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!