Morocco and then Menton, France 2018 | A night of music

It was a bit of a drive to get here but we are just outside of Midelt, a midway stopover between Fes and the Sahara. Our drive took us through forests and high sierra, mostly the latter. The forest is rich with cedar and oak trees, and parts of it are populated by Barbary Coast Macaques. These little monkeys that they are, hang out around the trees and wait to be fed. And of course there is an entrepreneurial Moroccan there to sell you peanuts. The macaques are shy compared to the aggressive animals we met in India. I am fascinated by their behaviour. We watched a mom chastise her little one with a gentle  slap, then affectionately take him in her arms and coddle him.

The Middle Atlas mountain region is mostly suitable for grazing sheep and the pinkish rock-strewn fields are home to countless herds and the Berber tribes who tend them. Some of the Berbers live in tiny villages; some are nomadic. Fattah explained that  sometimes a family will establish themselves in one location and the men and older  children will roam the fields, maintaining a nomadic lifestyle while herding the animals. I was intrigued by the idea  that "water makes a village, but a road makes a town." And so it was that several smalls towns appeared seemingly from nowhere as we made our way up into the mountains. The photos of the villages are taken from the van, but you get the idea.

Few people know this but Morocco has a ski hill, called Mischliffen that is frequented by Emirates, Saudis and other wealthy tourists from around the Middle East. Many of them own their own homes here; others stay in upscale resorts. We had morning coffee in a French patisserie in a town whose name I can't remember, but when we got to Ifren, the heart of ski country, it could have been a ski town  anywhere. I thought it looked a lot like Kimberley with its high pitched roofs, or Panorama, especially with the terrain being more like sprawling ski fields than rocky mountains like we know back home. But the mountain they ski on is at 6000 feet! I can't do the math tonight either!

We ate lunch in a roadside cafe with, let's just say 'character'. The young men serving us were dressed up in traditional Sahara or Tuareg garb. They sported huge turban-like headdresses in cobalt blue and saffron (the Tuareg colours), with the tails draping down over their djellabas. I laughed as this young man, maybe 18 or 19, disrobed from all of that to reveal a pair of skinny black jeans bunched at the ankle, a monogrammed t-shirt, and a swanky haircut with the sides cut short and a bouffant of glossy black hair on top. I'm thinking he uses argan oil to keep it looking that way!

But the highlight of our day was the music. Fattah had arranged for a group of Berber musicians to play at dinner. There were three musicians in simple white djellabas, and two women, also in white, accessorized by multi-coloured beaded jingling belt-like decorations. The women's' costumes looked pretty complicated to me, and so did their hip dancing (we called it belly dancing but we were corrected). One of the men played a viola but instead of placing it under his chin, he stood it upright on his knee. The bowing was so curious, I don't know how to describe it. The other two played frame drums, the kind with just the skin  stretched on a open frame, and everyone sang. It seems they improvise-- kind of the way we might sing a campfire song with everyone taking turns making up a verse. I have not the slightest idea what they sang about but the back and forth between the men and women suggested sex and romance was in there somewhere.

After dinner we were treated to an encore. We climbed the stairs to the top of the building where it seems there are quarters for staff. Eleven of us crowded into a tiny room--with Fattah and his friend joining the group with a lotra. It's and hand-hewn wooden instrument with four strings played like a guitar. Seeing it all so up close and personal was really quite amazing as the musicians interacted with each other and with the women who continued to sing. Finally there were cheek to cheek farewells and handshakes, bonsoir, and  'a la prochaine' (until next time).