Marrakech: Very Good Price Snake

I'm not sure if the phrase "very good price snake" has ever been uttered to me in the past, but in the Djemma al Fna of Marrakech, it was hardly strange. When surrounded by thousands of swarming people (Moroccan and tourist alike) and having your senses bombarded by snake charmers, random monkeys, acrobats, rhythmic music, storytellers, motorcycles speeding between pedestrians, hustlers dancing in front of you and then asking for money, and food stalls, belching fire and serving up the edible and inedible, a young boy offering up a serpent for cheap really just made sense. Fortunately, these snakes were made out of wood (though they were pretty life-like and scared many a child), but with the plethora of cobras and other reptiles found in the square during the day, I really wouldn't have been surprised if the snake was real. The Djemma al Fna ("Assembly of the Dead" in Arabic) is the main square of the (funky cold) medina of Marrakech ... we stayed in a hotel in one of the nearby medina alleys and spent quite a bit of time wandering through the square or sitting above it in a cafe and watching the goings-on.

Our trip to Marrakech really was EXCELLENT ... a) Sam had Friday, Monday and Tuesday off to cavort, b) Ramadan finally ended on Saturday, and c) Marrakech is an amazing city. We traveled with our friend Misty, and had intended to catch a grand taxi to Meknes Thursday night, then take the train to Marrakech the next morning. However, we had dinner at our friend Ali's house on Thursday and he began opening bottles of wine. We mentioned that we would have to leave later that evening and therefore couldn't drink a LOT of wine. Ali has a beautifully persuasive presence. He simply said "I'll be driving right through Meknes tomorrow morning", opened a bottle of wine, set it in front of us and walked away. Consequently, with very little sleep and a meager breakfast, we hopped in Ali's car at 8:00 the next morning, barely caught our train in Meknes at 9:30 and enjoyed a long, dusty, hot, hungry (Friday was the last day of Ramadan), 7-hour train ride to Marrakech. Since the weekend was Aid al Fitr (the end of Ramadan holiday), the train was jam-packed, and from Casablanca on south, people filled the aisle and sat on the arms of chairs. We taught the guy sitting across from us how to play Skip-Bo for a little cross-cultural exchange and had an audience during a stimulating game of Scrabble.

As if some of my postings aren't incredibly long, this one would be REALLY long if I tried to cover all of the delights of Marrakech. So I will try to highlight:

* The Djemma al Fna: another world heritage site, and pure craziness. We're lucky we didn't get killed by the motorcycles and cars flying around. And there are quite a few Moroccan men who are lucky they weren't killed by Sam. A lot of the sexually-repressed members of the male-centric society took every opportunity to grope Sam and Misty or offer up whatever lewd comment they could offer up in their crappy English, with me present or not. At one point, Sam turned and stared at a guy who had just rubbed her ass, and he came running up and got in her face. Misty and I both stood right beside her, and I think we probably saved the guy from getting torn limb for limb, not the other way around. Apparently over the last ten years, the importance of tourism has been recognized in Morocco, and I'm sure this youth wouldn't have fared too well with the Moroccan police (who can be found around the perimeter of the square) if Sam had raised a fuss. Still, at night these types of activities did occur frequently, so the music and entertainment areas of the Djemma were understandably not very entertaining, and we didn't spend a lot of time there after-hours.

Fortunately, this harassment didn't spill over into the food area. Each food stall DID have its own "helper" of sorts whose job it was to lasso passers-by and drag them into their restaurant. They could be a little rude (most likely because of the vicious circle of tourists being rude to them), but if you stopped, talked with them for a moment, then moved on, they tended to not be as aggressive. In terms of food, one can get kebabs, soups (lentil, white bean, snail), fresh-squeezed juices, salads, pastries, dates and nuts, sheep's head, cinnamon tea, all for great prices. And yes, I did say sheep's head: the hair is burnt off of the head, then it is boiled and cleaved in half. Misty and I sort of worked our way to the triple-dog dare, at which point neither of us could back down ... so we split a head. Really, some of it tasted like a good roast, but other parts were pure fat. We only took tiny bites of the more questionable parts, and the plate was still fairly full when we backed away, much to the amusement of the locals.

