Michelle's Day in Casablanca

Here is the long awaited entry from my friend and classmate, Michelle Masselink. Below is her story about her day in Casablanca.

Michelle and the Hassen II Mosque at night

An awesome tree in Casablanca

               "After Michelle and I parted ways at the airport, I grabbed a coffee and paid far too much money to connect to the Internet so I could plan out my day. After finding some addresses of different restaurants that looked good and hammams (traditional bath-houses) that seemed tourist friendly, I took the train from the airport back into Casablanca for a day of adventuring.  Once I got back to the city, I caught a taxi out to the huge mosque in Casablanca. I had a few hours before the tour but I figured it was a good place to start my explorations of the city since it is easy to see the mosque above all the other buildings so I could find my way back there if I got lost (which I always do).  It was almost noon and I was getting hungry so I set out to Sqala restaurant for lunch. I was armed with the address but no map of how to get there. I found someone sitting outside the Mosque and asked which direction I should walk in the find the restaurant. He pointed left so I figured I would just start with that. After about 15 minutes of walking with my backpacking pack and all my belongings, I stopped in a park to take my jacket off and try to find another person to point me in the right direction.  I found some gorgeous trees to admire and watched some kids play soccer and then started walking again. I found another man to ask where I needed to go a few minutes later. Unfortunately, he spoke no English and I speak no French. Through our charades I thought he was saying to walk through the wall of the medina- so I tried that next. No luck. I remembered seeing a military/naval base of some sort across the street so I wandered over there. They were able to give me better directions and after walking for what seemed like a good hour, I finally found the restaurant.  It was a gorgeous outdoor patio restaurant where the atmosphere was better than the food. I had some delicious fresh squeezed juices and some satisfactory food and then just relaxed for a bit. When I flagged down the waiter for the check an hour later, he insisted that I stay longer because “I was so beautiful I was attracting more customers.” I explained that although this was a kind thing to say, I needed to get going so I could make it to the 2PM mosque tour, which was the last one of the day. We finally settled on the fact that I would stay 10 more minutes and then he would bring the check.  Eventually he did bring the check and I loaded myself back up with all my belongings and set off back toward the mosque. 


The entrance to the restaurant



Inside the restaurant

I made it to the mosque in about a half hour (the walk is much shorter when you stop going in circles).  It took me a lot of asking around to figure out where to go for the tour but eventually I found it. I had brought enough cash to pay for the tour, however, when I got to the front of the line and said I was a student, they said they require a student ID, which I didn’t have. Without it, the tour was double the price and I didn’t have enough cash. Luckily they took credit cards so I paid, stashed my massive bag behind the counter, and joined the English-speaking tour group. The mosque was absolutely gorgeous. It had pure iron doors that weighed 3 tons, intricate carvings on every visible surface, massive chandeliers probably worth twice what my life is worth, a heated floor, and a retractable roof.  I can’t remember all the impressive details of how many people it holds or how long it took to build but it truly was gorgeous.

Approaching the Hassen II Mosque

The Hassen II Mosque

The other side of the Hassen II Mosque

The detail around the large 3 ton doors

The inside of the Hassen II Mosque

The front of the prayer area in the Hassen II Mosque

 

The beautiful marble and stucco pillars

Try to appreciate the grandness of the Mosque

The baths in the basement of the Mosque

The large bath fountains

The bathing pool that is not really used anymore

The courtyard of the Mosque

After the tour, I was ready for what I had been anticipating all day, a traditional hammam experience. Hammams are bath houses that Moroccan women go to a couple times a week to get a good exfoliating scrub and to bathe. Most of them also offer a range of spa services. It is a huge part of the culture there and I couldn’t leave without at least trying it. Besides, I was on my way to Uganda and wouldn’t have running water for the next two weeks so a good bath was probably in order. I caught a taxi to the hammam and signed up for the premium package; steam room, exfoliating scrub, seaweed wrap, massage, and shampooing. I was ushered to the women’s side of the hammam where I put my belongings in a locker and the attendant handed me a basket of things and pointed me toward a room to change. She instructed me to leave on only my underwear.  I went into the changing room and spent 2 minutes debating if a bra counts as underwear or not and eventually decided just to leave on my bottoms. I sifted through the basket of things and found two different strips of fabric with some strings on them that I assumed I was supposed to use to cover up. I experimented with about 6 different combinations of how to cover myself with the fabric before I finally invited the front desk attendant to help me clothe myself. She giggled and asked if it was my first time; I wonder what tipped her off!

