Weds Apr 11
Left hotel around 7:30, arrived at Hasna's house shortly before 8. Barely had time to get in and unpack gear before they woke her, nothing too special about getting-up routine. She prays (Muslim) shortly after getting up. Were treated to our first (and maybe only?) authentic Moroccan breakfast; something that looked like a patty of spaghetti at first, was actually dough, not noodles, put honey on top, very good. Also, crepes with jam, and some form of pound cake. Shot Hesna eating, then talking on computer to sister in Canada via MSN Messenger. One of the brothers had dragged their computer from a side room and set it up in the main area of the house, where he started a video chat with the sister, I'm guessing to show that Americans were at their house? Because he left it pointed on us a lot. Anyways, nothing uncomfortable, I guess we may have been the first to have visited their house.
Ok, so story going alright, we didn't have a lot of good stuff yet, but the day was just starting, right? Then, as breakfast was being cleaned up, the family found out that an uncle nearby had died. It wasn't unexpected, he had been ill, but the mother left immediately to be with extended family. We weren't sure how this would affect things, but we decided to continue to pursue what we'd been working on. Hasna had planned to go train more in table tennis at the SO headquarters, and she agreed to go through with that, I guess she didn't know the uncle well. On the way to SO office, Said informs us that the mourning process in Morocco takes 3 days, and the family wouldn't be available until Saturday, and that was iffy, and may have been awkward / not respectful to interview with them so soon after the death.
Alright, so Hesna practices table tennis, we shoot some other this, good footage, all the time we're trying to think of ways to make what we've been given work out. She's still not that expressive, even after we ask her to show some emotion while playing if she's happy or frustrated with how her practice is going. In the same room are a group of SO athletes, guys who work to make soccer balls by hand. The experienced ones can stitch 1 ball a day, while the newer people spend their time practicing on cheap leather. SO is all about better the lives of the athletes by giving them things to do, not just a sport to play. Each ball that's made goes for 150 Dr, and the athlete gets a portion of that money. Good moments with the guys there, they even formed a dance circle and drummed and danced for us. Then they had us join in! Gave us robe/shirt to put on with the cap thing, and had us attempt to play the drums with them. A lot of fun, and we felt very accepted. Set camera on auto and had Director snap pics of us in action!
After this, Hasna headed out to go be with the rest of her family. We shot some of her walking to potentially use, but more and more we were realizing that her story was not going to work out. We spent a little more time with the soccer ball guys, especially one named Rasheed who was actually the athlete originally chosen for us, the problem was he wasn't going to be competing in China this fall. Got some detail shots (photo) of him and the others working. Decided to call Rich (professor) that afternoon and see if we could do the story on Rasheed, not Hasna. So went back to room at 12:30, called, but were told we had to do a China athlete story, that is the point of the website we're making!
So we called Said and told him we needed to change our story, and pick one of the 4 other athletes who were going to be competing in China. He understood, and we'll meet tomorrow morning with the Director guy and others to figure that out.
So, it's the afternoon free for us. And what better way to spend it except to take pictures! We both had wanted to go back to Chellah (the Roman city) and take more pics, especially of the cats. So that's where we went, for about an hour and half, filled up 2 1gb memory cards, will take me forever to sort though them all, but a lot of fun. Experimented with some dramatic off-camera flash once the sky turned overcast. Started to look like rain, so we headed out, walked into city a bit and bought sodas, bananas, and fresh bread, then taxi back to hotel to dl pics. An hour later I happened to notice the clouds were breaking and a great sunset was in the works, so we rushed out to find a taxi and head to la plage, where we arrived with minutes to spare. There were some clouds on the horizon, so nothing super-dramatic, but still beautiful light and colors all around. Shot half an hour past sunset on the beach, clouds, reflections, ect, eventually pulled out the flash, zoomed flash with slow shutter speed to get sunset with us lit in front. I think I'm photo-ed out for the day.
Walked back into the city, through the Rue de Consule, headed towards a restaurant the guide book recommended, called Restaurant el-Bahia. Don't know what it means. I got a tagine there, essentially pot roast cooked in a pottery dish with vegetables. Very good, but not a very big piece of meat. Back to hotel afterwards.
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