* Hammam Ziani: many Moroccans don't have hot water, so they go to the hammam (bath house) to get clean. These bath houses are about 7 D to get in (less than $1), and can be found in any city in the country. Hammam Ziani was NOT a traditional hammam and was quite a bit more expensive (80 D / $10 for the basics), but it was pretty damn awesome. First you sit in a steam room for fifteen/twenty minutes to loosen up everything. Then you come out, lie on a table and a dude (men and women go to separate areas) takes this rough glove to your body and scrapes off all of your dead skin. Seriously, there are piles of skin lying around you when you get up. Then you shower, then you get washed (pretty bizarre having someone wash you, I must say), then you chill with some mint tea afterward. It felt good to be clean. Apparently the glove used for tourists is wimpy compared to the glove used on locals ... I'm not sure I want to experience the local glove. Sam and Misty did something a little more complicated with a massage and mud wrap, and they said it was pretty awesome.

* The Koutoubia Mosque: Giant mosque. Dismantled and re-assembled at one point because it was not correctly aligned with Mecca. Very old. Very cool. See picture.

* Jardin Majorelle: lots of crazy cacti, and nice and cool during the hot afternoon.

* Al Fassia: a women's cooperative restaurant in the Marrakech ville nouvelle. Pretty damn spendy ($30 a person), but VERY good as well. Strangely enough, we ran into several sets of people that we knew from Ifrane in Marrakech. One set of people included Thomas and Terry, two Americans who run an alternative tourist business from Ifrane. They had two people with them who they were taking on a trek the following Monday, and we all went to Al Fassia together. Wine, tons of delicious salads, lamb tagine with prunes, pastilla (a pie made out of pigeon and cinnamon) ... yum. One thing that was sort of funny about the Al Fassia experience is that Sam had read about the place on the web and was surprised to find that Thomas and Terry were planning to go there Saturday evening as well. Turns out Thomas wrote the article that Sam read on the web. Small world.

* Palais el-Badi: an ancient palace built in 1578 that was subsequently pillaged by an imperial successor in 1602. The palace grounds were very beautiful and serene, but perhaps the coolest aspect of the ruins was the hundreds of storks that have set up residence on the palace walls. Perhaps some of you out there are pretty familiar with stork-life, but for those that aren't, occasionally the birds will gnash their beaks in unison, making a terrifying sound reminiscent of "Predator". When this sound was amplified in the smaller rooms of the palace, it was unnerving. But still awesome. The view from the top of the walls took in the whole city and the nearby High Atlas mountains.

I think that was still a pretty long posting. Check out the pics: Marrakech.

Laundry foibles

There is a laundry room two buildings over from ours, and I have frequented the room on several occasions. There are three washing machines and three dryers, though only two washing machines and two dryers actually work. Also, "work" is a fairly loose term, since typically clothes are not very dry after a run in the dryer.

As mentioned in previous posts, it seems to be a novelty for a Moroccan man to do laundry or cook. Also, many of the folks living here in the Al Akhawayn residences hire a woman from town to cook, clean and do laundry for them. Each time I've gone to the laundry room, there have been one or two Moroccan maids in the laundry room who have found it pretty entertaining that I am there. The first time, they watched attentively as I added soap and loaded my clothes into the washer, all the while whispering in Arabic. After a few minutes, one woman went over to my washing machine, opened it and stirred all of our clothes around with a broom handle. After this show of expertise, she then proceeded to ask if a I needed someone to cook and clean for me (in French, which took me quite a while to understand). I said no, that I have plenty of time to do these things myself. She and her friend laughed and whispered some more in Arabic. The other then went over to a dryer she was using, opened it and showed me how things placed inside such a machine might tumble in warm air and eventually become dry. I thanked her for the lesson. Every time I've done laundry since, someone has offered to be our maid.

