yallah

Last year the maisies spent 3 weeks in Morocco, on camels, eating pomegranates, drinking mint tea, taking the chicken bus, hiking, visiting mosques, and wearing many headscarves. Probably the most incredible place I have ever visited. We got lost in the souks, hearing "ça va, gazelle" as we passed stalls piled in a kaleidoscope of lanterns and leather satchels, were engulfed by barbeque smoke at every roadside café, and survived suffocating trains and tiny taxis. Our Berber improved extensively (from zero to five words) as we picked fresh figs from the palmeries and were scrubbed in a hammam by a vigorous old lady. Couscous and tagine took over our lives, as did broken hotel showers and the roll of pink toilet paper that was carried everywhere. And at the end of the day, on the terrace of a riad, we could hear the call for prayer drift through the warm night air. I miss seeing a minaret on every corner, old men wearing slippers in the street, drinking mint tea from morning till night, passing mosaic fountains and crumbling kasbahs, being asked "what is your tribe?" and just living and breathing and feeling my bones.

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