Day 235 11th March
Ben Mansour
Another day off the bike.
Lie in until 8 and brekkie of spinach, eggs, bread and coffee. I swept the floor of the patisserie and Kamal told me to stop as the dust was putting customers off. I sat and had tea and met loads of old faces and new. Then we had lunch of tagine and back to patisserie for more tea and talking with Mohamed from the farm and Hamid, who gave us a lift to Sidi Ayesh to see the horse and gun festival.
Horse and Gun festival
It was great to see so many women and children enjoying the show and the men showing off to impress with their skills. It was a big show with 500 horses and the most people I’ve seen in one place.
Crowd at the Horse and Gun Festival
Display of horsemanship
Horses and guns
There were lots of stalls and tat to buy with a festival atmosphere. It’s a four day festival on the road to Kenitra. On the way back we followed a camio (lorry) with horses aboard and people in the middle too
Open top Horse box and people carrier
When we got back I sat in the patisserie with Kamal and Younes and chatted until dinner was ready. We all sat together for mardout which was delicious but very hot to eat with my hands so I used a fork. Papa and Kamal managed but they must have asbestos fingers.
Mardout
We watched tv for a while and I went to bed at midnight. There was a lot of commotion outside my window and it became apparent that the pregnant cow had gone into labour. There was much pushing and shoving and grunts from both man and beast. Unfortunately I couldn’t open the bedroom door, as whoever had fixed the plug socket that day had also broken the door handle. So I watched as best I could through the window in the dark but gave up after about 20 minutes and went to sleep. Forty minutes later Kamal knocked on the door to wake me and meet the new addition to the family. It was a fantastic experience to watch the mother clean the calf and to see the whole family helping with the birth.
New born calf
The men used their strength and the women were very attentive doing all the right things. They were obviously very experienced at this practice. I celebrated with Aziz sharing a tea in his kitchen. I returned to bed about 2am where Younes was still sleeping.