Brand New Olives

I am officially the worst blog updater in the world, and I apologize for that. If you’re looking for short but semi regular updates of my life, you could try here.

Actual update, well I am really happy, I Love my Life, I Love my House, I Love all of Baknou. I’m getting tutored in Moroccan Arabic, which is fun because I can understand more of what all the little kiddies are saying. I have been trying to meet with the doctor in my Souk town for the past three months, and I finally have my tofu making down to a science.

Things are getting cold here, right now its about 45 degrees F, so I have been spending most of my days in multiple layers, but no matter  how I try I really can’t compare to Moroccan layering, yesterday I was helping a little girl go to the bathroom during art class and she was wearing 7, (yes I counted!) 7 pairs of pants, no wonder she needed help!

I have a new site mate Anni, we’ve been having fun together, she’s an Interior designer, turned Peace Corps Volunteer, she’s the one who put together the art classes for the kids. A little solution for a problem I call having 15 kids show up at your door and ask to color every day of the week.

I also have a new project that I am really excited about, and it is thanks to my friend Zoe. She got the idea that Quinoa would be a great, nutritional, easy to grow food, and so set about finding out weather it was a plausible idea. Turns out their have been Quinoa growing projects in Morocco that have gone pretty well. So I have seeds, and 8 families in Baknou trying them out! Which means I get to go around having tea at families houses, and asking to see gardens, it’s wonderful.

Last but certainly not least, It is Olive Harvest here, which is a blast, all the families head to the fields, eventually all the olives are on the ground, put into buckets, and hauled on the top of a donkey to the olive press. Not only is it fun to hang out in the warm sun, it is also a great way to make friends, and get some laughs by helping pick olives.

Here is you step by step guide for pressing olives:

Lets begin first you must press you olives, using a giant stone and your donkey.

when the olives are a nice rough mush, you shovel them into woven baskets and stack them on top of each other.

Start turning the crank on the press and see the olive oil come flowing out, let it settle in a pit next to the press, and scoop out the pretty new oil that settles on top the next morning.

If your feeling really old school you can use this oil press, it’s literately a huge tree, the weight is used to press the olives… I’m not entirely (or remotely) clear how you use it, but it is apparently still in use.

then finish pressing all the other piles of olives (its a communal press: each family has a pile)