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Shares
"Here is my number. Call me if you need me." The man next to me in the plane gives me back my phone. No, it is us planning to date. This man wanted to protect me from the adventure me and my friend were getting into. I mean, two girls flying to Morocco to do some volunteering work in the mountains with hardly any reception, without an organisation or an idea who will pick us up. Sketchy much? Yes, I have to admit that this is normally not something I would do. Maybe we were a bit too trusting and naive when we signed up and spontaneously booked ourselves a plane ticket to Oujda to spend a week in the Beni Snassense mountains. The fact that the man who went back to his home country, didn’t trust it definitely gave us a scare. What did we get ourselves into? We had faith. And a Plan B. Arrived in Oujda, we gaze around an almost empty airport. One foot in front of the other we make our way outside. Foreign faces stare at us. We are the odd ones out being blonde and pale. Then two man wave at us with friendly faces and broad smiles. With confused faces we greet them. We are being picked up, but is it safe? We look at each other when we step into the vehicle, leaving the airport and the city behind us. Welcoming unpaved roads, mountains and small houses spread over the rough landscape. Our guide talks about everything we come across, sometimes directing the driver in the Berber language. From that moment on we knew that we could trust our gut and our adventure was everything but sketchy. The sun slowly falls behind the mountains and we drive in the dark over a gravel path with hardly any light. We feel our hearts beating heavily and then we stop. We get out of the car and are lovingly welcomed by a 7 headed family living in a small home. We are woken up by birds whistling in our room and the smell of a freshly baked breakfast. When we step outside, the sun is smiling at us, we inhale the odour of orange trees and hear the buzzing bees. We look at all the different colors of green, the rise and fall of the mountain and the river not far away from us. Then we look at each other, smiling, while we take a bite from our crispy and sweet Msemmen pastry. I breathe out deeply and feel grateful. Sometimes you have to take a risk to find paradise.