Friday, July 06, 2007

Drumming in Dades Gorge

Dades Gorge, Morocco

Yesterday morning, after spending the night in the hotel where David Lean stayed during the filming of Lawrence of Arabia, we crossed the dried up river bed into the old village - a UNESCO world heritage site.

A lot of the village had been rebuilt for the filming of the movie, but as we discovered walking around, what was rebuilt was what could be seen from afar. Everything else was still a little bit falling apart. All the buildings are made of rammed earth - similar to adobe, and when it rains the walls have an unfortunate tendency to melt. We got to see the inside of one of the towers of the kasbah (fort) and then walked all the way up to the top of the hill. From the top we could see the arena they had created for the filming of gladiator.

After recovering from our very hot walk, we drove east, into the valley of the roses, then the valley of the kasbahs, and finally into the dades gorge. The gorge is spectacular. The sides are made of red rock, which has been carved into strange brain like formations in some places. The floor of the valley is green - there are lots of fig and olive trees, as well as fields of potatos, wheat, mint, and other plants I couldn't indentify. The fields are small, but they make use of every inch of land, and it's all very intensivly cultivated.

After finding a place to stay, mom, Ian and I were walking along the road and we saw a threshing machine that was getting hooked up to a tractor. Since it was taking a while we walked on and then when we walked back by it they were feeding wheat into the machine.

As we stood there watching one of the women working motioned for us to help them carry the wheat to the machine. When we actually started to help, they looked very surprised and pleased. I guess it was a kind of dare or joke, they didn't think we could actually help. After a few trips to the machine the woman told mom to stop, I guess we were overloading the system.

At dinner that night (we were the only ones staying in the hotel) we asked the guy who broght us dinner, who is a trek leader most of the time about the thressing machine. He told us how easy it made the process. Now they could separate an entire family's grain from the wheat in two or three hours instead of the day or two it used to take them with a mule walking in circles over and over and then throwing the hay into the air.

At dinner William asked about drumming, because when he had stayed at the place 10 years ago, guys had been playing drums after supper. So the trek leader guy found a couple of guys working in the hotel to play the drums. Then they got mom and Ian, and later me to give it a try. The drums they gave me were heavy and kept slipping, but it was really fun. At one point the hotel manager came out and played for a while.

My camera and the computer are now over their argument and are talking again, so hopefully there will be some photos soon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So will you be ready to back me up on my gigs when you get back? ;)

I look forward to the photos. I hate it when devices decide not to talk to each other. A lot of what you describe is hard for me to imagine and pictures will help. I know they won't come close, but they'll help.

Must check the temperature of the yogurt milk. Your advice about heating it more slowly was quite good.