One of the colorful sites on the way to the Hammam

Once I was stripped down to my underwear and covered in my little pieces of fabric, I was told to go down a stairway. At the bottom there were 4 different doors and a women standing there who kept asking me questions in Arabic. I responded with “I only speak English” to which she laughed and yanked my pieces of fabric off.  At this point I realized that my tinkerbell underwear were probably not the best choice for this experience. Oh well. You live and learn. I was pushed through a doorway and into a room full of other naked women on stone tables being scrubbed down by the bath attendants. I was starting to have some second thoughts about whether or not I really wanted this much of a cultural experience. I was ushered into a steam room where I spent at least 5 minutes trying to figure out how to not look awkward while sitting on an uncomfortable stone bench in nothing but my tinkerbell underwear. A few minutes later the steam turned on and within 2 minutes I become convinced that they are actually trying to kill me. The steam is burning my lungs and I am becoming severely hypoxic due to the thickness of it. I can only see 2 inches in front of my face meaning I could no longer find the door to escape if I tried. I am in the middle of stifling a panic attack when out of nowhere a hand starts rubbing soap all over me. I am hopeful that this is one of the attendants or a hallucination due to my lack of oxygen and not some creeper who isn’t supposed to be rubbing me. But, at this point ,I can’t see enough to tell the difference or escape so I try to relax. After about 5 minutes of being soaped up, the steam shuts off and I am relieved to see one of the attendants in front of me ushering me out of the steam room.

I go back out into the room with all the women being scrubbed and sit down on a table. My attendant tries to tell me something that I once again cannot understand so I just kick off my flip-flops and put my feet up like all the other women are doing. She keeps talking and seems to be trying to tell me something important but I am not getting it. Finally she just grabs my arm and pulls me off the table and out the door. Oh, I guess she was trying to tell me we needed to go somewhere else.  So I follow her through another door and she motions to a massage type table. She dumps a few buckets of water on it before motioning for me to climb on. Now, I am pretty sure the plain water didn’t kill all the germs from the last person but I don’t feel like I am in a good position to argue so I climb on and lay down.  She puts an orange exfoliating glove on her hand, dumps some buckets of water on me and starts scrubbing. Within minutes she is collecting little piles of dead skin and making me feel them over and over to see how good of a job she is doing. I am glad she is taking her job so seriously, but I am also pretty sure she is about to get down to my muscle layer and about 90% of the dead cells she is removing only died when she gouged them off of their blood supply moment earlier.  I had been meaning to grow a fresh layer of skin anyways so I continue to try to relax and soak up the experience. When she is done removing my entire epidermis, she motions for me to stand up and rinse off with a bucket. She then tells me to take my underwear off. I obey and watch as she lays down a piece of plastic and rinses off the table for step 2: seaweed wrap.

She has me climb back on the table, this time on top of a sheet of thin, clear plastic. She starts to pull a privacy curtain around me now that I am completely naked but the curtain is not very big and only obscures the view of my head. At least no one could see what head belonged to the naked body on the table. She starts to lather me up with a seaweed mud, which actually felt amazing. Once she finished my backside, she motioned for me to roll over so she could do the front, at which point I proceeded to slide off the side of the table and make her catch me only seconds before I cracked my skull open on the floor. Also, I was still naked. It was an enjoyable show for all the Moroccan women in attendance and I learned an important life lesson: seaweed mud plus plastic is VERY slippery.  I managed to stay on the table while she lathered my front up with the seaweed and then wrapped the plastic wrap around me to let me cook for a bit. She walked away and I tried to relax and enjoy the spa experience; which worked for about 2 minutes until my butt started burning from the seaweed. My first thought was “Oh God, I am having an allergic reaction and I am going to die naked and wrapped in seaweed mud because I won’t be able to tell them that I am dying because I don’t speak Arabic.” So I spent the next 5 minutes deciding what I would use to give myself an emergency tracheotomy when my throat closed. Eventually, the burning sensation moved to other parts of my body and I realized it was just because my entire epidermis was missing and the seaweed was a bit salty.  Crisis averted.

The view on the way back to the Mosque

               Once my 20 minutes of soaking was done, she put me in a shower to wash the mud off myself, which I was very okay with. After that, she rinsed me off again and put me back on the table for the massage, which was definitely my favorite part of the whole experience. Amazing. After the massage, she sat me in a chair and shampooed and conditioned my hair and then did some more bucket rinses before putting a robe on me, handing me my sandals and informing me that I was done. I went back upstairs and got dressed again and was actually amazed by how awesome my skin looked and how relaxed I felt. Granted, next time I would wear different underwear, try not to fall off tables while naked, and maybe bring some disinfectant to clean things with before I lay on them; but overall, I was sparkling clean, relaxed, and minus a few pounds of skin so I felt like it was a success. 

When I left the hammam, I grabbed a cab back to the mosque to watch the sunset over the ocean, which was absolutely gorgeous.  Unfortunately, when the sun goes down in Morocco, it seems the men’s manners disappear too and I was soon being harassed left and right by guys wanting to talk to me, stare at me, marry me, etc. So I took that as my cue to head back to the airport. By the time I got back to the airport, it was around 8 PM so I only had 4 hours left to kill until my flight. I was able to amuse myself by getting some work done online and reading for a bit before ending my Moroccan experience.  As much as I loved Morocco, I boarded my plane absolutely giddy with excitement over what adventures I would find in Uganda."

