The market!

Today on the way to work with my assistant I stopped by the market by her place. I've heard that their market is better - that they are closer to the farms and have fresher, cheaper produce.

I had some stuff still, so here is what I got:

From top left: just over a kilo of bananas, 7.5 dirham. Bunch of mint (don't know price on its own.) half kilo lemons. kilo clementines, 2.5 dirham. kilo turnips, 8 dirhams with the lemons and mint. kilo potatoes, 3 dirham. half kilo green beans, 4 dirham.

Total 5 kilos for 25 dirham. As in just over $3. and all good quality and so fresh that they're mostly still covered in dirt!

Differences

A lot of people ask me what I like better - Morocco or X. X might be America, France, or Tunisia, since those are usually the places I'll say I've been. So in the spirit of trying to give little bites of life in Morocco: phones.

Morocco: Cell phones are more ubiquitous than the US, if that's possible. A good number of people have more than one because they get better rates for different things. Pre-paid phones cost by the second, although at 1 cent a second, it's comparatively expensive to what I'd expect in the US. But, you also only pay outgoing calls - people can call you no matter what and it never counts against you. You can also get super small recharges, even 5 or 10 MAD (65 cents for the lower), and the recharges are available all over the place in the corner stores. Oh, and there are constantly promotions. Like when I charged my phone in AUGUST there was a seven times multiplier if you put 100 MAD ($12.50) on your phone. So I haven't needed to do it again. One company always has at least a doubler, but often triple, making the one cent a minute never really true.

US: Unlimited. Almost everyone has it now. It's nice, but it's expensive and not always necessary. Still, the possibility for limitless is there, which people like. And why wouldn't they?

Henna night

From last Wednesday at the house of one of my adopted sisters.

Small children I've met everywhere love to make faces for pictures and then see them.

A more "full" women's (i.e. married) henna. In the end, her finger tips were completely filled-in, too. This style is from one area in the Sahara. The boy is hers and she's pregnant!

And me in my awesome three layers of pjs with my girl's henna (you're a 'girl' until you're married until you get 35 or 40, they you get to be something like an old maid.)

Trim! And sexy slippers

The ends of my hair were getting icky, but since plenty of American stylists have made it worse, and I've trimmed it plenty of times when it was longer, I decided to try it here. Luckily I found a couple of tips and decided to just take off a little trim.

Before: 

After:

I was turning my head, but I think it's even.

And look at my new slipper socks!

They didn't have anything that I would normally pick, so I figured why not find the very best ones? And here you have them, bright purple leopard print. It's like that time I asked for a 'plain' hair clip and the seller showed me one with just 3 big rhinestones and 10 little ones.