Day 234 10th March
Ben Mansour
Day off the bike.
Up at 7.30 with Younes and Aman joining me. In fact Younes slept in my room last night. Brekkie of hasher bread with cheese and olives. Then off to the patisserie for a Danone delivery and a free yoghurt for me and Aman. More tea before prayers at the mosque, which gave me time to clean the bike and try to fix the gear lever with some help from the older boys. We had couscous with eel for lunch before going to the souk for coffee with Kamal, Aziz and Mohamed, where Vernon on Facebook was asking if I’m OK after not posting for a while. I had just enough wifi to reply, and explain that lack of good wifi and options to charge batteries which had been ongoing, meant I was out of touch for a while.
We went to see Aziz’s wife’s family, to get involved in a big discussion of a dispute over land between two brothers which became very heated and lasted about three hours, although one of the brothers was not present. We did have tea and bread and I got to see a very large farm at work.
Large farm
Ali, my guide in the tour of Fes, had told me then that hypocrisy is one of the worst sins in Islam and that families and disputes need to be talked through in detail.
Personally I think that for all the hassle involved, to keep the peace I would have rebuilt the outdoor staircase on the other side of the house, but it would mean a lot of work. Even so, for me this would save a lot of heartache.
We returned back to Kamal’s house for a chicken tagine and stayed up while papa and the guy from the market talked about the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) until gone midnight.