A Hobbit's Tale

For full effect listen to ---> track 2 <--- of the Fellowship of the Ring film score while you read. 

On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, a white busvan brimming with 12 American students dragged up a dirt rode into the northern Moroccan village of Beni Koula. I was among those students, and what we were about to experience is perhaps the closest to the life of a hobbit as we will ever achieve (minus the ale).

In each of our respective host homes we were awaited with steaming dishes of wholesome food surrounded by still warm from the oven chunks of ever-present bread. Mornings and the daily tea times consisted of bread with peach jam and dishes of straight from the branch olive oil (said by the villagers to give you super human abilities) - all washed down by the best tea I've had in Morocco - a perfect balance of sweet and mint.

After Rob, my American class/roommate, and I had stuffed ourselves plump with dinner from our host family we would head over to our host cousins, home to two more American students and eat dinner with them. After the main dish was consumed a basket larger than a cat was brought forth overflowing with fresh picked apples, bananas, oranges and my favorite - pomegranates.

A light meal. 

Now that we were all as stuffed as the pillows we were sitting on it was time for music and dancing. A conglomeration of traditional Moroccan music and American pop provided a canvas for a plethora of dance moves. This became a nightly occurrence.

Eventually, when we were too tired to go on, myself, Rob and host brother Mohammed would lumber as bear who had eating too many berries back across the starlit courtyard and burrow into our blankets.

The mornings came early, as they tend to do. After (attempting) to milk the cow with my mother Nora and eating a quick breakfast we hustled down the road with the village kids to the local school to teach English, plant olive trees, and for those bestowed with an artistic eye, paint murals. Enthusiasm was unbound.

Action shot! Look at all that enthusiasm! So enthusiastic they're running!

Afternoons were spent roaming the village surroundings, eating roots of bushes, climbing trees just big enough not to classify as bushes, picking prickly pears, cracking open cool rocks and poking sticks in scorpion holes. The daily roaming was brought to a casual halt by those dazzling sunsets that make you want to smoke a pipe in a tree and write a poem.

Pricking of the prickly pear.

It was a sad departure on Friday morning, but as soon as we had wifi we eagerly blasted back onto the grid sponging up what remnants of the past weeks news we could gather.

Main takeaways?
1. The presence of clocks is directly related to the speed of the passage of time.
2. Quit touching the cactus.
3. Never be afraid to stuff yourself silly, then do it again and dance.