The sunset beginning to cast beautiful colors onto the Mosque

 

The view of the Ocean from the Mosque

The sunset over Casablanca

The Hassen II Mosque beginning to light up

The sun disappears behind the city

My Flight Home

I awoke early Saturday morning and showered in our curtainless shower. Luckily Michelle remained fast asleep until I woke her at 6:30. There were only 2 outlets in our room and only one of them worked, so we traded off charging our different electronics and using my hair appliances. The overnight hotel attendant helped us catch a cab, even more expensive than last night at a fare of 50 dirham. We arrived at the train station with plenty of time to buy our tickets for the shuttle to the airport and cross under the tracks to tier 2. We sat comfortably at a table in first class and the train departed at 7:07 for the airport. My flight was not until 10:20 but I wanted to be sure I had plenty of time to get through the likely crawling pace of the Casablanca airport. When we arrived, we stood in line for over an hour at the Air France check luggage desk. Their staff didn’t even arrive until nearly 8:30. When I finally made it up to the desk, I found that because I had two pieces of luggage to check, I would have to go to a separate counter to pay for the extra bag then return to the line with my luggage and then they could send my bags down the conveyer belt. How inconvenient. Apparently in morocco they can’t put a credit card reader at the check luggage desk like they could at every other airport I had been to. We made our way over to the extra luggage counter and handed the lady my ticket for extra luggage. I was shocked to find the fee for the extra bag was 900 dirham! I was expecting the typical $75 charged in the United States but 900 dirham equilibrated with about $105. Ridiculous. I handed over my card and while I waited two rude Moroccan men gather close next to me, pushing to be the next for service. The woman at the counter scolded one of the men when he was getting too close to me and my belongings and I was happy that she too had noticed their rudeness.

After paying and receiving my receipt, we made our way back to the check luggage counter. I was supposed to be able to just walk up and drop my bags, but there were so many Moroccan men gathered around, pushing to be the next one for service at the counter, that I waited another 15 minutes or more. Finally I pushed through enough that when the bag on the conveyer belt in front of me started to move, I flung my 40 pound bag onto he belt, showed the lady my ticket and she pushed the button for my bags to disappear down the conveyer belt.

Michelle and I walked out to the middle of the floor and said our goodbyes to each other. I thanked her again for helping me with my luggage. I would have been miserable and the task nearly impossible without her help. We had looked into finding her a locker to put her large hiking backpack into for the day but we were disappointed to learn that the Casablanca airport did not have any. Michelle would have to carry her backpack and drum she purchased in Fez with her on her adventures in Casablanca today. She had planned to visit the Hassan II Mosque and a Hammam, a public bath where you pay for someone to bathe and massage you. If she had time she planned to visit other attractions such as the Mohammed V Palace, the medina, and an art museum. I am excited to hear about her Hammam experience and see pictures of the Mosque. I have asked her to write about her experience so that I can share her adventures with you on this blog.

An image off the interent of the Hassan II Mosque Michelle planned to visit on Saturday

After hugging and saying good bye and good luck to Michelle, I made my way through security and down to my gate. I worked on writing a little while I waited for my plane to board and called my husband to let him know I survived the night at the shabby hotel and would be boarding the plane for Paris soon.

I boarded the plane for Paris from the ground at the Casablanca Airport.

On the plane I sat next to a couple of Moroccan men. I had the window seat and in mid-flight I had a short conversation with the man in the aisle seat. I learned he was transferring in Paris for a final destination of Washington D.C. where he currently lives. I had an 11 hour layover in D.C. and asked him if there were any cheap hotels close to the airport. He assured me there was and I decided I would at least look when I got there. If I had to sleep in the airport, that would be fine but a nice bed would be appreciated.

The view as I flew over Casablanca. The Mosque can be seen as the tallest building on the north coast.

The flight from Casablanca to Paris was beautiful. As we flew out of Casablanca, I saw the Hassan II Mosque from the sky, a tall, beautiful structure on the north coast of Casablanca. I hoped Michelle was able to get some beautiful pictures in and around the Mosque to share with me. We flew over the Mediterranean Sea and crossed into Europe just east of the strait of Gibraltar. We flew over southern Portugal and the Andalucian region of Spain. Spain from the air is beautiful. The landscape would change drastically from flat brown and orange crop land to rolling mountains speckled with trees like a pointillism painting. Small roads would course straight up the mountains, only to track straight down the other side. As we flew over France the weather became cloudy and we were informed that the weather was fair and raining in Paris. When we landed in Paris I could see what I thought was the Arch De Triumph and a tiny Eiffel Tower in the distance.

The veiw as I flew over southern Portugal. The strait of Gibraltar is just out of view.

At the Paris airport I had a 2 hour layover, just enough time to find my gate, send some emails, call my husband, and post yesterday’s entry to this blog. On the flight from Paris to Washington D.C. I sat next to a young man about my age named Ben that was a graduate student in D.C. He was returning from a weeklong conference in Berlin about some sort of engineering and he assured me it was boring and I didn’t want to hear about. Instead we had small talk about other things. I learned he was interested in water engineering in third world countries and I informed him about what I knew about the river fed water system that flowed beneath the city of Fez. I learned his wife was into riding horses but the D.C. area is incredible expensive to own and ride horses in the he only knew of one farm in the area that was at least 30 minutes outside the city. He said board for a horse on the outskirts of the city was about $1200; no wonder a grad student couldn’t even consider having a horse in the D.C. area!  It sounded like his and his wife’s dreams were similar to that of mine and my husbands in that they hoped to eventually move away and have property of their own someday where they could have horses.

