Fear and Loathing in Dernier Lion du Atlas

Tonite I had been weeping while watching the movie UP with my Small Business Friends (those first 10 minutes always tear me apart). But as soon as I felt better, I nearly fell out of my seat when I got a message : "What chick? What movie? About to do the egg contest!"

So I said goodbye to these people, hopped in a taxi and sped down town, describing in Arabic how: 'juj Shabbi dyali, kayn match d akul bid bzzaf' They are having a match to see who can eat the most eggs.

I knew the day would come when Sam would make good on his claim of being able to eat 21 eggs. This stemmed from him betting his host family that he could do it. Prize? 3 roosters. Soon he told us all about this, and the next thing you know Will and Anna have bet for Sam and against Sam, the value of the bet being whatever it costs to buy bus tickets between the two sites.

Will, against Sam. Anna for Sam. Once this happened, I knew it would happen. And I knew he would do it. But I wanted to be there.

So I ran as fast as possible between the Hotel Panorama and the Dernier Lion. It took 10 minutes of running in my flip flops before I found the taxi. The man was nice, but was anxious to get home. I learned the man had a brother in Ourzazate, a military man, and that soon 'j'arrive' , he will go there.

Inshallah.

I burst into the hotel, scoped out my friends, discovered they were in the kitchen peeling all 42 eggs. Forty-two? Surely Sam didn't double his claim. No, it was Juan, he was getting in on it.

Luckily for Sam and Juan, half of the eggs were scrambled. Otherwise, they would not have been able to eat all of them. If they had all been scrambled, they could have eaten maybe 50% more.

Well, you had to have been there. It was epic. Looking at the plate before they began was grotesque. Just watching I felt light-headed. And we alternated cheering and maligning our friends Juan and Sam as they tarried forth on their quest.

Writing now after it has finished, Seth is across on the other ponj writing up a report to send to Peace Corps Times, to share the story with the 8000 other volunteers. I'll write part 2 and include more pictures, video and the second half of the story the next day or two

other pics from my Azrou PPST trip

I eat this about once a week after my lessons. It's in a cafe in my town, scrambled eggs cooked in olive oil in a tajine. For 1.75 dollars, you get six eggs, with tomato and green olives, plus another plate of black olives, two clementines, delicious fresh white bread rolls and a glass of mint tea!

Examples, really made me miss Bolivia when I'd wait for 6 weeks to buy a jar of Siete Puentes tomato sauce, 'picante' . It was amazing but my last jar burst on the sidewalk when I was with my friend Andrew