Zoe's Top Ten Tips for Tweens Travelling in Morocco

Hello, from 30,000 feet above France.

As we are leaving Morocco, I wanted to share my...

Top Ten Tips for Tweens Travelling in Morocco 

1. Don’t touch carpets unless you want to end up in the basement of a carpet seller’s shop, drinking tea and haggling over a carpet that you did not even want in the first place. Also, never believe the ‘just for looking, just for looking’  line; it is always a lie.

2. Tagine is good, but try to eat other foods when you can. Because once you get out of town you will eat nothing but Tagine.

3. When shopping for souvenirs in the medina, if the shop your at does not have exactly what your looking for, go somewhere else. If you are in the Fez or Marrakech medina, or any other big medina for that matter, there will be a shop selling exactly what you want. You just have to look for it. :)

4. If you go to a local Hammam  keep in mind that its not a spa, it’s a bath house. So, people are dressed as you would be if you were taking a bath, and any idea you had of keeping your towel on will disappear the moment you enter the main room. ; )

5. In Morocco there are two kinds of taxis, Grand Taxi et Petit Taxi. Petit Taxis can hold three people, no more. It is illegal to have more than three people in a petit taxi.

6. When haggling about taxi fare, if the guy you’re talking to won’t give you a fair price, walk away. He’ll either give you a fair price or you can easily find someone who will.                               

7. Go to Fez last, if possible. It’s called the arts and craft capital of Morocco with good reason, you can find any souvenir you want with a better price and quality in Fez.  Because we are trying to travel light, we would rather carry souvenirs for the shortest time possible. So it makes more sense to go to the place with good souvenirs last.

8. Camels are much more comfortable for long periods when ridden side-saddle, just hold on VERY tightly when going up sand dunes. (trust me, I almost fell off)

9. It’s necessary to bring a varied wardrobe when your travelling in Morocco. You’ll be freezing in the mountains one day and sweltering in the desert the next.

10. Take lots of pictures, there are tons of interesting things to see in Morocco and even more things to take pictures of. From little shops in the souks, to stunning panoramas, Morocco is an extremely picturesque country.

Habari za Tanzania?

Greetings from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 

I will resist the temptation to write long discourses on Swahili vocabulary and grammar -- been there, done in a blog I wrote when we lived here between 1998 and 2002. However, a quick lesson on how to greet someone may be in order as I update you on the news from our first two weeks back here with the kids. 

Rule #1:
The first word that you need to know is “habari" (hah-bar-ee), which translates roughly as "news". It is the first question someone will ask to inquire about what "news" you may have about themselves (Habari yako?), their children (Habari za watoto?), their cows, the place where they are from, their house,...pretty much anything.

Rule # 2:
If someone asks you “Habari….?”, the answer is usually "-zuri" or "good news". Habari yako? Nzuri. Habari za watoto? Wazuri? Habari za kazi? Nzuri. This is the case no matter how bad  the actual situation may be. In fact, they may be sad, the children may be sick or the cow may even be dying or have already died, but they tend to answer the same regardless. 

So with that brief introduction, here is our news from Tanzania.....

Habari za safari? / How is your trip?

Nzuri! After a short and unexpected visit with our friend, Stu, at the Istanbul airport, we arrived safely in Dar es.Salaam at 3 am, got our visas and luggage and caught a lift to a guesthouse.

Unfortunately, some microbe either followed me from Turkey (“But I didn’t eat the salmon mousse......"), or greeted me upon arrival here, which allowed me to reacquaint myself with the intimate details of Tanzanian plumbing during the next 36 hours. No one else got sick, at least. 

Habari za hali ya hewa? / How is the weather?

Nzuri! Well, Nzuri kidogo (a little bit good). It's hot here. Africa hot. 30 C and 70% + humidity and pounding sun all day, making you feel smothered all the time.  We quickly become lethargic and find ourselves slouching between pockets of air conditioning, huddling under ceiling fans and holding cold drinks to our foreheads to remember what not being picking hot feels like.

Of course, having lived here, we knew darn well it would be a hot time of the year to visit, but I’m surprised how we feel so incapacitated some days. 

Habari za jiji?  / How is the city?

When we lived here, we always joked that “Dar is a fine place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit here”. Although it was a city of 5 million +, there are not a lot of touristic sites to visit, and the things that we liked to do tended to be spread out all over the city. Of course, during our 12 year absence the city has only spread out and filled in further, and it has taken a while to find our bearings again. 