My view of Paris from the plane.

On the flight I watched nearly three movies. The first was a movie I had been wanting to see for a while, Crazy, Stupid Love. It was a funny movie and I couldn’t help but start laughing at times. Next I watched The Help, another movie I had been meaning to see since it was in theaters. It was funny to watch two movies back to back with the actress Emma Stone as one of the main characters in both movies. Finally I started to watch The Hangover, Part II but was cut off about ¾ of the way into the movie due to the plane beginning to descend.

Flying over Washington D.C. was beautiful. The city glittered with city lights and Ben informed me that buildings in D.C. could not be taller than the white house so the sky line was not littered with tall sky scrapers like in other cities. I was relieved to finally be back in my own country. The majority of the people around me were now speaking English, instead of languages foreign to my ears. We were shuttled from the drop gate to the baggage claim area by tall, awkward shuttle busses and I made my way quickly through customs and out to the baggage claim. I bought a coffee at Starbucks and sat in their dining area to research a possible hotel for the night. I found advertised rates of local hotels starting at about $70 so I decided to try price line. I made a bid of $30 but was rejected. The site informed me that if I increased my bid by only 6 dollars, I had a better chance of landing a deal. So I did and Priceline booked me a reservation at Homestead Extended Stay suites for only $47 including taxes and fees. I called the hotel to confirm my new reservation and asked them the best way to get there from the airport.

I took a short taxi ride to the hotel and the man checking me in was very nice. He asked me if I need a taxi in the morning and booked me one for 5:15 in the morning. My room was off of the upper balcony and I found the room to be worlds improved from the hotel I had stayed in last night. I had a very clean and tidy room with a single queen sized bed, a TV, a large full bathroom, and a full kitchen. It had everything that a studio apartment would and for only $47 a night! I read on the back of the door that the normal rate for the room was $169 dollars. I had landed quite a deal through Priceline I guess! After checking my email, uploading some pictures, and talking to my husband who had just accepted a scholarship for me at the Minnesota Horse Council banquet, I was ready for bed.

My nice little room at the Homestead Extended Stay Suites in Washington D.C.

The next morning I awoke many times starting about 3:00am. I figured this was due to the time change as it was 9am in Morocco and well past when I was used to waking up. I dozed in and out until I finally decided to get out of bed just after 4am. I enjoyed a nice shower in a sparklingly clean bathroom and packed my bag to catch the cab. I headed down stairs to wait outside for the cab about 5:05. It was a bit below freezing but I figured I be fine for a few minutes while I waited. 5:15 came and went without sight of a taxi. I called guest services of my hotel and the man wasn’t in the office and didn’t know what company the tenant last night had booked for me. I decided to call the company I had used last night since I had a brochure for them and learned that they did not have anyone available to pick me up. I asked for a phone number of another company and no one answered the number I called. I called guest services for the hotel again and the man came to the office and gave me a phone number for the company he figured the reservation had been made through. I’m not sure they actually had a reservation for me but they sent a driver for me that arrived 15 minutes later. By the time the cab got there it was about 5:45 and my flight departed at 6:15. The cab driver drove as fast as he could in the slow speed zones and apologized for his company. I rushed into the airport, running in my new high heal boots I had bought on my last trip to the medina in Fez. Luckily lines thru security were short and I only had to wait a minute for the tram to take me to my terminal. As I ran to my gate at the far end of the terminal I realized my pants felt a little loose. I felt my waist and realized I no longer had my belt. It must have fallen out of the tray at the security check point as I knew I had double checked the trays before darting away from security towards my terminal. Oh well, I thought. It wasn’t my favorite belt and it was beginning to look well used anyways. I did not have a moment to spare to turn around and try to find it back at the security check point.

I clicked my way down the terminal to my gate in my new, luckily comfortable, high healed boot. They were probably easier to run in than my Doc Martins, the other pair of shoes I had with me in my carryon luggage. When I got to my gate at the end of the terminal, the ladies at the desk knew me by name, the only passenger left to check in. I quickly boarded the plane and found that I was only one of about 10 people on this early morning flight to Minneapolis. No wonder they knew me by name. I found my seat over the wing just minutes before takeoff. I was the only passenger sitting in the middle of the sparsely populated plane.

During the flight I worked on writing again and watched a beautiful sunrise over the clouds behind us. I couldn’t wait to be home. My parents would be waiting to pick me up at the airport and my husband had informed me last night that they intended to take me out to brunch. I was excited as I had not eaten anything since the flight last night except for the cookie provided on this morning’s flight.

The sunrise from the air somewhere in the middle of the United States.

            The image as we finally popped below the thick clouds covering the Midwest on our decent to the MSP airport was beautiful. A thin layer of snow covered the ground and the image looked like a scene out of a Christmas movie. It wasn’t long before we were on the ground and I was making my way out of the nearly empty plane, through the airport, and to baggage claim to meet my parents.

