Kivu-Morocco trip makes it on to the Haaretz English website

A search for Jewish roots and Arab neighbors in Morocco

over the river and through the woods

on sunday, rabat smelled like barbeque. i imagine the rest of the morocco did as well. i went up to the roof of my friend's apartment building to watch her neighbor, mbarak, and his family slaughter their sheep. from the rooftop, i counted over a dozen other sheep on neighboring buildings meeting, or waiting to meet, the same fate. the sidewalks throughout the city were adorned with drops and pools of blood. as soon as the lamb stopped kicking, mbarak's wife passed out cookies. festivities were underway.

another friend, who is in the peace corps, told me they arent allowed to travel during the week of 'eid al-kabir (the big feast, also known as 'eid al-adha, the feast of sacrifice). leading up to the big day i expected the roast, but couldnt quite see how commemorating abraham's near-sacrifice of his son ishmael could be cause for such a ban.

now i think i understand. 2 days before the 'eid, i tried to make my way back from spain to rabat. after a bus, ferry and taxi, my friend and i arrived at the tangier train station and found it mobbed like nothing we had ever seen. the hordes of moroccans anxious to sacrifice sheep with their loved ones were rushing the doors and picking up metal barricades. we decided we weren't ready to fight that hard for train tickets and we would hired a shared taxi, with our new friends moulay, a moroccan who lives in holland, and his dutch girlfriend, hannuka.

about 1.5 hours into our 3.5 hour trip, the engine made a funny noise and the cab started filling with smoke. we pulled over. although we were about 10 km from a town, the driver insisted that we could only trust his friend who would come from tangier to pick us up. despite our protests, he had the final say. and luckily we managed to crawl the car to a rest stop where we drank tea while we waited out the 2 hours. we eventually made it back to rabat where we even had a home-cooked meal waiting.

yesterday, i tried to beat the post-'eid rush and get down to ouarzazate while the rest of the country sat and digested. my 5 hour train ride to marrakech went pretty smoothly. but then i went against my friends advice and opted for a bus over a shared taxi (since i couldnt bare the thought of 7 people smushed into a mercedes for 5 hours). the bus, like most in morocco, looked to be from my grandparents generation and smelled of exhaust fumes.

although ive taken many moroccan buses before, the road from marrakech to ouarzazate makes me nervous as it contains some of the most windy and dangerous passes through the high atlas mts. the sun set, we reached the snowcaps and other than the fat moroccan in the seat next to me falling on sleep on me, things were ok. 3 hours in, the engine made a bad sound and smoke started pouring out of the bus' underbelly.

broken down for the 2nd time in 4 days, and this time in lesser-traveled snowy mountains, i was less than amused. and this time, i did not have a moroccan, or darija-proficient (moroccan arabic) american friend as a travel companion/translator. i didnt even have european with a name that still makes me crack a smile. we lit fires and waited.

eventually some vans showed up and some of us payed for new rides. i was almost ready to swear off ground transportation and look into splurging on a flight to casablanca. but i think i am going to brave it again with an overnight bus back to rabat tomorrow night.