Harvesting olives in Morocco

Welcome to Morocco

We drive off the ferry, through customs (who take the drone from us - unfortunately forbidden in Morocco, but we might get it back when we leave the country) and straight to the beach. Wow - our first experiences outside of Europe start here. After just two days of rain and mud and getting stuck, we know: We first need a base to arrive. To be free and unplanned has its advantages, but at the moment we have to be able to collect ourselves somewhere. About an hour away from us - between the cities of Meknes and Fez - there is one Organic farmwhich also exists as a workaway. After some communication difficulties and the journey through what feels like 200 mud lakes, we are finally standing in front of the gate of the olive farm. The closed one.

We spend the first two days with Laila and Sol. We make music together, play cards and learn how to cook tajin. Sol is very enthusiastic about the ukulele and after just one day can already play a whole song with us - and hardly stops doing it. She is seven years old and soaks up knowledge just like the proverbial sponge. She can already speak German and Spanish fluently and is also learning Arabic and English. It is impressive how much talent and energy become visible in a person when you let them try everything.

We also get to know Mohammed. He is the guardian of the property and although he only speaks Arabic, he can still teach us what to do on the farm.

Olive harvest

The approximately 2 hectare property is surrounded by olive trees, all of which are more or less ripe for harvest. Since there are no machines, we harvest by hand. To do this, you first have to spread a huge net under the trees and then hit the full branches with sticks. The olives, branches and leaves fall onto the net and are collected here. When enough trees have been "worked" in this way, or the net is too full to be pulled to the next tree, the fruit is separated from the branches. And just in case anyone cares: olives straight from the tree taste a bit like biting into a soap. Absolutely not recommendable!

After the rough sorting, we made a new pile and spread the net next to it again. Then Mohammed scooped up the olives in front of him and threw them with all his might against the wind. So the last leaves came off the harvest and we were able to pack everything neatly and neatly in sacks.

On some days there were other workers, on others there were more work-away volunteers: Maria from Spain and Camille from Belgium as well as André from Portugal. Together we managed - depending on how big and ripe the trees were - 5 to 10 trees, or about 1 ½ to 3 full sacks a day. We also spent a day tidying up the yard, picking and processing lemons for a vegan lemon cake. Or by packing our bus with all empty bottles and canisters in order to refill them with fresh spring water at a nearby water point.

On the only day that it rained, we made our way to the olive oil press with a total of 13 sacks (or almost 1200kg of olives). There the olives are ground with huge stones. The resulting paste is distributed on meshes the size of a plate, stacked on top of each other and then pressed together. In a few days, the farm can pick up its own olive oil again. There is a smell of it everywhere, Luca immediately falls back into his job and starts filming and documenting everything. He starts talking to a Moroccan who speaks Spanish and who invites us all to a traditional bean soup (bissara) with lots of tea and bread. Hospitality is really important in this country.

The omicron variant appears on the scene

You don't actually notice anything about Corona on the farm, but with the appearance of the other volunteers, the topic becomes a lot more real again. With the new Omikron variant, Morocco has decided to close its borders to international traffic. This means that neither planes nor ferries from Europe can come into the country. At the moment for two weeks, but this can of course be extended slightly. At the moment this does not affect us, as we want to stay here for 3 months anyway to «hibernate».

For André, however, it means, for example, that he waits all day to be contacted by the embassy to find out when his return flight is leaving so that he can leave for Marrakesh early enough to have the PCR test there before his flight execute. Maria actually wants to fly to Thailand with friends over Christmas and cannot leave the country at the moment, as every flight she books is canceled a few days later. (Absurd flights from, for example, Ryanair, which cost between 5 and 35 euros. How that is possible is completely beyond our understanding). We are continuing to monitor the situation, but there is really nothing we can do at the moment, except hope that when our visa expires, the ports will be open again and we can continue our journey.

We spend the last few days getting our bus ready to go again. In addition, we finally have to do laundry again (by hand) and fill up our supplies. We are also trying to make Jimmy a travel kitten and take him with us, but unfortunately he prefers to stay on the farm. His bad luck 😉 So we say goodbye to a lasting experience and continue south. There are supposed to be monkeys there and we finally want to experience our first flight in Morocco.

Thanks to everyone who made our stay in Ain Taoujdate so pleasant. It was the best way to arrive in this country!