The snow covered scenery as I descended to land at the MSP airport.

            My patents were waiting for me at baggage claim 2. We exchanged hugs and my two pieces of luggage were the first to fall out onto the baggage claim carousel.  We made our way to the car, loaded my luggage and drove to one of our favorite breakfast restaurants, Egg and I. I had a huge everything omelet with hash browns and ate every morsel. It was delicious, my first taste of American food in nearly a month.

            After breakfast we drove back to my apartment and I showed my parents some of the souvenirs and gifts I had bought on my trip. We talked about some of the cases I saw, the food I ate, what I had learned and observed about the culture and religion, and various other experiences I had had while in Morocco. Finally we loaded back up in my parents’ car and headed up to their house in Ham Lake. We stopped at Fleet Farm on the way up and I bought some horse feed and miscellaneous other supplies. I intended to run up to a tack shop in Cambridge, MN that was closing with my mother later in the day and then to stop at the barn to say hi to my ponies on the way home.

By the time we got home, the weather was starting to change. A gentle sleet and drizzle was beginning to fall and the roads were getting slippery. I was beginning to feel quite tired and decided that it wasn’t worth making the drive up to the tack shop. Instead I collapsed on the couch and napped for several hours. My husband picked me up after he finished work and we drove home instead of stopping at the barn to see my horses. Once at home I quickly collapsed in my warm bed in hopes of sleeping off the jet lag I was experiencing.

The next morning Mother Nature seemed to laugh at me. When I went to get in my car, I found that at least an inch of snow had fallen ontop of yesterday's freezing rain and sleet. I was already running late and had to spend at least ten minutes chipping off the ice that covered my entire car. On the way to school, I slid sideways on every corner, even though my speed was less than 5 miles and hour. Luckily I made it there safely and sign-up for emergency duty for the rotation was still in progress.

The first day of my next rotation, Equine Sports Medicine, was spent in the class room. The topics were interesting, but after lunch, I experienced another serious wave of jet lag.  It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and I found myself drifting off several times. When we were finally released for the day I went back to my apartment, made some dinner, and then collapsed on the couch until my husband got home from work. I was so exhausted I didn’t even have the energy to change into my pajamas so I fell asleep for several hours in my day clothes after mustering up only enough energy to climb into bed. Later in the night I finally took out my contacts and climbed into some pajamas. I set my alarm for 6am since I figured by that time I would have slept about 12 hours. I had a few things to do in the morning and I still didn’t have a converter for my hairdryer so I needed time for it to air dry.

Hopefully the second day back to school will be better. Look for updates and new pictures added to previous posts in the near future!

Casablanca

Michelle and I were up late last night trying to bake a cake. Mehdi, one of the Moroccan externs, had given a mule a bloody nose earlier in the week while passing a nasogastric tube. We explained to everyone that in Minnesota, if someone gives a horse a bloody nose, they have to bring in a chocolate cake for everyone the next day. Mehdi unfortunately left the next day and did not bring us a cake so of course the responsibility got passed on to us. Dr. Mohammed purchased the exact amount of ingredients we needed and we set off to bake a cake in Dr. Gigi’s kitchen after 8pm treatments. We had spent the afternoon in the medina shopping for last minute souvenirs with the new American student, Natasha, and picked up a few fresh produce items and bread. We were tired and hoped baking the cake would take less than an hour. We were wrong.

First we discovered that Dr. Mohammed had not purchased actual coco as we had asked, but instead Boisson Chocolate, or basically hot chocolate powder. The chocolate was mostly sugar with a little coco and we decided to see if it would work. Other ingredients were not as we were used to seeing them. The vanilla came in a small packet as a granule, as did the baking powder. The sugar, flour, and butter were all in small baggies, measured out to the exact weight of a double recipe. After searching around Gigi’s kitchen for the required bowls, pans, spoons, mixing equipment, etc. we poured our somewhat watery appearing cake mix into two pans, since we had doubled the recipe. We weren’t sure we were using the gas oven correctly, but it was warm inside and we set the timer for 35 minutes.

When the timer went off, the middle of the cakes were still liquid and the cake did not appear to have risen. We thought it may need more time or heat so we turned the heat up and waited a bit longer. We waited a total of about 2 hours for the cake to bake. The oven felt warm, not hot, and we wondered it perhaps the propane was low or we just weren’t using it correctly. After two hours of baking we finally decided to call it quits. We knew the cake was going to be awful but we slapped our buttery boisson chocolate frosting on top and brought it back to the villa.

Dr. Mohammed and I in front of the mural in the farrier station.

The next morning we brought our cake down and cut Dr. Mohammed a piece. I had already tried a piece and new it was bad. Dr. Mohammed took a bite and made a disgusted face. We truly had made a bad cake. The cake tasted like butter and sugar with a little chocolate. Some of the staff thought it was good, others were on the same boat as Mohammed. Now everyone either thought Americans are bad cooks or we have horrible deserts. The truth was the ingredients were not right and the oven was not functioning properly.

