Huize Märki: April..does as it will...

so.. since my last entree was sending you happy new year-wishes, josien thougt it was time for me to do some blogging again. and ofcourse she`s right!

In the beginning of february, we went toi holland to celebrate me parent`s 30 year anniversary. (the 12th of February). We spent a weekend at a beautiful hotel with the whole family, except for little nephews:-( We had a wonderful dinner, went to see `the Tourist` at the cinema together, and on sunday we went to a nearby church. They were a very small branch and were happy with the support of us filling up the small chapel. Lukas and me spend a couple of more days at home, I was happy to be able to visit my grandfather, opa van Maldegem, we further visited my wonderful friend Sibylla and her husband, went and had a wonderful dinner at my brothers Michiel and his wife Melina, we got to enjoy our nephews that are getting soo big at Josien and Richard`s. After what seemed 4 very fast days, we drove to Ascheberg, Germany, to visit a lady, Frau Zumdick, that I have lived with for 4 months back in 2003.
She was happy to see us, had invited us over and over again and this was her first time to meet Lukas. We were totally spoiled with wonderfull food (she is the best cook, I gained about 5 kilos in these 4 months that I lived with her!!!) and a trip to a cook castle that I totally forgat about, we went home saturdaymorning and arrived in the evening.
The end of february brought us a `surprisevisit` from my parents, they went to a electro-magnetic-field-mat-Concress in Germany and wanted to stop by on their way back to celebrate my birthday with us, the 4th of March. They spent a week here, and I was happy to be able to show them around and share with them our favorite walks, and other nice things in the area. Since we don`t have a television, they also had lost of time to read in the evenings! It was nice to see them have a good time here.
March was a very exiting month, because we had been planing and checking out a trip to Marokko, Marrakesh for a couple of of months, and had finally booked in january.

Mondaymorning, the 14th of March at 4:00 the alarmclock awoke us to leave and catch our plane. After I think about 3 hours (incl. 1 hour time difference), we arrived at an odd looking airport. From the air, it was very cool to see the different kind of houses (all square, no triangle roofs, and all of them in a pretty, redish, sandy colour). That, together with the land, very dry and sandy, we even thought we have seen the Sahara, made it clear that we landed in a totally different world.

We decided to walk from airport to hotel (about 7 km.) to have a look around and to be able to `kill some time`. We were allowed into our hotel at about 15.00 and we arrived at about 11.00. So that was a perfect gap for a little walk.
Too bad that little walk turned out to be a huge hike, because of google earth having NO CLUE where our hotel was located. It send us to the totally wrong place:) Even most kind and less kind people that we asked, had no clue.
Now you should know, we decided on a `Riad` (old original house where a marrokan family had lived in for generations, now turned into a hotel), was located into the very `hidden` part of an old, old part of Marrakesh. So only few people really knew, where we wanted to go. After about a 5 hr walk, we finally reached our destinatoin. Only to find our Hotel closed, we waited for another 15 minutes untill someone let us in. Afterwards, we laughed about the whole thing, but I was getting kind of frustrating after searching for this non-excisting riad after a couple of hours!
The place was beautiful. It appeared we had the whole house for ourselves!!
We got the key and were on our own! Only the very last day of our stay, another `couple` arrived. There was a lady that took care of us, made breakfast and made our bed every day and changed our towels. She was the sweetest lady, her name was `Lativa`. She lived in the Riad only when guests where there, but was gone to school most of the day.
I have to be honest, Marokko is a VERY Beautiful country. But our impression of the country, was mostely negative. After a couple of days, it even made me very angry and sad, the way we were treated over and over again. Like I told lukas, I am SICK and TIRED of being treated like just another DUMN TOURIST!! Sick of being lied to, sick of people, pretending to be nice, untill the point where you didn`t show interest of buying anything, people almost forcing you to do or buy stuff, you didn`t wanted to do or buy, etc. (like people putting monkeys on your shoulder or spraying hennah on your hands, when you clearly shout NO and run away at the same time. The minute you only look at a monkey you pay money. If you agree that a `nice` person shows you the way when you are lost, you agree on it that you DONT have money on you anymore (that was the truth, lukas started to leave our money in the hotelroom, and just took as much as we thought we needed every day). And after showing us the way for 5 minutes, he wants an ABSURD high amount of money, and gets VERY angry if he doesn`t get it!!! Even though you agreed on it! That happened to us like 4 times. We started to always say no to help, no matter how lost we were sometimes:-) That really made me think, can`t they just show us the way, purely out of friendlyness??? Why is that not possible!?
It took us, but especially me, a few days to realize, that: This is Marokko. This is the way they do things here. It helped a LOT that we were able to meet 2 Marokkan people, that actually were nice to us and you could feel that they MEANT it. They spoke the truth and were just, genuinly nice! I think I wrote in my diary, They Exist! There ARE nice people here! :-)
Maybe it just took us a while to get over the cultur-shock, and `get` the people, understand the way people `tick` and are and work and are used to be like, for as long as they can remember.
And then it started to be fun. :-) We played with them, the way they played with us. I realized, I don`t HAVE to LET me be treated like a dumn tourist!
It was really fun to make this switch and it learned us a LOT.
We mainly stayed in the city of Marrakesh, but also went and planned some trips. For example to the Beach, to Essaouira. Essaouira has been a trading post for almost 3000 years, starting with the Phoeniciansa. It`s a beautiful beach village with cute white/blue houses, a gorgious vieuw, markets and fishers at work. Pooping seebirds (the big, white ones) making lots of noise and some historical sites, worthwile to visit. The harbour was a peace of art by itselve, with the blue botes just lying there.

