Day 11 – 4-0!
Long time No post! I got rather bogged down with work during my latter weeks in Azrou, as I had lots of logging, transferring and reviewing to do in the evenings. I’ve been back in the UK for 10 days now, so over the next few days the posts should come thick and fast until i’m up to speed with my time in Morocco. Then I will try to get into a routine of 1 post a week ( to start off with at least!) about camera type stuff.
Anyway, where was I…?
In order for Barbara and me to get to know all the areas of the green group home range Neal had said he would take us on a tour of all the different places that the macaques are known to visit. We’d agreed to head up at 8 before the weather got too hot and any thunderstorms had had the chance to form. We met and walked up the road out of town. We had planned to hitch a lift, but everyone that passed was either full of passengers, or unwilling to stop. After waking about 5km someone kindly stopped for us. I jumped in the back of his new 4×4 and almost sat on the large rifle that was on the seat. He was on his way to shoot birds in the forest. We found out that his name was Shakir, and he was a retired furniture importer who provided Italian furniture to the top Moroccan hotels, restaurants and businesses. I think he had been very successful.
We got out at the tourist site and walked the short way to the green group’s home range. Neal took us on a whistle-stop tour of the places we had not yet seen in the home range. this included repeating climbing the valleys that the macaques had led me through on Wednesday, luckily thought today I wasn’t wearing a backpack. We went higher than I had been with the monkeys and reached a section called “The Alps.”
Three trees near "The Alps"
We headed back down and returned to the tourist area where we chatted to Ben Haddu, a fossil/gem seller and a group of the other men who work up at the tourist site. He invited us over for tea and bread which we gladly ate. while we were chatting he mentioned a cherry festival that was happening in a nearby village over the weekend. We all liked the sound of that, especially the traditional berber music, so got more details. (held at Ain Leuh. Starts at 4pm on both Saturday and Sunday). After saying our goodbyes we hitched back down the hill and chilled before getting ready for the evening’s festivities, the Morocco v.s. Algeria qualifying match for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
At about 20.15 Neal and I headed out to town to find a cafe to watch the match in ahead of kick off at 21:00. We soon realised that we were a bit late as every cafe was crammed full of men waiting for the match to start. Eventually we found a small space at the back of a cafe, so we grabbed some chairs from outside and made our way in; Surprisingly we didn’t decapitate anyone. We sat down and ordered some mint tea while waiting for the match to start. The excitement levels started to rise as 9 o’clock drew closer, by 9:01 people were getting rather agitated and frantic… Nobody knew what channel the football was on! After a lot of flicking the correct channel was found (3 minutes late!).
It took a tense 25 minutes for the Moroccans to find their stride and score their first goal. soon after, they scored again and were looking on form for a third. After about 38 minutes of play a picture of a mosque appeared on screen and and adhan began to play. It was time to pray! About 10 of the spectators in the cafe got up to head to the mosque, but the others remained glued to their seats. By the time this interruption had finished, so had the first half, the coverage resumed as the players were leaving the pitch. Neal and I were dumbfounded; we could not believe that a national match would be interrupted like that. There would have been uproar in the UK!
Cheering at 3-0!
Morocco continued to dominate in the second half. and the final score was 4-0 to Morocco. Everyone in the cafe was jubilant, everyone apart from the chap sitting to my right. Throughout the match he had been shrinking in his seat, and at the end of the match he slunk out quietly. It appears that I had been sitting next to the only Algeria fan in Azrou!
Following the victory we headed down the hill to grab a quick bite to eat before heading back. On the way down we met Driss who was running back up the hill. he quickly mentioned how amazing the match was before sprinting off. We stopped and Neal treated me to a peppery snail soup. Another delicious moroccan treat costing only a few pence. As we drank it every vehicle that passed was beeping its horn, and a small group of lads ran past us down the road cheering. It was a party atmosphere.
Check out this short clip (hopefully theres more to come in a separate post about the Moroccan’s love of football!)
A few minutes later once Neal and I had finished our soup the group of lads came back again. This time the group had swelled considerably to about 400-500 young men and they were running fast through the traffic. I looked at Neal, and on his returning glance we both started to run too. We joined the throng of running teens and kids all of whom were chanting, singing triumphantly and waving flags. Every so often the group would spontaneously come to a halt, sing for 30 seconds and then carry on running in the middle of the high street with cars and trucks passing either side (albeit rather slowly). Eventually the chaotic festivities slowed somewhat when the Annour Mosque was reached, and everyone started to sing. The excitement started to ebb slightly at this point, the police also turned up, although there was absolutely no trouble for them to deal with (unlike in the UK after a football match!). Neal and I decided it was time to call it a night.