New Year's Eve Celebration in Zaida

Here are more excerpts from my journal:


January 1, 2011, early in the morning.
Last night, we arrived at the hotel in Zaida, which is a huge square structure with a paved courtyard set up with iron chairs and tables connecting it to a large cafe, where we had dinner. We went from 65 degrees in Rabat to FREEZING in Zaida, so after I dumped my luggage in the hotel room (shared with Jane and Denise), I bundled up in my new wool caftan-coat and hat/gloves/scarf before heading to dinner. I think people in this area are impervious to cold, because we were all bundled up, but none of the hotel and dining staff were. The rooms were not well heated at all, and the ceilings were really high, and let's just say: it was cold. However, dinner was delightful. They seated us at a long table set for 17 (us plus the driver and the guide), and we had chickpea/vermicelli soup, bread,  vegetable tajine, and hot sweet tea.

After dinner, we began our New Year's celebration, which had to be somewhat surreptitious out of respect for the Muslim culture which forbids alcohol. We set up a mini bar in one of the hotel rooms and had a few toasts until we learned that there was something going on outside in the large common room (all of our hotel rooms opened into this beautiful, large common room, set up with carpets and a couch). The hotel staff had baked a HUGE cake for us that said "New Year 2011." It was so nice! The staff included two women, all beautiful in their headscarves, a little boy, and three men. They helped us cut the cake, then stayed out there with us until midnight. They had a television set turned on in a nearby hotel room set to a music channel, and we all danced together. It was so funny, at first, it was just some of us women dancing, holding hands and dancing in a circle, and then one of the men jumped into the middle of the circle and began  to dance. And at midnight, we all counted down and gave each other hugs and wished each other a happy New Year's, and the volunteers all made individual toasts back by the mini-bar. It was such a great way to bring in the New Year, and I will never ever forget it.

It was so cold in the hotel room. I took a shower in scalding hot water, which I swear froze on my skin the second I turned the shower off, and I rolled into bed with an abundance of blankets and slept with the knowledge that the tomorrow brings the Sahara!