aren't you a girl from this region?

So...
The Museum finally opens about half an hour late and my friend and I are the only patrons. The man in charge aplogizes for being late and gives us some brochures, one in English and the other in French. We look at pieces of pottery and coins that have been exavated from the Sijilmassa site. It takes us no more than about 10-15 mintues to be "done." We try to figure out what to do to fill the time before the bus leaves for Zagora. Our time is spent mostly walking around looking, taking an excursion through the souq and then going to buy our bus tickets for Zagora. It is a long bus ride, about 6 hours. We pay our 70 dirhams each ( about 9 US dollars ) and get on the bus a bit early.

The bus takes off reasonably early and we drive through the dramatic desert landscape. I am just amazed that people find the courage to live in such a place, but then i remind myself that people live in the oasis, not the heart of the dry rocky desert.

The bus attendant takes an interest in me. He is just trying to figure out what my story is, I look so much like them, butI am abviously somehow "different." On one of his repeated trips down the aisle, he manages to start a conversation with me , beginning in Tashilhet (a berber language). It is a test to see if i am from the area. He goes on for a few sentences with me staring at him blankly. Then he switches to Arabic. "Aren't you a girl from this region?" he asks. I reply in the negative. " But your origins are from this area, right?" he continues. " I dont know,possibly, God knows" I reply. He almost laughs at this. "you dont know, well, i feel sorry for someone who does not know their origins." Then walks away up the aisle.

After a long dusty road, with people getting on an off the bus in places so remote that you wouldnt think that there were even people living there we finally arrive in Zagora. In those final moments on the bus I make a decision to scratch the cheap hotel and atleast go for mid-range, simply because after a long dusty trip of more than 15 hours I need the guarantee of a warm shower. I talk my travel partner into the luxurious idea and within an half hour we are in a little town adjoining Zagora called Azmour sitting inside the most comfortable quaint bed and breakfast I have ever been in. It is a tradtional Southern Moroccan riad, all the walls are made of clay and hay. It had been rehabbed by a French couple and is in an assuming residential neighborhood. All of the neighbors are Moroccans just living their lives.

It is the "low season" for tourism, we are the only patrons at the bed and breakfast which gives us an advantage in bargaining a price for the room. But because we have arrived late in the afternoon, we have caught the owner off guard with regards to meals. We will have to fend for ourselves for dinner. No worries, we head to a little grocer buy some German brand corn flakes and some milk, a bag of almonds, go back to the beautiful bed an breakfast and enjoy the first bowl of cereal i have had in more than five months (with bananas on top just like at home!).

And then a warm shower and sleep to get ready for the adventures that await us the next day......