• About Judith A. Ross

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

Monthly Archives: April 2013

Mid-day at the Oasis*

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, environment, friendship, health, inspiration, travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

family, food, gardens, Morocco, oasis

1-featurephoto

My son’s home in Morocco is right on the edge of an oasis. You only have to walk out his front door and turn right to step into an amazing landscape.

Karsten walks through the oasis on a daily basis. On this day, we were going to a friend’s house for lunch. We walked across a streambed, alongside an irrigation trough, and underneath a grapevine. Paul was a bit under the weather, so I had my son to myself that afternoon. After a year of missing him, it was treasured time.

2-acrossoasis 3-Let's go! 4-follow_irrigation 5-undergrapevine

We passed groves of date palms and olive trees.

6-oasis trees

7-olivegrove 8-olive

Like every other meal we were invited to in Morocco, this one included extended family. Our host’s parents, sisters, and nephews all joined us. A shy, but impish 4-year-old giggled as he rolled around on the floor with his djellaba-clad grandfather. After a delicious lunch of cous cous, we went outside and into the family’s walled garden.

wall

The small figs that go into savory dishes, like cous cous, grow here. (Click on the photos for a closer look.)

ekuran

As do dates. In the U.S., dates come separated in a plastic tub. In Morocco, you buy them in boxes and they are still attached to their stems. Until this garden tour, I had no idea what they looked like on the tree. These dates will be ready to pick in a few months.

dates

There were almond and pomegranate trees. The red flowers are pomegranate blossoms.

almondtree

pomegranates

At the end of the day, our host and his father walked us back across the oasis and home.

*I couldn’t resist.

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Essaouira Blues

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, environment, friendship, travel

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Essaouira, food, Morocco

doorsonside4

It has been a little more than a year since we dropped our son, “Karim,” off at Boston’s Logan Airport where he began his journey to Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer. While modern technology has kept us well-connected, we yearned to see him in person and experience a slice of his life there.

Our reunion took place in Marrakech, a crazy, bustling place. We walked to the old medina through unmarked streets that were filled with scooters and exhaust-spewing cars — this is a developing country after all. Between the sights, sounds, and smells, and the joy of being with our son again, it was a lot to take in. The camera stayed in Paul’s knapsack.

The next morning, we climbed into our rental car and headed to Essaouira, a beach town. Much less intense than Marrakech, it was a good place to start our journey. Karim has friends there, who are also in the Peace Corps.

The name of the riad where we stayed, Les Matins Bleus, reflected the town’s color scheme.

LesMatinsBleus1 lesMatinsBleus2

blue door arch3

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Tourists’ jackets also reflected the decor.bluecoats

The blue carried to the waterfront, where Paul took over camera duty and captured the fishing boats.

boats0

1boat 2boat

At the docks you can buy fish directly from the fishermen. Then, back in the medina, stop at the market for vegetables, before taking these purchases to a restaurant where they grill your food to perfection and serve it to you with bread – which also functions as your knife, fork, and spoon.

Eating in Morocco is a communal event: not a lot of cutlery or plates required.

fish1 fish2 fish3

The next leg of our trip took us back towards Marrakech and over the Atlas Mountains to my son’s site in Tinghir, where the real adventure began.treegoats1

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Goats grazing in a tree on the road to Essaouira.

“marhba bikom” — Welcome to Morocco

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, friendship, inspiration, travel, work

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Morocco, Peace Corps

upstairs

It’s a long way from Massachusetts to Morocco, and I’m not just talking about flight hours and time zones. The sounds and sights are a world away from my daily life at home.

As I sit in my son’s apartment typing this, I hear him conversing in Arabic with Abderhamane, his landlord. Earlier this morning I awoke to the eerie sound of the call to prayer reverberating throughout Tinghir, the small city where my son lives and works as a Peace Corps volunteer.

In a little while we will be joining Abderhamane and his family for lunch. In fact, my son’s fantasy of doing a lot of cooking with us while we are here may remain just that as we have similar invitations for almost every day of our visit. Friends, neighbors, and parents of students all want to welcome the “mama and baba” of Karim — the name he was given when he arrived here.

I have loads of photographs to share that show many of the colors and textures you have come to expect from Morocco.

cups

rugs-medina

There’s that special shade of blue covering the boats and doorways of Essauoira, a beach town where we spent an amazing two days…

bluedoor-studs

Photo by Paul Syversen

Photo by Paul Syversen

…and that you see every time you look up…

viewfromabove

or down.

pool

Then there’s the food.

Moroccan picnic

Moroccan picnic.

All of that is easy to share through photographs, but what will be more difficult to describe is the feeling of welcome I have had from all the people we’ve met here.

Because my son has lived here for a year and has many friends, we are meeting the real people of Morocco — not just those who make their living from tourism.

Their warmth and generosity is unlike anything I have experienced anywhere else. I hope to share those experiences — which can’t be summed up by photographs — in future posts.

downstairs

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