As I just restarted my blog, I feel it necessary to let everyone know where we are and what we are up to, by giving a bit of a background about our nomadic life, and our current situation.  So this post should hopefully get everyone sorted out, and as usual, if you have ANY questions at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us through the website or by commenting on this post at the end. 

We have been in Morocco for over 3 months now.  Of course, we now couldn’t leave even if we wanted to, but the truth is, we really don’t want to.  In our usual style, we came here on a one way ticket mid January, and let things play out as they may.  This is how we travel now.  This is how we let the universe whisk us along, laying a path out for us to follow as it does.  We follow our instincts and guts, we move when we feel like it, we wait for opportunities to present themselves, then we act on them accordingly. 

Read my First Impressions of Morocco!

This way of life has served us well in the past couple years.  Despite having the odd housesitting job, or trip planned with family, we have largely let the wind take us where it wants to.  And I guess, our current situation of not knowing what is next, is just normal for us.  We have spent 2 years adapting to just going with the flow.  In effect, I feel like we have been training for this.  (To learn more about our last couple years, and read about our letting go of our conventional life, visit my old blog at Just Some Wandering.) 

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We currently find ourselves at a hostel in Tinghir, located in the north/central part of Morocco.  We are, if we were currently able, a 3 hour drive south west of the Sahara desert, and enjoy mostly sunny days. Although the landscape is quite dry here, we are fortunate to have a mountain spring that runs through the farm fields behind us that provides the life blood of the valley.  We literally could not be stuck in a better place during a global pandemic, that’s for sure.  

We arrived here on March 17th, 3 days before the government shut down the country’s transportation and highways to anything other than essential traffic.  On our journey down here from Chefchaouen, up in the North, we already knew that the border to Spain had been closed, but that was largely it.  Over the course of the next few days, the country clamped down like nothing we have ever seen before, and of course, the rest of the world followed suit.

We had been sort of following news of the virus since arriving in Morocco mid January, but we always reasoned that it was all the way over in China, and we weren’t really that worried about it.  Not speaking the language, therefore not reading papers or watching the news, meant that we were very out of the loop as far as the virus was progressing.  I will admit, I really didn’t give it much thought, and I was actually very blindsided by what transpired so quickly once it all started happening.  

I’m writing a book about our experience here in Morocco during this lockdown.  Check out our Patreon page to learn all about it!

Nomadic Artists

We are travelling artists that paint murals for hostels, hotels and restaurants, and exchange our services for food and accommodation where ever we go.  This exchange means that the owners have access to quality art, at an affordable price.  As artists, we couldn’t be more thrilled to be putting our time and energy into beautifying the places that we are at, and knowing that our work will be enjoyed by many for years to come.  When looked at through that lens, it is a blessing.  Many artists have stacks and stacks of original paintings that are just waiting for their forever homes.  Many original paintings hardly see the light of day, and of course, the artists often won’t see the money for their creations that they have laboured over for many hours.  

By doing what we are doing, we are in essence ‘selling’ our artwork for a roof over our heads and, most times, food in our bellies.  I really can’t think of a better exchange.  Plus, our artwork is guaranteed to be seen, we are making the world beautiful, and we are feeding our creative souls.  We really do feel blessed to have found this life.  

We have been nomadic now for over 2.5 years, and this lifestyle suits us.  We enjoy travelling from place to place, and we like spending at least a month, preferably 3, in each place that we visit so that we can really sink in and get to know a place and it’s people.  We had been contacted by the owner here at this hostel, while we were painting at a hostel/hotel in Chefchaouen in February.  He had seen my posts on Facebook and stated that he needed some work done here as well.  

(There is much to tell to fill in this gap, but you will have to read my book to learn all about that!) 

And so, here we are, painting this hostel from top to bottom as we wait with the rest of the world for life to return to some sense of normalcy, at least enough so that we can move to another place in Morocco.  Initially we were meant to only be here for a month, but as the lockdown progressed, it was obvious that we weren’t going to be going anywhere soon. 

Lucky for us, our host is happy to have us continue to paint, while he takes incredibly good care of us on a day to day basis.  However, because we are well over our scheduled stay, and because he too isn’t making any money in these days, we do find ourselves giving him a bit of money once in a while to help purchase food or pay the utility bills.  We have embraced the mentality that we are all in this together, and in reality, if we weren’t here, we would be paying to stay at a hotel or hostel, or paying to rent our own place.  Giving him a bit of money here and there, I will admit, also cures our guilty conscious’ that we may be costing him too much in a time where there clearly isn’t much to be made.  I mean we are using his internet and other utilities, and he is feeding us multiple times per day, so it really is just fair.  

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Yes, we are still working for him, but you know what? We enjoy it.  If we didn’t have our creativity, I don’t know where we would be through all of this.  However, I will also say that, in essence, our day to day hasn’t changed much.  We paint a few hours, then work on our own side projects in the evening.  The big thing that is missing is that we don’t go out to explore the area, or take days off to go do something else.  Of course, there are days where we don’t paint, and in jobs of the past, we would take every third day off to go do some exploring.  But now, our days off consist of sitting on the terrace, or just relaxing and reading or working on our projects.  To be honest, it has all blurred together, and we usually do find ourselves painting on the walls most days in an attempt to occupy our minds and keep our creativity flowing.   

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If you are interested in following us as we are #paintingtheplanet, subscribe to our Patreon page for just $3 per month.  You will see more of our completed projects that are available to Patrons only! Your money will go towards helping not only us, but our hostel owner as well, as we get through this ordeal together.  I do believe that it is time for those that do have money, to realize that it is something to be shared with those that are less fortunate, but that is a whole new post for a different time!

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The lockdown in Morocco has been quite strict.  During the first month, we snuck out about 5 times to explore the fields behind where we are staying, but it was always fraught with a bit of fear that we would get caught by the police.  There is only supposed to be one person per household that leaves for supplies and essentials.  So, after getting out a few times, and seeing as much as we could in the near vicinity, we decided to not tempt fate, and to just stay put.  We are, after all, guests in a foreign country, the least we can do is to respect the rules.  

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For now, the lockdown is meant to be lifted on May 20th, but we aren’t counting down the days.  Instead, we just worry about each day as it comes, try not to focus too much on the future, and focus our energy on being grateful that we ended up in such an incredible country, and with such an awesome roof over our heads, during this crazy pandemic.  

There is much more to tell of our experience here, and I look forward to sharing it with you all now that I have my blog set up again. For those who haven’t followed my blog before, please know that my writing on here is rarely structured.  I’m not trying to turn this into some giant marketing scheme, or get named as the best blogger of 2020.  My aim with my blog is to provide myself an outlet for sharing my thoughts, emotions, feelings and experiences as I move through the world.  

If you are interested in more of our story, check out our ‘About Us’ page on the website, and of course, please subscribe to my blog by putting your email address into the right hand column. That way you will never miss a beat about what we are up to!  

Thanks so much for following along!  I’m so happy to have finally restarted something that I have been missing so much.  I guess you could say that this, and writing my book, have become my Covid projects.  I am thankful for the extra time that I now find myself with, to accomplish the things that I have been wanting to do for so long.  Please bare with me as I learn this new layout, it is quite different from my last blog!

Stay Safe.  Stay Healthy!  Sending much love to you all from Morocco.  

With Love,

Jill

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