Marrakech experience

I just returned from a 2 day, one night, trip to Marrakech, one of the old and historic towns in Morocco. We had a large bus load of 39 people which made an intimate look at the narrow and windy alleys of this quaint town quite difficult. And, like many organized tours, the tour company laid on several “touristy” things, like belly dancing after dinner.

But, on the second day we had an interesting journey into the Atlas mts, a mt. chain that runs generally north-south in the interior of Morocco. While the coastal area (Rabat, Casablanca) enjoys a Mediterranean climate, if we were to have had time to crest the Atlas mts and venture further east we would have come to rather arid land and the Sahara. We did have the opportunity to spend a bit of the morning in a Berber village and although “staged” for us, we got inside a “typical” home and were shown the art of making mint tea. On the way to the village we stopped briefly at a road side store where many fossils were being sold. I did bargain for a fossil that had been found in the higher Atlas mts—it will be placed in my library next to the fossil I had purchased near Beirut.

As part of their grade, students are required to do some type of research and writing for their classes while on their field trips. For my two world regional geography classes I have established the theme of “place” and have asked my students to find some sub-theme, such as architecture, churches, the market place, gardens, etc that help define a culture. One of my students was along with me on our journey to the Berber village and was quite enthused with what she saw and she came up to me to say that she knew what her first writing was going to be on. It is an added dimension to teaching to have access to the students, and vice versa, outside the class room.

A fossil from the Atlas mountains, in Morocco

 

A Berber man and his donkey

 

Mimi, one of my students, at the mint tea ceremony