Dressed and ready to celebrate our time here
Party announcement on the mountain top.
Pre party tea and arm wrestling!
Time to dance.
On our fourth night in the village in the valley of Zawiah Ahansal, the sheik and the Atlas cultural foundation leaders threw us a traditional Moroccan party. The festivities began with us getting dressed up by the women of the house in special djellabas and head scarves with rhinestones and sparkles.
Next, we went to the courtyard for tea time with some of the people we have been working with during our time in the village. We have tea almost 4 times a day, every day, in Morocco. Serving tea, providing fancy cups and kettles, and pouring the tea into the cup from as high as you can are all signs of respect for your guests. We actually had a special opportunity to learn how to make Moroccan tea with different local spices while we were at the peak of a mountain we hiked. In the afternoon, tea time is also accompanied by cookies, popcorn, and bread.
After the tea, we moved to the salon for dinner. You can expect bread with every meal in Morocco and its always served with olive oil. For dinner the night of the party we have Tagines, soup, fries, and chicken. Tagines are probably the most popular dishes in Morocco. On the side of the road you can see people selling tagine pots with the cone shaped lids which are raised when the dish is served and ready to be eaten. In most tagines are a meat, such as chicken or lamb, covered in vegetables, sauce and usually potatoes. Never pork however, because pork isn’t eaten in Morocco. Aromatic and delicious species are added to the food in the tagine generating a cacophony of flavors.
After dinner, we went back out to the courtyard and got to dance with a local traditional Moroccan band. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced or even seen before. The band consisted of about 7 men, all dressed in white robes. They had primarily handheld drums. The songs were all call and answer chants where one half of the group would yell something then the other half would repeat it. In addition to this, they were slowly bouncing up and down, shoulder to shoulder in a circular rotation. When I was first thrown into the circle, I was right in between two men singing and banging their instruments. It was crazy, but I started clapping and caught onto the steps they were doing and found myself having a lot of fun. Interestingly, once the drums cool off too much, they need to be warmed from a fire. Of course there was more tea outside during the dancing, which ran until 10:30!
By Emi