On the road again

Yesterday we lost a couple of friends from our crew. Lukash, our seemingly perpetual couch-surfer who stayed with us for over 2 weeks in exchange for cooking and cleaning, continued on his 10-month bicycle trek. He went on to Casablanca, and once he receives his visa confirmation, will pedal on to Mauritania. Even though the lack of meat, eggs, and dairy in my diet seemed to lack luster, I'm going to miss that guy. He definitely brought a different opinion to the table, and opened my eyes to a few things in this world that I hadn't thought about before.

Roman the Swiss guy left us as well. Even though his stay was shorter, I really enjoyed his stay. We knew him but a few hours before he was invited to join us on our journey to the top of Toubkal. He is also traveling to Mauritania, and then to Senegal. We will miss him dearly, and I plan to visit him in Switzerland so he can teach me a 1080 on my snowboard ASAP.

On the way out, both Roman and Lukash commented on the drama that exists in the household. There are differing opinions, disagreements, invasions on personal space, and (un)wanted situations on almost a daily basis. Don't get me wrong. It's led to many a laugh the next morning. But, I think something needs to be fixed - whether it be attitudes or actions. Lukash made an excellent point on his departure -

"You're all here to 'Bridge the Gap'," he said, "but you can't even bridge the gaps in your house."

Ouch. But true.

Next week, Olga, Monica, and Nadia move out. Hicham, Gabriel, and Romain are moving in. At the end of the month, Kamil leaves as well. Meanwhile, 5 more trainees will be arriving from the U.S. before the middle of June, and moving in with me and Kate across the street. Confused yet? Because I definitely am.
Note: Since this plan seems to change by the hour, by the time you read this it may no longer be true. Just a warning, ha.

It's been a fun, drama-filled couple of days. Parties continue with the guys every night. Tonight, we're planning a huge welcome dinner for Kate (ravioli, wine, soup, etc). We'll be breaking in the oven at my house. This morning we woke up at 6:30am to go to the souq so that Nu, Lindsay's drum instructor, could get a horse skin for his drum. Olga, Gabriel, Lindsay and I followed Nu to the bus stop. We took an hour bus ride to bumfuck Morocco. He took us to where he gets his skins, and it was legit, a slaughterhouse. The first thing I saw was severed hooves. And then, a cow head. And then, intestines sitting on a table. We walked between two buildings, and looked in to see sliced open cow corpses. And then I realized I was walking (in flip flops) on blood. And the wheelbarrows people were pushing around were filled with blood and guts. Oh, and the smell...needless to say, I almost passed out/puked. Every so often a man walked by dragging the skin of a cow on the ground, and threw it onto the already lofty pile of cow skins.

I won't be eating red meat for a while.

All in all, it was a good trip though. We ended up doing some shopping in the rest of the souq and bought some super sweet outfits for the Roaring 20's Going Away Party for Kamil in a week. Once we returned we walked through the medina, and I did more shopping. Yay shopping, and how it makes me forget about animal corpses.