Southern Cross Station

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Erfoud to Marrakesh

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We leave Erfoud, heading for Ouarzazate. Driving through miles of desert, past hundreds of artesian wells, each owned by a family, but now largely redundant owing to new bore water pumping and storage. Our first herd of camels accompanied by their drover all dressed in blue, appears. Abdul, the tour guide is a funny guy, when we arrive in our host towns for the evenings, the fountains will all be coming on, and he says, "See they have turned on the water for us! I telephoned them and told them we would be in at 5pm, and they have turned it on because I asked!" When he sees the camels he says, "See, I told him we would be coming past here at 9am, and he has come just for us!" We stop in a town called Tinghar, where Abdul has a friend with a silver shop. Of course it is the best silver shop in the desert and the only safe place to buy genuine tribal jewellry, (oh yeah). I do buy a lovely necklace for myself. Then on through more arid mountains and lush gorges to...
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Anyone would think I'm a bird hater

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Well after having the arborist nearly decimate anything green at my place, now I've gone and introduced a bird murderer into the mix. Meet Charlie - he has definite `mouser' capabilities, however I don't think he's going to make it as a bird catcher - he took a flying leap to try and gain enough airspace to make it onto my computer desk tonight and his front paws landed on some paper causing him to slide right back off again leaving his dignity severely impaired. He will be an indoor cat, with a limited run built outside. At the moment he is a fairly timid 4mth old who has just been separated from his brothers. They were all in a big cage during the day and a proper cattery at night, so having the freedom of a whole house, and being alone is a bit daunting. Last night he slept in the wash basket on top of the blanket box at the foot of my bed, and every couple of hours I'd half wake to plaintive little meows, and I'd mumble at him groggily until he went quiet ...
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Morocco - social observations

One of the things I didn't expect about going to Morocco, was that of having my assumptions about women and men in Moroccan society challenged. I carried with me, assumptions about dress, social codes and division of labour. Dress: Yes the majority of Moroccan women wear the djellaba and a head scarf. In the Berber villages they wear traditional long skirts and long sleeved tops and head scarves. It appears that about 70% of women dress this way. About 20% of women wear the long djellaba or skirt and shirt with no head scarf, about 8% of women (mostly under 30) wear western dress, particularly jeans with a long sleeved top, some with a head and shoulder shawl, and about 2% have the full bourka, complete with veiled face. The wearing of the djellaba is interesting because you often see it being worn as a sort of outdoor coat, rather than a constant feature of dress. The workers in the riads wear jeans and a white tunic style top, and the kids going to school wear jeans with a white ...
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