Prince Turnip

One great thing about Morocco is that it has such a long coastline (mostly on the Atlantic and a little on the Mediterranean, for you geography flunkies.)  Along said coastline are various cities and towns, some being real gems.  One gem is a village in the south called Mirleft.  'Mir' comes from emir, meaning prince, and left means turnip.  Now, I'm not sure if a turnip prince ever existed in the area, but I'm pretty sure there isn't one now because Mirleft does not evoke images of royalty, nor does it boast a very good vegetable market.  But, what it does boast is a pristine beach and dramatic ocean views.
     A couple of years ago the husband and I were looking for a weekend getaway destination and we had a British owned bed and breakfast in Mirleft recommended to us.  Little did we know that the B and B would become an annual pilgrimage site for us, but this year is the third year we've stayed there and this time we brought my mom.  It is, for us anyway, the star of Mirleft.
        Sally's, named after the owner, is a yellow villa that sits atop a cliff overlooking the town's main beach.  It has a beautiful living room with a large terrace on the first floor, and a large deck on the roof, all with ocean views.  This was the first time we stayed in the second floor suite, and we can't figure out why we didn't do it before.  The suite has a large sitting room with attached kitchen and breakfast bar, a small bathroom, a bedroom with fireplace and two windows overlooking the ocean, and a large private terrace with grill and ocean views all around.  When I say ocean views I mean pure, unobstructed ocean views that make you think you're on a cruise ship as opposed to dry land.  Here is the view from the bedroom window:

 

      Naturally, with views like this our desire to leave our room was next to nil.  When it came time for us to get food I felt annoyance rather than my usual pleasure at the thought of going out to eat.  This is partly due to the lackluster dining options that Mirleft has to offer (last year there was a great Italian restaurant owned by real Italians, but they'd since packed up and moved on,) but it was largely due to the fact that we had the best views in town.  Luckily, the husband was kind enough to go scrounge something up and bring it back to me and my mom.  Breakfasts were one of the best times of the day because two lovely Moroccan ladies brought a full spread of breakfast delights to our terrace.

Breakfast on the terrace

        In addition to the fantastic views, Sally's has cozy decor.  The rooms and public areas are an eclectic mix of Moroccan and British, with a naughty horse cartoon in every room.  Our room had a nautical feel with navy and white striped curtains and navy accent walls.  My mom's room was done up in a surprisingly tasteful combination of red, blue, and yellow.    

      The place is fairly big for a bed and breakfast.  There are two or three rooms with a glimpse of the ocean from the window (you have to stand just so), a first floor room with a great view of the ocean, our suite, and the room where my mom stayed which had no ocean view at all but was conveniently located on the same floor as our suite. 
       When we were there there were also a couple of British women and their kids.  The permanent residents are the owner, her small dog Moogy, and her blue macaw named Bella.  We'd met Moogy the previous times, but this was the first time we met Bella.  She has a large walk-in cage on the second floor, but spends the night in the owner's room.  Sally told us that Bella gets in her bed and lies on her back so Sally can pet her yellow tummy.  We got a chance to pet her and she is truly an affectionate bird.

Bella was more interested in showing off her smooth moves than her feathers.

     We had planned on staying just one night but ended up staying two.  Had it not been for the husband's work and the cost of the suite, about $125 a night, we would've stayed much longer.  My mom was trying to figure out how long she could live there if she retired and I was calculating how much it would cost a month if we stayed there every weekend.  Needless to say, we'll be back!

How do you say...

If there is a hell, I’m certain that in it there is a special room for people who move thousands of miles away from their parents.  Being one of those people, I always carry this guilt with me.  My family is usually far far away.
    Luckily, although I was a bad daughter for hauling my bags and myself off to Morocco, I have a wonderful sister and parents who come to visit and now is one of those times that I get to spend days on end with my mom. 
    Depending on how you count, this is my mom’s fifth or sixth time coming to Morocco and she is a language superstar.  It’s not that she’s fluent in a number of languages (just English), but she is so eager to communicate and so willing to make mistakes that she jumps right into Arabic while she’s here.  Every trip she adds a few Arabic words to her notebook and even tries those words back in the US on unsuspecting, but always thrilled, Arabs.  Well, she once used Arabic on a rather confused caucasian border patrol agent in California after having wrapped a scarf around her head, but that’s another story. 
    My dad, on the other hand, has only picked up one Arabic word ever.  That word means “I’m full.”  This is the one word a visitor to a Moroccan home needs to survive.  I’m not kidding, it’s that important.  Forget and there will be no end to the food they give you.  Death by hospitality is real.
    Oh, I should point out here that not all Arabics are the same.  Each country has its own dialect and the stuff in the news is a standardized Arabic that no one speaks as a mother tongue.  Moroccan Arabic is the farthest dialect from the standardized because it has been so influenced by Berber, French, and Spanish.  Most Arabs can’t understand Moroccan Arabic.
    Back to my mom.  So she has this notebook with about 30 words or phrases in Moroccan Arabic.  Most of them are useful - “Good morning,” while one or two are for pure amusement- “little monkey.”  She’s requested that my husband and I pepper our English conversations with words from her list so she can hear them in action.  We do what we can.  And every day she tries to add a few more things to the list.  Her trip is for two more weeks (yay!) and the goal is to have 100 words by the end.
    Today was the first time this trip that we went to my in-laws’ house.  Arabic is the main language spoken among them because it’s the only language the older generation knows.  My husband’s generation knows French and some English, and the older kids are awesome at English as well. 
    During our visit my mom busted out her Arabic.  Apart from some letter switching, z’s became s’s and b’s became d’s, she did great.  Too great because it prompted my in-laws to try to increase her budding vocabulary tenfold.  When my husband’s nephew was trying to explain the difference in pronunciation between “red” and “donkey,” (a very small difference I have yet to master) I knew she was in trouble.  We managed to calm the vocabulary onslaught, but then they started the inevitable comparison between the Arabic skills of any foreigner and myself.  The conclusion being that if my mom sticks around a couple of months she’ll be teaching me Arabic.  It’s probably not too far fetched, but it still made me go “grrrrrr” to have my shoddy Arabic be looked upon in disdain.
    Tomorrow is Friday, meaning a trip back to the in-laws’ for a delicious meal of my mother-in-law’s awesome couscous.  My mom is preparing some new phrases for then, but she can also refer back to today’s hit - “Eat, you little monkey,” - directed at yours truly.