An aged grey stallion with multiple malanomas

Our last morning was busy. Half a dozen Arabian-Barb horses came in. Some for cough, most for lameness. On one aged stallion I found many melanoma lumbs all over his tail and rectum. Gigi asked me to show the Moroccan students and see if they knew what it was. They knew it was a tumor but were stumped as to what kind. Dr. Gigi then had a lesson in French with them on  Melanomas in grey horses. The horse was presenting for lameness and the melanomas were an incidental finding. The poor old stallion walked like a laminitic horse with his front feet out in front and his hind feet out behind. Radiographs showed no rotation at this time but his toes were incredibly long and his sole was very thick. The farrier here is very good and did an extreme makeover on the horse’s feet. The owner’s received a little education on proper foot care and weight and I hope they will listen for the sake of their horses.

Two grey stallions recieve proper farrier work after presenting for lameness

The aged, lame, and melanomic stallion gets weighed on the new scale. The owners were instructed on how to take weight off the stallion. Discussions about obesity in horses in Morocco are extremely rare.

A mule presenting for deep digital flexor tendon contracture. Surgery to cut the DDFT will be performed in the near future.

Michelle’s white mare continued to remain without a diagnosis. We did several clotting tests, fibrinogen tests, and collected more blood to send to the lab. At this point nothing has been able to point us in any direction. We are just blindly testing for differential diagnosis’s and crossing them off the list when tests come back negative. Michelle has asked Dr. Gigi to keep her informed about this case after we leave.

The American Students enjoying their couscous.
I ate nearly half of the plate on the left by myself!

For lunch today Dr. Gigi’s maid made enough couscous to feed an army. All the staff and students gathered together in one of the clinic’s rooms that housed a large table and we enjoyed the meal together. Seven vegetables and roast beef were used in the couscous and it was fantastic. We enjoyed proper mint tea after the meal and then had a bit of joking around with Dr. Mohammed

After lunch I began to pack. Michelle and Natasha had to finish a few more tests on the white mare and it would not take Michelle long to pack as she only brought a hikers backpack full of things. I carefully packed both my and Michelle’s souvenirs into two suitcases I planned to check. I managed to get everything here in one suitcase but it was nearly overweight and with all my purchases, I now needed two suitcases. Natasha had planned to come with us to Casablanca and explore the city with Michelle on Saturday after I flew out. At the last minute she was asked to stay to help with treatments for the weekend since Dr. Gigi knew that if Natasha was in charge, treatments would be done properly and timely. We were all disappointed. Now Michelle would have to explore Casablanca on her own on Saturday. A potentially challenging and dangerous adventure.

The abandoned donkey with a luxated hip
brays as we depart from the Fondouk

At 4:20pm we were finally ready to go. We said our good byes, gave warm handshakes to the men and embrasing hugs to the women. I nearly started to cry when I was saying goodbye to Ilham. I had grown quite attached to this young woman and would miss her greatly. She wished me a good life and safe travels and we hugged once again. We planned to take the 4:50 train to Casa Voyageurs in Casablanca so we headed out the door to catch a taxi. I had four bags: my carry on suitcase, my computer bag, and my two check luggage bags. I was so thankful to have Michelle help me get through the train station with them. We arrived within minutes of the train’s departure and hurried to buy our tickets and climb aboard. Of course the first class cabin is always at the back of the train so we ran to try to get there before the whistle blew. We were still three cars away when the whistle blew so we climbed aboard a second class car and slowly made our way up to the first class cabins with my cumbersome luggage in tow. We collapsed in our cabin well after the train had departed and luckily a train attendant helped us lift our luggage into the racks and opened our window as we were now dying of heat exhaustion.

During the 4 ½ hour train ride, I finally finished my book, A House in Fez, by Suzanna Clark. The book made me almost cry at the end as she described how she had finally completed her dream and finished the restoration on her house only to have to depart for home in Australia. She had to say good bye to the dozen or so workers she had grown so close to over the many months of Riad restoration and in ways considered them family. I had another wave of emotion pass over me as I realized that the same experience was happening to me. I was leaving behind many friends and a family that had formed in the student villa at the American Fondouk. No longer would I experience the large meals of tagine or BMW where all 8 or 9 of us would rip off pieces of bread and use it to scoop up the food from the large platter at the center of the table. I would miss wandering through the medina and the endless shops of hand crafted goods. I would miss the Americans I had met, especially Matt and Natasha, and I hoped I would be able to stay in contact with them.



Michelle displaying our grungy hotel room.
The dirty comforters had already been discarded at this point.

