Final post from Morocco

First off,

The chicken place has no name, and no menu.  You can order a salad (egg, potato, beet, onion, tomato) if you're particularly hungry, but otherwise the plate with 1/4 of a chicken, rice with coriander, french fries and soup will probably tide you over.  It costs two dollars, is served within 1 minute of ordering (which just involves holding up the appropriate number of fingers and nodding enthusiastically), and is always, always fantastic. 

After a bloody handshake and an enthusiastic tea offering in a blood-spattered glass (which we are all too happy to accept, of course), he'll hook us up with anything from minced beef to sausage to a side of lamb (pictured here).  If he doesn't have what you want, he can find you someone who does.  The man on the right sells turkey and chicken in the stall next door, and I can't recall ever meeting anyone who smiles so much.

Every baked good we get is baked within a few feet of where we buy it.  The sweetest items are usually covered in bees, and require a few knocks on the counter before they are quickly placed in a box.  I went to the bakery in town at least twice a day (once before work, once after) for my entire time here.  Essential Moroccan vocabulary:  "Khoobz" = bread. 

These tiny shops ("Hanoots") really are amazing in the amount of things they manage to cram into a single space.  I once saw a man disappear behind the counter and reappear holding 5 birthday hats.  This man, known to us only as "Olive guy" for his vast selection of said item, was fond of giving us figs or olives to snack on while perusing his selection, which tended to make communicating what we wanted twice as difficult (but also twice as delicious...yum).

This will probably be my last entry from Morocco.  I leave Azrou tomorrow for Casablanca, where I'll spend the night in the airport before flying out on Monday, Boston bound and half-crazed from anticipation + lack of sleep.  I'm planning on posting a few more updates before I actually get back to Texas, including some sort of reflection and summation of this wacky adventure, and some credit where credit is due to the Green group and the Rakas family, so keep checking back.

Otherwise, I'll see you all soon (but not soon enough).