Reimer Ramblings: Christmas 2009

Please let me know if you cannot see these pictures. I realized I put them on here full-sized.

After a two-day weather delay, my brother and family finally arrived in Morocco - YAY!

Andrew, Emily, David, Daniel, Helen & Timothy

After seeing a mostly wet and soggy Ifrane, we headed down to the desert where we enjoyed dune-jumping, camel riding and...

Four-wheeling. Gerald took Kendra for a little spin first then just the guys went out to the dunes you see behind.

Dinner entertainment

Gerald's reward for being the only one to wake up early enough to see the sunrise - beautiful!

Daniel is a solar engineer so Ron was eager to show him a solar hammam (bath house) that he and some others built. Hammams use huge amounts of wood which is leading to deforestation - a dangerous condition for a country on the edge of the world's biggest desert!

Note the clouds in the background - in between this picture and the next is where the "Christmas Meditation" happened.

Christmas Day in Meknes with Daniel & Ron's families - here is our food creation Ron had us make combining Christmas and Morocco. We made the "Three Kings Kasbah (Moroccan fortified house)" saying this is the little-known inn where they slept on their way to Bethlehem...

Our home - you are welcome to come join us! The "Christmons" on the tree - symbols of Christ - have a special meaning for me this year. As I was decorating for our Christmas program at AUI, a student came up and asked me about each of the Christmons on the tree. It was the first time a Moroccan has really asked me questions about what I believe in stead of me initiating. It was so very special to explain things to her. After each one, she said, "That's so beautiful!" I felt like that conversation was a special Christmas gift!

Then we went on to Gibraltar - on the tip of Spain. I'll explain all that later. Here we are inside St. Micheal's Cave on the rock of Gibraltar. It was so very beautiful and even had a theatre inside! This is the only one of the 140 caves in the rock that tourists are allowed to visit.

The ancients thought this cave was bottomless and led to hell - yikes! Others said it connected to Africa (only 8 miles away) under the water which is how the North African monkeys made it to Gibraltar. Well, there's no tunnel, but either the Arab or British soldiers must have brought them as pets.

...and now they're all over the rock in a semi-wild state since the army feeds them but they are not caged. Our tour guide had this monkey climb onto my arms! We feed this type of monkey all the time in Morocco, but I had never held one. Later a monkey stole Gerald's camera and Katrina's jacket. Thankfully Gerald managed to salvage both items!

There it is - part of the rock of Gibraltar. The ancient world said that Hercules separated Africa and Europe by pulling apart the pillars of Hercules - Gibraltar being one of them. The ancients believed this was the end of the world and said that you would fall off into the world of Hercules - the sun god - if you went any further. Later the Arabs used the rock as a military base whose comander was named Tariq. So it was named "Jbel (mountain of) Tariq" and "Gibraltar" is a corruption of that name.

Used over and over again in military operations, the rock and the strait haveeen very strategic over the years. Over 53 km of military tunnels have been dug through the rock and if we were allowed, we could travel the entire length and breadth of the rock in tunnels. There are more tunnels inside the rock than roads on the surface! This tunnel was built by the British when they were defending the rock against the Spanish siege which lasted four years. Gibraltar is still a British enclave, much to Spain's disliking!