The hills of Sefrou

3/24/09
I’ve been feeling a little like a prisoner lately here in Sefrou, but as a prison, it’s a pretty nice place to be. Here is the view from our bedroom window. Errr…the view of the bedroom window.

Hanane and I have been running a bit with our friend Yassine, together, and alone. so more excercise is feeling pretty good.

This is a place that no one seems to know anything about in the hills around Sefrou.

To me it looks like a tomb of some sort. Around it are caves that people used to live in, similar to those in Granada but the government made them all move out recently and bulldozed all the surrounding houses. Recently being about 3 years ago. there are two tourist hotels in Sefrou that were built about halfway and then abandoned. It used to be a military base here, but apparently the king got upset with the town for some reason and closed the base. then they bulldozed the barracks etc.

The hills around here have thousands of springs bubbling up out of them and there are planted forests of pinion pines, but the hills are also filled with concrete and phosphates and so they are being carved away and the pines are being cut down to make room for villas that don’t seem to get completed. Some folks around here are happy about it and others are sad to see the forest and hills disappearing and the hills being taken away to build more ugly block houses.

Hanane and I fall into the latter camp.

There is no shortage of donkeys though.

But as I say, even though it is beautiful, I am feeling a little bit trapped here. At the moment it isn’t bad, because I am taking a TEFL course but after this, I will need to find a job somewhere, in the meantime, the hiking is good.

The view is nice.

The food is good!

And the rabbits are doing fine! We built them a new enclosure yesterday. No births yet, but probably pretty soon.