atlas foothills. Her town is right at the base of the mountains, though at low enough elevation that it was still warm in the afternoon sun. We didn't have to worry about the new snow they got up at higher elevations.
We had a good dozen kids when we started out, though some dropped off and others joined on as we walked along. It was fun for me to get out of town and hike out in the hills. I have been in the Atlas far less than I had hoped when I arrived here.
After going uphill for a couple hours the kids decided it was lunch time and we started searching for some shade to sit in. There is precious little shade in the country and it took another half hour before we found some trees tucked back in a gully. It wasn't the ideal place for the football game Rebecca had been hoping for after lunch. She brought the
Football
on Xtreme terrain. Nobody got hurt tackling, but two people got hit square in the face and everybody slid down into the creek bed at least once. All American Picnic combination of a football, frisbee, oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies and her iPod with battery powered speakers. We did manage to have a couple hours of catch with the football and a little frisbee, though the breezes in the little canyon made it a tricky.
In all, it was a successful seven hour outing in which we were moderately lost for most of the day. We all made it back to town long before dark, after going back by a completely different route of following our lunch canyon down, figuring the drainage had to lead back to the riverbed that goes through town. In a roundabout way, it did lead back to town and I got to scramble down some impressive drops that reminded me of Utah and a certain Edward Abbey story about him getting caught in a box canyon he had dropped down into, only to realize he couldn't survive the next drop down and couldn't climb up the way he had come. It's one of the stories in Desert Solitaire. Luckily each time we looked over the edge of the next drop is was obviously easy to get down.
Back at Rebecca's house a
MVP
Rebecca and I with our MVP Ghizlaine, who had the best throw out of all of us. group of neighborhood kids with drums congregated below her windows, ringing the doorbell and yelling (or perhaps it was supposed to be singing) to accompany their deafening drumming. We were quite confused as to what to do, vaguely remembering something about a holiday that you are supposed to give kids money for. By the time we had gathered together some small coins the kids had moved on, though when we asked the neighbors they said the kids were just playing and it wasn't yet the day to give kids money. I suppose we'll have to ask somebody how this works before the drummers come back.
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omar farroukh
non-member comment
thanks for everythimhg
hi i am omar from sao paulo in brasil.i am really happy to page your blog. i have spent 27 of my life in ait ourir my heart.and the last time i visited my family ,i saw erica teachimg the kids how to play bisball.it was funny