A quick reference to the inefficient dryers: inevitably, I have to hang some of our laundry for it to actually dry. There are lines outside; however, these are four flights of stairs down, and until recently I had no clothespins. The wind blows viciously in Ifrane, and I could easily see a pair of heavy jeans being carried to Meknes without a clothespin or three holding them in place. Displaying McGyver-like prowess, I would go about setting up "drying racks" all over our apartment. I had no rope, so I used an extension cord over the window to hang stuff. I also put chairs in each of the windows and draped heavier clothes there.

This approach worked swimmingly until the last time I did laundry. I was working on the computer, went to check one of my "racks" and found all the clothes missing. I ran down the four flights of stairs and retrieved them from the ground outside. I then proceeded to my other drying "rack", and watched as the billowing sail created by a pair of Sam's jeans caused the precariously balanced chair to blow out the window. The chair fell four stories, didn't kill anyone below and didn't shatter into a thousand pieces, which was miraculous. Last time I went to the marche, I made it a priority to find some line and clothespins and made a clothes line outside our window.

More Ifrane

(We've been somewhat silent for a bit now, so I'm going to do a few short vignettes).

The past few weeks in Ifrane have gone reasonably well. Sam has been very busy and has had bouts of questioning her decision to be the sole counselor at a university that is completely outside of the American counseling paradigm. Things are inefficient and involve a bit of bureaucracy. Mental health is often not taken as seriously as it should be and carries even more of a stigma than in the States. And there's the sexism and the apparent futility of some of her (primarily female) clients’ situations. (One benefit of being a US citizen that Americans may not recognize is the ability to fairly easily travel to and work in nearly any country in the world, a luxury that Moroccans do not have). On the up side, Sam is very good at what she does and has periods of excitement where she feels she has really helped someone or has learned something new and is glad she is here.

Obviously my existence here is much less stressful. There are the day-to-day annoyances (shops being closed for no apparent reason and no indication of when they’ll re-open; the sub-par quality of a Moroccan dust pan), but nothing that could seriously affect anyone’s life. I've spent quite a bit of time paring down my thesis (74 pages to 25 pages) in the hopes of getting it published in "Landscape and Urban Planning", and actually sent a first draft of the manuscript to my advisor last week. I’m still talking with a geographer at Al Akhawayn that I mentioned earlier (Marzouk) who has a few projects he is hoping to get funded. Also, last week he asked if I’d want to brainstorm some proposal ideas with him to win some project seed money being offered by the university. He said we should focus on Ifrane, and I suggested that we focus on an environmental topic (water) to illustrate for the aged director of the Center for Environmental Issues and Regional Development at Al Akhawayn that, contrary to his belief, GIS is useful in environmental work. Marzouk and I are going to meet and talk next week. There is also a fine chance that I can teach or help teach a GIS class starting winter term.

I've been making my way to the marche nearly every day to grab groceries and such. I always try to get everything I need in one go, but eventually get tired of trying to find stuff and give up. There are a couple of store owners who I've gotten to know by name: they are always very friendly, and I try to get everything from them. However, I think a few store owners groan when they see me walk in because they are well aware of the assault of broken French they're going to be subjected to. The guy I buy cheese from, for example, always looks a little exasperated, but I haven't been able to find this kind of cheese anywhere else at the marche.

Two weekends ago, we stuck around Ifrane: Sam graded while I took a hike on Saturday (not very fair, eh?), then we both hit the souk and took another hike on Sunday. Aside from the pounds and pounds of vegetables and fruit we got at the souk, we also scored a tagine pot (picture above), which is an earthenware dish used to make various meat and vegetable meals. Ifrane is really a nice town to be in, especially after having visited other cities in Morocco. The biggest differentiator is the climate: Ifrane is at 4800 feet and is very cool, compared to cities in the valley that are pretty damn hot right now and are even hotter in the summer. There are also a lot of trees in Ifrane and the scenery is amazing. The hikes that we took over the weekend were within walking distance, in fact one is right out our back door. There are also several parks in Ifrane that are really nice to walk through. I think we both prefer living in the quiet Moroccan countryside and traveling to the frenetic cities, rather than the reverse, no matter how little there is to do in Ifrane.

