DAY 111

I don't know why I was so famashed, but I ate so much at breakfast that you would have thought that I was fasting for Ramadan as well. Even thought I had a large dinner last night. Today we have to cooking lessons, the morning one we made Kebda M'shermla (Liver Salad), Briouate Bel Crevette (Prawns Briouate)but we made a special cheese one for me, Tangia (Marrakechi speciality), Qotbane bel Kefta (Mince Meat Brochettes), Baghrire (Moroccan-style pancakes). If it wasn't for the prawns the Briouates looked so good. In the Biouate's there was green and red peppers, Haritha (or hot sauce), paprika, cumin, lemon, garlic, parsley and coriander, and then sunflower oil. Since I couldn't have that we made a special cheese one for me, made with eggs,flour, milk, and Laughing Cow. The Tangia is a Marrakchi speciality, it is a speciality more for the way it is cooked than what being cooked, even though that's still very important. What happens is we have all the ingredients and we put it into this urn looking pot and then seal it. It then needs to sit inside the hot coal for 5 hours before it's done. So after our cooking lesson we got into the car and drove to the center of town where there is one of these special "ovens" that is for public use. The nice thing is that since it is now Ramadan, most people won't bring their Tangia's till later, so our was the only one. We had a little free time before we sat down to lunch. While eating lunch outside the trash man came around to pick up the trash. Except their trash man was this older man with a donkey and a flatbed cart. Though it really was the official, if you could call it that, trash man, since there was the some official looking symbol, then all this stuff in French and Arabic, saying that is who it was, painted on to this piece of wood that was hammered onto the side of the cart. Now i'm thinking that they must have a more modern trash removel service in the city and that this was ours since even though were only a couple minutes outside the city, were still in the middle of nowwheresurronded by palm trees and lots and lots of sand. After lunch however we spent the afternoon camel riding, WHICH WAS SOOOOOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!! Besides the actual ride the view was great, we either had the Atlas Mountain Range or an endless desert. There was actually at one point when we came across a skull, next to this cactus, that looked like a camels head. After out trek throught the palms and a little bit of desert we headed back to the house. At which point we had our second cooking lesson of the day. This lesson included Shlada Matecha (Tomato and Onion Salad), Khobz Maghrebi (Moroccan Bread), Smen (preserved butter), Laymün bel-Qerfa (Orange and Cinnamon Salad). We had dinner and then stayed up just chatting till sort of a late time, then a little bit after the staff had left we all were kind of tired so we decided to go to sleep.

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