The major change, however, has been the massive increase in traffic since 2002. The city’s infrastructure was always a bit creaky: potholes on main roads, secondary roads that needed a 4x4 to crawl down, huge pools of water fed by open sewers and leaking pipes when it rained….but now the traffic (“fulani”) has become a constant hassle and preoccupation as private cars, taxis, daladala (taxi buses), bajaji’s (motorcycle taxis or “tuk-tuks”), Chinese motorcycles, bicycles, handcarts and pedestrians all compete for road / sidewalk / alleyway space.

A trip across town that used to take us 30 minutes now can last over 3 hours, and our friends complain that the longest part of travelling to Kampala or Nairobi is the drive to the airport. The city government is building a rapid bus transit line through one of the major arteries in town, but of course the construction is contributing to further tie ups in the meantime (say, that sounds like Ottawa…..). 

Habari za rafiki zenu? / How are your friends?

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A visit with Ibrahim Makuhi, his wife, Kwezi, and their kids. 

A key reason for coming to Tanzania, aside from showing the kids a few places that we used to haunt, was to see friends. And on that front, we’ve been quite successful. So far, we’ve met up with:

• our former colleague, Makuhi, his wife Kwezi and their kids; 
• Jean, a Maryknoll Sister friend of ours who has done some amazing work during her 47 years in Tanzania;  and
• our former World Renew Uganda colleagues, Jim and Josephine who now work with the Tanzania program.

We even connected with another vagabond family from Ottawa for a few days hanging out on a beach south of town.  

Tomorrow, we are taking a bus down to Iringa, a regional city about 8 hours from here that I used to visit every month. There we will visit some other friends who worked with our partner organizations as well as two good friends from our church in Ottawa who now live there, and another family who is visiting from Geneva. So, our blessing of friends continues. 

Habari za kazi? / How is the work?

When we decided that we were going to be in Tanzania, we’ve offered to do some volunteer coaching and training with World Renew and its partners. They were very receptive and they have lined up four short projects for us while we’re here. 

We started the first one by visiting ACHAMA, a volunteer-run organization that works with former sex-workers and youth-at-risk in three neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam. ACHAMA provides HIV/AIDS education and vocational training so that they can find alternative and safer livelihoods. Their committee members gave us a short overview of their work, and we met a few of the participants in a sewing class.  

But now, things are slowing down for the Christmas and New Year's break, so we'll focus on preparing for a workshop with ACHAMA, a strategic planning exercise for the World Renew Tanzania program, and a field visit to Mwanza where we'll work with staff from another partner in January. 

Habari za watoto? / How are the children? 

When we were first just finding our way in Istanbul back in September, Zoe suggested that we really should have eased into travelling by visiting a Western European city first. “That way, it wouldn’t have been such a big change for us”, she sighed. 

Oh my, I thought. Just wait until you get to Tanzania. 

Of course, after a few weeks, we did learn our way around Turkey and the kids started to have firm opinions on the best Turkish food, mosques, beaches, football teams, etc.

Isaac bears a striking resemblance to his long lost relatives at the National Museum in Dar es Salaam. 

This time, the kids largely have taken this transition in stride, albeit with some understandable complaints (see above). Between the heat, the traffic, the presence of security personnel everywhere, and the constant sensory overload of noise, bright light, colour, and people, diesel smoke, and dust....it is a hard place for anyone to get used to. Life here is really difficult for most people, and I wonder how much we can expect our kids (and us, frankly) to adjust to in a short time. 

But after two weeks, already a few places are starting to look familiar, our Swahili has come back to as good as it ever was, and we’ve resigned ourselves that God made our bodies to sweat.

In the meantime, we’re doing our best to negotiate the challenges, find some fun-ner things to do when we can,, and point out the beauty all around us.

If you can see through the stench of the open sewer, there are flame trees and marvellous plants everywhere. If you can listen through the noise of traffic, you’ll hear lots of joking and laughing as people commiserate and just keep plugging on despite everything. If you can concentrate on the one part of your body where there is a slight breeze, you can remember what it feels like to be cool just long enough until you find the next ceiling fan or a cold soda to hold against your forehead. 

Habari zetu? / How are we? -- Nzuri, tu. 

Trish's Top 10 Turkish Delights

As part of our last week in Istanbul, we're all writing down a list of things that we liked in Turkey. Here is my Top Ten list: 

Tricia in her blog post debut!