I took some pictures on my day hike to a large hill behind our place. Check them out: Ifrane Dayhike.

Foray into Moroccan cooking

As many of you know, I really like cooking. I've had quite a bit of time to shop for ingredients and cook since we've been here, which is a beautiful contrast to our time in grad school. I've also asked around to see if I can find a Moroccan woman in town (men here don't really cook) who could show me how to make some dishes ... an Ifrane cooking school, if you will. This inquiry has not been very diligent, but most people I ask say that it will definitely be possible and there's bound to be a lot of tittering about a man learning to cook. For the time being, we have two Moroccan cookbooks with us, so yesterday I decided to attempt one of the couscous dishes therein.

To those unawares (which included me prior to coming here), the preparation of couscous is a lengthy affair. There's a first soaking and drying, then a first steaming and second drying, then a final steaming. I'm used to the packages in the States where you add water and boil. Still, I figured that I'd try to do it the proper way. The proper way involves a device called a couscousiere (pictured above): it is a HUGE pot with a separate large steaming pan that forms a tight seal with the pot and a lid. Our friend Misty got a couscousiere with her two bedroom apartment (one bedrooms don't get one), and she said we could have it. You essentially make a stew in the huge pot (I used lamb) and go through the couscous steaming iterations in the steamer above the stew, so the steam is actually laden with "essence de stew". The couscous I chose to make also involved frying some almonds, boiling some tomatoes and making a glaze of lamb broth, onions, raisins, turmeric, cinammon, ginger, pepper and sugar. Needless to say, the process took about two and a half hours and destroyed our kitchen.

One of the more entertaining aspects of making this couscous was the acquisition of ingredients. For instance, I had no idea how to say "lamb neck" in French and didn't think to look it up before heading to the marche. So, once standing in front of the butcher, Mustafa, I pointed at my neck, pointed at the necks of the lambs hanging around, then repeated the Arabic word for neck that he told me, much to his amusement. At the end he quizzed me on the word, and I'd already forgotten. But I told him it was for a couscous, and he smiled and nodded knowingly, so I think I won some points there. I wonder what he would have thought if I said that I was the one cooking it ... ?

The other entertaining (?) ingredient was saffron. I was buying bread from one of the shops I go to regularly and asked if he had saffron, thinking that for sure he would send me to another stall. But no, he had it! He hands me four little packages and says they're four for a dirham ... WAY to cheap for saffron, but I just said thanks and headed home. I also disregarded the label in French on the side that said "Colour Alimentaire Synthetique". So, for those of you who are ten steps ahead of my yesterday self, it was a synthetic food coloring powder. And it naturally was spread on some paper that was then folded and stapled. So when I pulled the staple out, this bright orange powder from hell spilled all over my shirt and pants and on to the floor. I may have saved my shirt and pants, though water just made the dye bleed through the clothing. The floor was a nightmare to clean, since each swipe with a mop would just turn more of the floor a gorgeous yellow. I was rinsing the mop rag in the bathroom sink and turned to see there were yellow footprints leading from the kitchen. So I had to carefully get out of my pants, climb into the shower and wash my feet, then clean up my tracks backward to the kitchen. I'm telling you, it was like containing an epidemic, and I would not be surprised in the slightest if traces of this stuff appear throughout our house in the future, even though I mopped the kitchen floor some twenty times. Since last night, I keep imagining that the floor looks yellow and my skin is jaundiced.

However, the couscous was delicious and worth (?) the ordeal. And the little grains did seem much fluffier than when I've made packets of ten minute couscous at home. But perhaps that's just my imagination.