The second trip we made, was to the Ourika Valley. One of the most gorgious places I have ever seen. On our way to there, we had a magnificent vieuw of the Atlas Mountains. I have to admit, they kind of looked the same, as the Swiss Mountains,:-) but it was very very pretty.

The smells in Marrakesh, were very interesting. The food that was prepared and the way the people smelled and all of the dirty old cars and small motorcycles, combined with the strong smell of horse-pee that almost made lukas feel sick the first night :-).Or maybe it was the combination of all the smells, combined:-) Truly another world...
I loved the `Tagine`-food. Couscous, chicken, with I dont know how many vegatables, cooked on fire very slowly in a special `pan`. The herbs on top of it.. hmmmmm My favorite food. Of course I can`t do it at home, the way it tasted over there, but I took some herbs home and love enjoying the smells of Marakkesh in our home once in a while..
It was a very interesting experience, visiting the place where they made leather out of animalskinns, that were laying around. (Mainly cow, sheep and camel). I will not forget the smell there either... A friend of mine told me, when you have seen that, you will never buy a leather thing in your life again:-) We still bought a beautiful, handmade leather bag for Lukas`s father and a purse for me:-) I also bought some gorgious leather white Temple shoes, and lukas traded his watch (the man was interested immediately after he told him he was from switserland), against some leather house shoes for me and for lukas. (mine are orange and beautiful, lukas are made our of camel leather).

Monday exactly a week after we left, we left our hotel at about 7.00 am for another WALK- not hike, this time:-) to the airport. It had soo many taxis on our way, trying to get us into their taxi, but we enjoyed our last minutes of Marrakesh on foot.
It was, like I said, an amazing interesting week. We saw and learned a lot. The flight back was GORGIOUS since we we able to see the Swiss Alpes very clearly, right as we flew over them. We were happy to be back in Switersland. Feeling extra blessed, to live in a free country, where you can express ourselves, the way you want to. Where we enjoy so much freedom and blessings. Where most of us don`t have to worry about if they have enought to eat, if your children can go to school, learn things, where you don`t have to go and beg `dumn tourists` for money, day after day... ;-)

March ended splendedly, the weather turned from spring to `summer` and that hasn`t ended the day I write. (the 12th of april) We had 1 or 2 days of rain in between, but the rest has been so pretty, that I wonder if this is Summer already and if Fall will come next. :-)
I have radish, lettuce, basil, parsley, prune trees, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, flowers etc. growing on my balcony and having so much fun taking care of it.
At the moment, I am very busy planning a Relief Society weekend for the sisters in our Stake, they are signing up like crazy and I hope the weekend will be so much fun. (13.-15. of May)

I think that was about it.. so far, so good for my update. I will try to better my life Josien !!! ;-)

I will post some pictures, Marokko, and maybe balcony-veggies below. I`m always having a hard time getting right the pictures to the right prescriptions, but I will try!