Day 184 - A Slow Day in Sidi Kaouki and Big Conversations About What Comes Next

A bit of a chilled day really. We didn’t have any activities planned. It was Saturday, so a lot of people had the weekend off. We woke up around 8 o’clock and it was reasonably foggy again, like it had been the last few mornings. Kia and I got ourselves up and headed out to make coffees, then sat out on the little terrace area overlooking the ocean, just chatting and taking in one of those “how lucky are we to be sitting here right now?” moments that seem to come around so often on this trip.

A lot of our conversations still revolve around where we’re going next. It’s such a huge decision trying to figure out the next step, but at the same time it’s such a privilege to even have that uncertainty. Other than not being able to head back into the Schengen area yet, we can pretty much go anywhere. So we were talking about what we want to feel next, what sort of lifestyle we want, and what direction makes the most sense for us as a family.

The kids eventually came and joined us and we had another traditional breakfast here of msemen, breads, eggs, jam and fruit. One of the Moroccan guys staying at the accommodation is incredibly friendly and he gave us some homemade amlou, which is an almond spread made with almonds, honey and argan oil. His mum had made it and it was honestly so good. Rich, sweet and nutty, almost like a natural peanut butter but better. We were all loading it onto bread and loving it.

After breakfast, the kids and I headed upstairs to the terrace room area to get stuck into some schoolwork. Kia had written out tasks for them and they both had writing and maths to work through. Emmett is still really resistant to writing. He’ll happily stand there and talk all day about horse riding or surfing or whatever he’s excited about, but trying to get him to actually put those thoughts onto paper is a challenge. He answers questions with one or two words when we know he’s capable of so much more, so I really had to push him along to write a few proper sentences about horse riding.

Some of the maths I sat down and worked through with him step by step. We’ve been over some of it a few times already and I honestly think part of it is just him choosing not to remember it because he doesn’t want to do it. But we’ll keep going around in circles with it until it sticks.

Meanwhile Maddie’s maths is getting much more advanced. She’s moving into long division with decimals now and Kia and I are basically relearning it ourselves so we can teach her properly. It’s funny because as an adult the logic behind it makes complete sense, but you can also see how confusing it would feel as a 10-year-old learning it for the first time. Maddie’s doing really well though. When she focuses, she understands concepts quickly and can work through them confidently.

We probably pushed schoolwork a bit too long and Emmett definitely drifted outside his attention window, but overall it was a really productive session. In all honesty, it was probably closer to two days’ worth of work finished in one hit, which felt good.

By the time we wrapped up it was lunchtime, so we headed down to the little wrap shop we’d found the day before. It’s one of the cheaper food options in town and we’re trying to be mindful of spending at the moment. Morocco is still very cash-based in places like this and we’re running low, but the ATMs around here charge pretty painful fees. The restaurants we’ve been going to for dinner accept card, which helps, but the cheaper local places generally don’t, so we’re going to have to bite the bullet and pull some more cash out soon.

After lunch we headed back to the accommodation. The kids wanted to play their Lego game, Kia felt like a lay-down, and I jumped on my computer to keep working on some programs I’m trying to build to simplify a few tasks for myself. I’ve really been enjoying the process of it. Feeding information in, refining ideas, getting feedback, adjusting systems and slowly shaping something useful. It’s actually been really fun diving into it all and seeing what’s possible.

Later in the afternoon we took the kids over to the place next door that has a pool we can use for the next few days. There’s also a washing machine there, which we desperately needed, but when we arrived there was no running water, so that plan failed pretty quickly. Instead we sat around chatting and researching possible future destinations.

At the moment it’s looking more and more like we want to try and spend Christmas and part of ski season in Slovenia, so now we’re trying to work backwards from that and figure out how to structure our Schengen time to make it work. It’s exciting to feel like one piece of the puzzle is starting to come together, although we still have another six months or so to figure out before then.

After the kids had their swim, Emmett decided he wanted to go bodyboarding, so the two of us headed down to the surf shop next door. We’d found out recently that there are actually a few Australians living in town here and the owner of the surf shop is a dual Australian and Moroccan citizen who splits his time between Morocco and Coffs Harbour. So we stood around chatting to him for a while before Emmett and I headed into the water around 6 o’clock.

The surf here is pretty dumpy and heavy for kids, so getting out through the waves can be tough, but we had such a good time together. I was helping push Emmett onto waves and guiding him out through the sets, and he was doing so well. You could tell he was absolutely loving it.

We didn’t have wetsuits though, and after an hour in the water we were freezing. By 7 o’clock it was definitely time to peel ourselves out of the ocean and head back up to warm up for the night.

Because we’d had such a late lunch, we didn’t really feel like heading back out for dinner. We just pieced together a bit of food from what we had at the accommodation and that was enough for everyone. The rest of the evening was pretty chilled. We sat around talking, the kids played more Lego, and it was just one of those simple indoor evenings that starts to become normal life when you’re travelling long term.

We actually managed to get the kids into bed somewhat early for once too. We’ve definitely slipped into a few late nights lately, so it felt good to slow things down a little bit.

One thing we are starting to notice though is that all of us seem to be getting sensitive stomachs again. Kia’s feeling it, Maddie’s been complaining about a sore stomach, and I’ve been getting really bloated after eating almost every meal. I think Emmett’s feeling a bit off too, although maybe not quite as much as the rest of us.

We’re being careful with water and hygiene as much as we can. We’re drinking bottled water, not really having ice in drinks or anything like that, so I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it. It could just be different food, oils, hygiene practices or our bodies adjusting again, but something definitely feels a little off. Food hygiene standards here in Sidi Kaouki probably aren’t the greatest compared to what we’ve become used to in other places, so that could easily be playing a part.

Nothing serious at this stage, just enough for all of us to notice it and mention it. So we’ll keep an eye on it, try and work out what might be triggering it, and hopefully settle things back down over the next few days.

But yeah, that was day 184 here in Sidi Kaouki.