After a few short naps on the train, we arrived in Casablanca just after 9pm. We caught a taxi to our hotel for an unbudging price of 40 dirham and we were dropped at the doorstep of the Hotel Oued-Dahab, a small hotel front on a somewhat shabby side street. The hotel tenant was waiting for us and gave us a key to our room. As we climbed the stairs to the floor above, I began to have doubts about my hotel choice. I chose this hotel because my Lonely Planet tour book said it was nice, cheep, clean, had spacious rooms and a private bathroom if requested. I soon found the book to be almostly completely wrong. I noticed cigarette burns on the linoleum covering the stairs as we made our way up to the first floor. The hallway was dark and dingy and there was paint peeling from the walls. Our room was even more of a disappointment. We had two twin beds, which was nice, but the covers over the beds were stained and looked greasy. There were stains in the cheep linoleum floor and again massive amounts of paint peeling from the walls. I tucked my head around the corner expecting to see our bathroom, instead all I saw was a sink and an open shower stall in the corner. There was no shower curtain around the shower, not even at the entrance to the “bethroom.” Good thing I was sharing the room with a close friend.

Our curtainless "bathroom." The picture doesn't begin to
show the amount of stain, rust and pealing paint.

After dropping our bags in our shabby room we stopped into the “Toilet Room” that was down the hall. The large window was open, allowing anyone below or across the alley to see inside. I closed the window to use the bathroom and discovered this bathroom was lacking the most basics; toilet paper and soap. Again disappointed with the hotel, I reminded Michelle that we needed to ask the hotel tenant for toilet paper after we went out for dinner.

I looked up a good nearby restaurant and we walked a few blocks west to find it. The book raved about it's good but inexpensive food and how popular it was for locals and visitors alike. We found the restaurant nearly empty but enjoyed a tasty inexpensive meal nonetheless. Michelle had a delicious pasta while I ordered chicken tagine which turned out to just be half a chicken with tagine spices. We both enjoyed the meal and headed back to our hotel ready for bed. On the train Michelle and I had discussed walking to a nearby bar before calling it a night, but as we walked the streets to and from the restaurant, we felt a slight bit unsafe and decided to scratch that part of the plan. Casablanca is a much more industrial and business orientated city. There is not much to see for tourists and hence the locals are not as friendly as in the medinas of Fez and Marrakech. 99% of the people out walking the streets were Moroccan men and we were called at often, sometimes even followed for periods of time as the young men tried to talk to us and get our attention. Michelle and I just walked quickly and close together, not making conversation or even eye contact with anyone until we had reached our destination.

When we returned to our hotel a new hotel attendant was on duty. Another middle aged Moroccan man stood at the counter and tried to make conversation with us in broken English. We tried to explain how we needed toilet paper and after Michelle played a bit of a charades game, the man got the point and asked the hotel tenant to have some sent over from the affiliated (and much nicer) hotel Guynemer across the street. Too bad the price of that hotel was three times more, otherwise we would have been easily tempted to switch. We had passed many nice looking hotels on the way to the restaurant. Their prices were likely also many times higher than what we were paying (only 220 dirhams for the night). How I had picked such a crummy hotel, I did not know, but it was an experience to talk about nonetheless. Michelle and I quickly got ready for bed. Michelle tried to hack a nearby internet without success and I worked on writing a for a few minutes. Shortly after 11 I called it quits and quickly fell asleep in our noisy, less than perfect hotel. Tomorrow Michelle will help me get my bags to the Airport. I will fly out in the morning while Michelle will not fly to Uganda until just after midnight. Michelle had a few things she wished to explore in Casablanca on her own tomorrow and I hoped she would feel safer in the daylight than we did here at night. Michelle will be in Uganda for two weeks and I am hoping she can supply me with an addendum on her adventures in Casablanca upon her return. I think we are both ready to leave this country. Our experiences at the American Fondouk have been fantastic, however some of our adventures to other cities and medinas have been somewhat exhausting, We will happy to leave behind the consent harassment from the local young men and the constant hassle and frustration that goes along with trying to do anything in this country. I will miss the people most, but also the language, both the Arabic and French, the ancient history and architecture of the cities, and the beautiful countryside. Fez and Marrakech were amazing cities and would be fun to visit again someday. Unfortunately our last experiences in Morocco our in the dirty city of Casablanca. If we never make it back to this city, I don't think we will be disappointed.

Until tomorrow, Au Revoir!

Back at the Fondouk

Michelle and I have been back working at the Fondouk for four days. I finally finished my long posts about our trip to Marrakech last weekend and now I can start writing about what we have been doing at the American Fondouk.

Michelle's patient with the eye laceration and edema

Monday was a fairly busy day. Michelle and I each took in a new patient. Michelle’s patient is a middle aged white mare that the owner recently bought at a sale. The mare was presenting for an eye laceration but the rest of her body had problems as well. Her limbs and ventrum were very edematous with some of the thickest legs I have ever seen on a horse. She had a few abrasions and wounds that needed tending too and she was very cachexic. She had focal areas of edema on her face and her left eye was very swollen. On top of all of this, she was icteric and had a heart murmur with tachycardia. On further exam of her eye, a large corneal ulcer was discovered as well as severe conjunctivitis resulting in necrosis of the upper conjunctiva.  She was a mess but a sweet little horse. We would try to do what we could for her.

The eye after staining. An image not for the weak stomached.
The area of necrotic conjunctiva would soon slough off.

