My thank you party

On my last day of volunteering with Moroccan children's trust the staff threw a thank you party(hefla) for me and a welcome to some new moroccan voluteers from Taroudannt university....

mmmm- yummy cake!

Zachary carrying in the really delicious
Pastilla

Zayna and Lazara spent all day cleaning and setting up the volunteer house
and preparing the meal

Youssef(my arabic culture teacher) and Meryam (one of the MCT social workers)

Abdellah Lamine playing the oud

trekking into the high Atlas mountains

On our last day in Taroudannt, Shane & I went trekking into the high Atlas mountains with a lovely guide called Said. We drove up through Berber villages into the mountains, left the car and hiked up a stoney path to a ridge that looked down one side onto the plains of the Souss massa valley and beyond to Taroudant; on the other the peaks with a dusting of snow...

the rocky road back down! 

Said preparing a fire for our BBQ picnic

looking over the peaks

Shane holding on to an argan tree

view from the ridge back towards Taroudant

hob-nobbing with the moroccan royal family!

we shared a delicious lunch at the  volunteer house

One Saturday we had a visit from one of the trustees of MCT  who happens to be related to
the king of Morocco! She is sitting second from the left.

A trip to a berber village

On Thursday afternoon Shane and Kevin (my husband and brother-in-law) arrived in Taroudant from Marrakech...it was really good to see them!
On Friday I took the day off from my voluntary work to join a tour to a berber village not very far from Taroudant. We walked around the village looking at trees, plants & herbs and what the berber people use them for eg: some very fragrant basil used as decoration at a wedding for good luck but not for eating.

home made organic soap made by the berber women

this woman is trying to shoo the cat away before demonstrating how to make flat bread-
delicious with argan honey-mmmm!

the bread was cooked in this earth oven

Our vegetable tagine lunch- bezzaf!

The men in the village make simple pottery like tagine pots and little animal sculptures sun dried and then fired in an open earth kiln and the women make soap. A cooperative from Pembrokeshire handed over the recipe to the berber women. The soap is organic and made from olive oil, argan oil, soda and lavender.

The women helped us to arrange our head scarves berber-style

Then we took a tour around the village
this man was making tagine pots using a foot-operated wheel

This is the open firing kiln

various hand built items for sale

could I squeeze one of these in my suitcase?!

a typical berber kitchen

My berber-style headscarf!

Working at the orphanage

Working at Lalla Amina orphanage has been more fun this week:) I was having difficulties last week with knowing how to relate to the staff and other volunteers; also, not knowing if I was doing my job as a volunteer in the best way....but after a bit of a 'heart to heart' with Oliver the volunteer coordinator, who told me that any attention and love these babies and children receive is good as they have been so badly neglected up until now.
I have got to know the staff and other volunteers much better now and realise that, like most good organisations, team work is essential! So here are a few pics of some of the team who work at the orphanage...

it was a sunny afternoon so we took the toddlers outside to play on the slide and football

This afternoon I helped with the women's project-
3 students from Taroudannt university came up with an idea
to use recycled plastic bags to make attractive items from cut and woven strips.
The idea is to sell these items. We finished the session with moroccan tea and cake - a nice way to end the week.

This afternoon I planned and led an Arts & Crafts
activity with the children at the MCT centre; it went very well-
we made space rockets from recycled material -amazing what you can do
with a few loo roll tubes and some empty plastic bottles -look how colourful they are!
The children really enjoyed making them and I really enjoyed myself too-it was great fun!

This is me at my favourite cafe near the Berber souk
The cafe au lait costs 6 dhs (0.42p) - try buying a coffee that cheap
in England!

This weekend, at last, my voice came back! So this meant that I could go singing at La Maison Anglaise -hooray! It is a beautiful guest house(on Trip advisor), sustainably managed and run by local moroccan staff and owned by an english woman who considers Taroudant to be perfectly geographically placed for its climate and surroundings.
As well as singing some great songs and sharing a few laughs we finished the weekend with a trip to the Claudio Bravo museum 12 km from Taroudant, nestled in the foothills of the High Atlas mountains. It is a stunningly beautiful house and grounds with views that fair take your breath away! If you want an ideal and dream-like wedding venue (and happen to have lots of l-flus = money available!) then this would be your choice...here are some photos for you, so, get a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy!

La Maison Anglaise singing group
Pauline is our singing tutor (second from the right)

Entrance to Claudio Bravo Museum
He was a Chilliean born artist(1936 - 2011)

He loved swimming- there were at least 3 huge pools situated in different parts of his grounds
this one was the largest and has spectacular views of the mountains.

sculptures by a visiting friend from Chilli

Arriving in style!

main entrance to the museum

Enormous insects! probably native to South America

He was a football fan

these paintings are strongly influenced by Salvador Dali, a contemporary artist of the same era

He also collected art - this is a painting by Francis Bacon

Add caption

giant jewellery made from precious stones 

Claudio Bravo's mauselium with his favourite artefacts surrounding him
We sang a beautiful 'harmonic temple' song - the accoustics were amazing!

Sipping tea in Claudio Bravo's drawing room

Here are some of Claudio Bravo's paintings and artefacts...

self portrait of the artist as a young man

stunning views of the high atlas mountains from the rooftops

The artist's studios, brushes & easels