Rabat

Last weekend (10/6 - 10/7) we caught the bus to the capitol city of Rabat. Sam was on a quest to find some new dress clothes and some socks, and Rabat was said to be the best place to search for such things. Plus we both were very excited about the wealth of international restaurants we had heard about. Since Ifrane is a small town (10,000 people), there is only one bus a day that first goes to Meknes, then on to Rabat. There are other ways to get to Rabat, but this seemed like the simplest approach, since we didn't have to negotiate prices and we didn't have to change modes of transportation in Meknes. The 2 ½ hour car trip took 3 ½ hours on the way there and close to 4 on the way back, so next time we're going to try another approach. However, I talked to a grand taxi driver in Rabat about going straight to Ifrane, and he started at 1000 dirham ($120). I know that an expensive price would be 450 dirham, and I was really not in the mood to negotiate, so we just walked away.

As with Meknes, the trip to Rabat had its ups and downs. As far as ups: Rabat is right on the Atlantic, so we sat on the cliffs over the water for quite a while and it was absolutely wonderful. Lots of fishermen, and down the way there were people swimming and trying to surf (the king was a co-founder of the surfing school in Rabat). We did quite a bit of walking, which was really nice: we walked up to the kasbah, the huge fort looking over the mouth of the Bou Regreg river, then down through the medina, then quite a ways further to a neighborhood called Agdal where the shopping and dining wonders were. The kasbah was beautiful inside and had a gigantic, ornate gate leading into it. The walls and streets were painted white and blue in the Andalucian style, and it felt very clean and bright. And the Lebanese food we had in Agdal (when we could actually eat after the Ramadan cannon) was divine and well worth the hours of travel. We talked about how we could bring tubs of the stuff back to Ifrane.

(AN ASIDE. We got coffee right after the Ramadan cannon since most of the restaurant workers are having f’tour and won’t serve food until later. We sat outside on a corner in Agdal. At one point, a car going VERY fast came at the intersection, turned its wheels and hit the brakes and did a Hollywood-car-chase sliding turn onto the main road in this shopping district where the speed limit had to be 25 mph. We also saw a car blast down the road at an incredibly fast speed and fly through a red light. Neither car was being pursued by the police or gun-toting gangsters. Which makes me wonder: is this just like high school thrills in the States? The city is like a ghost town during f'tour, so do teenagers take this opportunity to try out stunt driving with just that tantalizing amount of fear that they MIGHT hit someone or MIGHT get chased by the police?)

Really I think the main down side of both the trip to Meknes and Rabat is the fact that traveling during Ramadan can be pretty tough for someone who is accustomed to eating and drinking water during the day. You can buy little bits of food here and there, but no restaurants or coffee shops are open until the evening. We had breakfast on Saturday in Ifrane, then snacked a little bit and finally had dinner around 7:30 p.m. Fortunately Saturday night I went out and bought two coffees, two yogurts and two croissants, because NOTHING was open when we got up Sunday morning. The coffee was cold, but better than no coffee at all! Ramadan ends this coming weekend and we’ll be in Marrakech, so there is definitely going to be some celebrating.

The other down sides of the trip to Rabat are the normal things that will become more tolerable with more exposure, a better grip on the language, a full stomach and normal blood caffeine levels. The clothes Sam was looking for were either non-existent or incredibly spendy. The socks she bought ended up having holes in them. In the more touristed areas (such as the kasbah), there are plenty of touts and hustlers trying to guide you, sell you something or get you to pay for views/pictures/air etc. In the kasbah, two or three men told us that the kasbah was closed for a religious service, but there was a shortcut through an alley to a great view point. Thanks, no. In the medina, a kid insistently tried to sell us a plastic bag for some milwee (bread with onions, olives and other goodies baked into it) that we were buying, even though the lady selling the milwee had plastic bags. What really stinks about this is that it is hard to trust or be friendly with much of anyone. Which sort of makes me feel like an asshole after a while, because I tend to just ignore people talking to me when walking about. This is one wonderful thing about living in Morocco: in Ifrane, we get to know the people at the marche and the souk and the restaurants, so we can actually have nice conversations with folks.

Overall, we really enjoyed the trip and plan to go back after Ramadan and grab some Thai food and more Lebanese. Check out the pictures: Rabat. (The scenery on the road between Meknes and Rabat is gorgeous, so I snapped a bunch of pictures with the camera in action mode, pressed against the window, to give you all a feel for the landscape).