 We cleaned her wounds and performed a third eye lid flap to protect her eye. We ran several blood tests and found that she was anemic, hyperproteinemic, but her liver values were mostly normal. An abdominocentesis found she had degenerate neutrophils, some of which looked like degenerate lymphocytes. At this point, we do not know what is wrong with this mare. My top differential has been lymphoma the entire time, but Dr. Gigi believes the cells found on abdominocentesis are degenerate neutrophils, whereas Michelle and I believe they look like lymphocytes, supporting the diagnosis of lymphoma. Medical management is all that can be done at this point and we will continue to monitor this patient. 

My diarrhea mare

The case that I took on was a little white mare presenting for diarrhea of one day duration. The mare was found lying down that morning and did not eat well so the owners brought her in. On her walk to the Fondouk, the mare was apparently dribbling diarrhea the whole way. On presentation the mare was tachycardic but did not have a high temperature. She was thin and week and looked in rough shape. We hospitalized her and started her on a dewormer, an antibiotic, and an NSAID, as well as offered her regular and electrolyte water, alfalfa hay, and grain. Since Monday she has started to show mild improvements. She is eating and drinking relatively well and her feces are more cow pie consistency, rather that water. Most likely she is infested with worms but we are testing for salmonella as well. It’s a little disturbing to think that she could have populated the side of the road with salmonella on her way to the Fondouk.

Dr. Mohammed aspirates the swelling on the donkey's back.

As usual, we’ve seen several more influenza cases, a gas colic that resolved, some incidental eye disease findings, some lamenesses, and some wounds. Yesterday, a donkey presented for a swollen painful area in the middle of its back. The owner said the donkey had fallen 10 days ago but the swelling and pain kept getting worse so he brought the donkey in. We found no abnormalities on neurologic examination. Its back was very swollen and painful and the donkey showed you how much it hurt by ducking his back down, kicking and biting. We put a horse sized muzzle on the little donkey to finish our examination. Michelle and Dr. Mohammed ultrasounded and aspirated the swelling. At this point, the swelling seems to just be from edema or fluid, not due to an abscess or hematoma. The donkey has been hospitalized to monitor the injury and treat with anti-inflammatories.

Incidental eye pathology found in a mule presenting for lameness.

A donkey presenting for hip luxation

Yesterday a donkey with a luxated femoral-coccygeal joint (hip joint) was abandoned at the American Fondouk. The poor donkey has been sold twice to unsuspecting owners until the current owner decided that this was enough and left the donkey at the American Fondouk. There is not much we can do for the donkey. His hind leg hangs rotated outward and unable to bear full weight. We will keep the donkey for several days to see if the owner will come back to claim him. Otherwise we have no choice but to euthanize the animal due to the poor prognosis of his injury.

Natasha practices floating a mule's teeth on her first day.

               On Tuesday night, Michelle and I went out to dinner with Matt and his two roommates. They met us at the Fondouk and I gave Matt's roommate Maddie a tour of the clinic. We took a new route into the Medina and wondered around trying to find a restaurant I had read about in my Lonely Planet book. With a little help from a local we finally found the Chameau Blue, or "Blue Camel" restaurant. It was a chilly night so we ate inside and enjoyed a delicious meal in each other's company. Matt helped Michelle and I find a cab and I said my final good byes. I gave Matt my email and link for my blog. Hopefully we can stay in touch. On the drive back to the Fondouk, the taxi driver must have misunderstood Matt as the taxi driver intended to drive us to the American Center, the school that Matt attends. We stopped him shortly after he passed the turn for the Fondouk and instead of turning around at the next street, he just stopped and started backing up. Luckily the two lane highway was not very busy and we safely delivered to the doors of the American Fondouk, just in time for 8 o'clock treatments.

Later that night, another American student arrived. Her name is Natasha and she is in her fourth year of veterinary school at Western University. She is very nice and has a strong interest in equine medicine. I gave her a working tour and orientation the best I could on Wednesday. She took on one of Terek’s cases, as he returned home on Wednesday, and got to do some equine dentistry on her first day. Azzis, another Moroccan student, also left today and we are down to only 6 externs in the student villa.

I discovered in this mule with ventral edema that male mules have both a sheath and teats. Amazing.

Another typical sight of a mule with tongue paralysis due
to the ancient ring style bits still used on working stock.

After today, Michelle and I only have one more day left at the American Fondouk. On Friday afternoon we plan to take the train to Casablanca, stay in a hotel overnight, and fly out on Saturday. I fly home Saturday morning whereas Michelle will fly to Uganda for another 2 weeks of externship in the middle of a bush village. Our time at the American Fondouk has been fun and has gone by so quickly. I can’t believe it is already almost time to head home. I will miss all the people I have met, the language diversity, the interesting cases and hands on experience, the food and the culture. It would be great to make it back to Morocco in several years to see how the American Fondouk has further changed and to revisit some of the wonderful places I have been. I have learned a lot on this trip, such as how to communicate without understanding each other’s language, how to barter, and how to just relax, go with the flow, explore things with less of a concept of time, and realize that in the end, everything will be ok, even if you don’t know where you are going.