California Here We Come!

After nearly three months of Moroccan quarantine, we're finally leaving sunny Marrakech for sunny California. Although Morocco remains locked down until at least July 10th, we are fortunate to have secured seats on a US Embassy repatriation flight leaving in a couple of days.  We're grateful for some assertive Americans who  lobbied the embassy to arrange the flight, and to social media for allowing easy communication between us would-be passengers. Turns out there are LOTS of US citizens trying to get home, so we were lucky to get tickets.

It's been pretty quiet since my last post, but for the historical record I'll share a few highlights of Morocco Quarantine 2020.

On our walks around the golf course we made friends with a litter of 8 puppies and their mom.

As a rule, I NEVER feed stray animals, but this time I caved.  I guess my heart melted when they all came running to greet us on our morning walks. I blame quarantine induced madness and the fact that they outnumbered me for this lapse in judgement! Who could resist?

Last month was Ramadan, when faithful Muslims fast from the time the sun comes up until it goes down again in the evening. Even while fasting, many people continue to do physically demanding work, including those who maintain the beautiful landscaping in our neighborhood. After an unusually heavy rain at the beginning of Ramadan, the golf course needed lots of extra attention that added extra work for our fasting friends. And many parts of the sidewalk around the golf course were covered with rocks and soil that had washed down during the storm. Concerned about the landscape crew doing all of these additional tasks while fasting, Rob and I decided to shovel and sweep the walks early every morning before the yard crew came to work. Crazy as it sounds it was really fun and good exercise!

But here's the best part! Last week, after Ramadan was over, Rob and I found a message from the workers written in chalk on the sidewalk! It said:

Mirci Ms. Albert et Md. Sosane

Translation: Merci (thank you) Monsieur Albert (not quite Robert, but close enough!) and Madame Sosane (Susan)

This made my day! Another reminder that it's the small things in life that mean the most. And by the way, Albert has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

As you can tell from the pictures, my hair is unusually long and in desperate need of some chemical attention! Oh well...

Rob on the other hand is neatly shorn handsome as ever. Can you believe he trusted me to trim him up? Once again, YouTube saves the day!

BEFORE

 AFTER

We're really excited to get home and hopefully see many of you, even if from a distance. I'll close with some pictures of the Moroccan sky taken over the last few weeks. They are a reminder to me that even in difficult times, there are always things to appreciate and look forward to. Not sure when, but we'll be back Morocco!