Travel log: You're never alone in the High Atlas.

Ed. Note: Aaron sent this dispatch on May 13. Many apologies for the delay.

Travel log:

You're never alone in the High Atlas.
Trails and rivers cut through and wind around mountains that change color at each bend. Lush meadows give way to red dirt, then grey rock with streaks of purple running to the top; but none reach higher than the white-capped peaks fixed in the distance. At your feet, the little red poppies dance and the wheat sways in time. Alone in the valley, the mind gives up grasp of its previous reality; the vastness, the colors, the smell of mint and sage send thoughts tumbling into an even brighter, incalculable, internal dimension even broader than the one outside ... but someone is always there.
Goat-hearders, shepherds, kids playing, a man with a donkey, women and girls bent over beneath cords of wood or feedgrass are always there. They are sometimes across the valley, sometimes a few hundred feet up the cliff on a terraced field. Hidden deep in the natural colors may be the women's brightly patterned dresses or the carefully balanced goats on the hillside.
The Berber people have lived in the Atlas Mountains for thousands of years. The ancient and abandoned homes line the cliffs where the new, mostly mudbrick or cement, structures are built into the side of the rock above the river. In Morocco's Azilal Province many homes are fitted with electricity, satelite television and running water (hot water may come from a butane-powered water heater. Below the houses, the flatlands adjacent to the river are used for the crops.
Bread is a constant at every meal and many of the fields are devoted to wheat. Peas, potatoes, carrots, olives and almonds also grow with the former three rounding out a typical tajine dinner.
Couscous may be recognized as the national dish, but the tajine must be nearly as common. The very frequent meal gets its name from the conical clay pot in which it is cooked. It is almost always the women who prepare chopped vegetables in a hefty layer of vegetable oil topped with some kind of meat and allow it to stew over the gas range for a few hours.
When it has finished, the pot is traditionally brought to a short table with its conical lid. Bread is torn and laid on the table before eash person who has gathered around to eat on the floor or on long sofa cushions called ponjes. It is not uncommon for the sexes to eat in separate rooms.
The lid is removed to the blessing: "Bismill-h" or "in the name of G-d." The guests repeat the blessing as each reaches into the communal pot with a piece of bread and their fingers to scoops up a bit of food and oil.
The meat, which is often chicken, goat or lamb (but can be beef, pigeon, rabbit, or turkey) is saved for last and divided by the head of the house.
To drink, buttermilk is the beverage of choice with couscous, but with tajine all may share water from a single cup.
A fierce sense of hospitality compels a host to continue to offer his guests more and more food, but to those unacustom to the Moroccan diet, there is little room for any excess.
It should not surprise a Moroccan to be fed five times a day, which makes food a large part of the culture and the social life. Breakfast begins the day with, of course, bread served regular or fried with olive oil, honey, butter or jam. Still, before mid-morning passes people have gathered around the table again for morning tea. The green tea, with its strong natural mint and even stronger sugar, is jokingly called "Moroccan whiskey" because of Islam's prohibition on alcohol. Plus, the act of sitting and having tea becomes the forum for the recent gossip and jokes.
Morning tea passes into lunch (which could be a similar set of vegetables and meat atop couscous, rice or in tajine-form, lunch leads to afternoon tea of more bread and tea, and finally to dinner again when the family ends the day's work around 9 p.m. or later.
Mealtime can be a huddled affair around the small tables. In a household, the older boys often go away to school or work, but large families live together, especially in rural areas. Men may commute to work in larger cities and only return on the weekends, but women may go long stretches of time without traveling beyond their homes or the fields where they are constantly working together.
Many Moroccans are uncomfortable with eating, living and simply being alone. It is thought that anyone living alone is want for pity and needs to be looked after. Even the idea of privacy is not as highly regarded as it is in the West.
Still, no one is ever really alone in Morocco. They say it's lonely at the top, but at the top of so many rooms in Morocco is a picture of the King, Mohammad VI, making sure we're well-looked after and never alone.