<-- small village (mud houses) on the hike up to Lac d'Ifni in the Atlas mountains of MoroccoLast night, I popped into Ma'alem Seddik's to say hello to everyone after having been gone 2 weeks. I told Ma'alem Seddik and all the men about my trip and said that my favorite part was swimming in Lac d'Ifni- that is, until I saw two water snakes after I got out (although they looked pretty friendly).
Much to my entertainment, mentioning this started a long and heated debate between all of the men over which are the most dangerous snakes in the world. Ma'alem Seddik was trying to say to me, "Don't worry, Tamara- I'm sure those snakes don't eat people." But another guy, Djamel disagreed fervently- "No! Snakes that live in water are the most dangerous in the world!" and on and on the argument went. Although I didn't understand all the words, I got the gist, watching them all make hand gestures for fangs and biting people and falling over like they were dead. I was losing my marbles with laughter at all of this.
Finally, after they had exhausted this subject, I said in a combination of French and Arabic, "Well, thank god I'm alive then!" and I laughed and Djamel looked at me with big eyes like, "Yeah!" and Ma'alem Seddik poo-pooed the whole thing.
But maybe I can use this story later as an impressive tale... that one time I went swimming with deadly water snakes in Morocco! hahaha
I'd rather not think about whether or not they were really deadly... but who ever heard of a deadly water snake in an ice-cold mountain lake?!
When I said that to Hassan, he said, "Well, NOW you've heard of it." Pfffff