1. Travelling with my kids.  I feel like this trip is a third wave of travelling.  I started travelling with one other female (my sister, or my friend Connie).  Then I travelled solo for work, and that's fine, though frankly a bit boring. 
   
   Then when Dwayne and I lived in Tanzania, I felt the huge difference of travelling with a fellow.  I remember men on the street wanting to confirm that I was Dwayne's wife, after which they would ignore me (being rather like his property, I was thus invisible). 
   
   Now travelling with kids in Turkey is a whole other thing again.  People have been unfailingly kind to our kids.  It's been lovely.  And their presence has radically changed the way that Dwayne and I travel.  We knew we'd have to slow right down, which we have.  We have spent way more time hanging out in parks than we would otherwise.  We carry toys in our luggage.  We've got a soccer ball that gets deflated when we're moving, and immediately inflated again when we arrive at the next destination.  We've got Lego, markers and other craft supplies, a frisbee, a kite...  It's a whole other thing, traveling with kids.  I'm so glad we're doing this.
    
2. Cappadocia.  For me, this was the best part of Turkey.  A fabulous mixture of hiking, exploring caves, rocky beauty and wonder, and fascinating history.  The underground cities were amazing, as was the balloon ride.
    
3. The ruins.  That includes Ephesus, Knidos, Aphrodisias, the agora in Izmir and more besides.  Folks here through the ages built stuff that lasts.  It's been fun to walk through history, instead of only seeing it cased up under glass in museums.  Here we could sit down and read from e-books in the library of Celsus, stand in the porticos, walk on the marble walk ways, and climb around the temples, do our own races in a stadium, strut and sing in ancient theatres, and debate in council chambers.  Super cool.
    
4. The ease of travel here.  Turkey has been a pretty low-hassle kind of place.  Buses are clearly marked, roads are smooth, we've been surprised at how easy going most merchants are, even in the grand bazaar or main tourist areas.  Maybe that's because we're in the off-season?  But we've found it remarkably easy to get around in Turkey.
    
5. Grocery shopping.  I hate any other kind of shopping, but I like buying groceries.  It's so interesting to see what food is available, what's not, what's popular, what gets lumped together in one store, and what you have to find elsewhere.  For example, there's only a little milk available in the refrigerator section, but there umpteen different sizes and brands of yogurt.  You can find a bit of produce, but it's often quite limited, so you have to find out when the local market is, which is chock full of a fabulous variety of fresh stuff.  There are special stores for chicken and eggs.  I don't know which comes first.
   
   (Now getting more specific....)
    
6. The hike from Kayaköy to Ölüdeniz.  It was a beautiful walk, and the views over the bays of Ölüdeniz were wonderful
    
7. Our day kayaking from Ölüdeniz to Butterfly Valley.  It was great to be out on the water.  And doing so on the day when hundreds of paragliders filled the skies was spectacular.
    
8. Our first time WWOOFing.  We spent two weeks with a lovely family, hoeing, planting, piling rocks, and eating very well. I could WWOOF again.  Maybe in France?
    
9.  Izmir.  It's a great town.  We had an AirBnB flat just off a cool pedestrian street full of life.  Izmir would be a cool city to live in.
    
10. Simit stands.  All over Turkey, we've found hot sesame Turkish bagels (simit) being sold for 1 lira (50 cents) from carts on the street or at bakeries.  Yum.  The food in Turkey has been very good!

Zoe's Top 10 Turkish Delights

As our time in Turkey comes to a close, each of us has written a Top Ten List of things that we enjoyed doing. Here is mine: 

TOP THREE    

        1. Swimming off of boats in the Mediterranean        Sea in Bodrom and near Knidos.

1. Real rock climbing near Antalya with Guilliame, Lucie & Samuel. 

     1. Going on a Hot Air Balloon ride in Cappadocia

RUNNERS UP

1. Visiting Pamukkale and Climbing up the travertine pools in Pamukkale. 
2. Touring the ancient underground cities in Cappadocia, where Christians used to hide from invaders.
3. Visiting Aphrodisia, an Ancient Greek-Roman city in souther-western Turkey. 

OTHER FUN THINGS

1. Staying with Lucie and Samuel near Antalya (and speaking beaucoup de français!)
2. Reading a book in the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.
3. the ocean spray game with Isaac in Izmir. 
4. Visiting the Aya Sophia, Istanbul
5. Exploring Istanbul, in Istanbul.(: