Morocco Chapter 5

The next morning I did indeed wake up at 4:45 I think it was…and we all huddled in the cold waiting until it was time to get on our camels. Although it was freezing, I was glad I was awake in the darkness when all the electricity was still off…I didn’t know so many stars existed in the sky! It was absolutely incredible, a fingerprint of God that I hadn’t seen quite in that way before! And while we’re on the subject, the sand dunes inspired the same awe in me—they were another wonder of creation that left me speechless as I saw them for the first time. They amazed me in the same way mountains do. But it was weird because it was like that same grandeur of mountains—the height and impressiveness—but with something completely different. Made of a deep orange sand and lacking any trees or vegetation, they loomed against the solid blue sky as if confident in their simple but matchless splendor.

But I digress. So we woke up early and hopped on some camels, and I got my own this time! It was fun and I must say, much much more comfortable when you have the camel to yourself! Although it did still made me nervous going up and down those little dunes, as well as the standing up and sitting down of course. We went to one really big dune and got off the camels and climbed up to the very top ourselves, and just sat and waited. The sun rising over the Sahara was quite a sight!

After breakfast we rode the camels back to the land rovers and headed out. Needless to say, we had some even worse problems getting through the sand this time. We and everyone else kept getting stuck and having to get out and help each other get unstuck. At one point, our car and this other car got really really stuck. So we got out and were trying over and over again to push the cars out of the sand. Finally our vehicle got loose and so he just drove off. We were like “Hmm…wonder where he went…ok…” The other one was still there though and we were all standing there watching all these Moroccan guys try really hard to get the other 4x4 out. Eventually another driver came back for us, and all of us from both of the two stuck vehicles (there were about 8 of us I think, 6 students and Esther and Michael) piled into this one 4x4. It was probably the craziest ride of my life! The guy had to drive really fast, I guess it was so we wouldn’t get stuck in the sinking sand again…so we were all squished in there like on a ride at Six Flags, everyone being jerked and flung around as he sped over all the little dunes. I was really honestly scared because half the time it felt like the car was going to flip over! Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure petite little Esther was sitting on the window sill hanging out like the always did! Hehe it was funny. Luckily we didn’t die—we made it out of the dunes to where everyone else (yes, fortunately our driver, too!) was waiting for us. They were just chillin, some of them were dancing to some music they had turned up real loud in one of the cars.

We went back to the nice hotel for lunch…and somewhere in there we went to another place where they tried to sell us rugs again…then we rode the bus through the mountains and stopped at several look-outs, like one over an oasis which was really cool. We kept driving through the mountains and a lot of the countryside. A lot of the time our guide, Muhammad, would talk to us and explain things; he would do it in Spanish and English. He would say funny things in his broken English. He would always say “might” for things that we were obviously going to do, “we might go to Fez, then we might eat at the hotel, then we might have a tour…” When he told us we would get free time to shop at a market the next day he said, “Each is free to buy what he wants, free like birds in the sky.” Hehe. At one point we were driving by farmland and little homes and communities way out in the country and he told us about how hard life is there. They are very very poor and do not have almost any doctors or medicines available to them due to the location. It made me sad and want to do something to help! Muhammad explained to us the role of women in the country as opposed to that of the changing urbane environment. In the country it is still very traditional, where the husband has total control over her and she has no rights at all. I don’t think he remembered he was talking to a bus almost full of American girls when he explained that a man wants a wife from the country because she will be submissive and she is uneducated so she doesn’t know any better, she can just basically live to meet all his needs. It was about the last straw when he told us why he would want to marry a fat woman: “If I get married to a fat woman in wintertime she gives me warmth and in summer time she gives me a good shadow.” Hehe it was funny…but at the same time sad to see how women really are very oppressed there under traditions of Islam and the culture. They need missionaries there to show them what freedom and worth they have in Christ! Although that would be one tough mission field…

That last night we slept at a different hotel that wasn’t nearly as nice as the one before. We had a little musical performance at dinner though, so that was fun.