Some Improved Methods for Previous Adventures and a Second Moroccan Thanksgiving

At a similar point in the preceding year I visited Merzouga, on the cusp of the Sahara desert, and Volubilis, the Roman ruins outside of Meknes. This year, I have recently returned from repetitions of those same undertakings, but with some improvements on my previous experiences to report. In addition, my second Thanksgiving in Morocco -meaning, new recipes!

In the realm of Botticelli, Da Vinci, and the Romans [Updated]

Early morning light in Florence. Ken and I have just returned from an epic foray into the land of pasta and cannolis. Neither of which, interestingly enough, featured that prominently in our experiences. After spending 10 days in Italy, its beauties still seem impossible to exhaust.

Enjoyable Exploits of the Month – In Morocco.

My last reflections focused on an idyllic journey through southwest Ireland, but that is now far distant in the past. Now, I have the great, good fortune to forward to an extensive adventure in Italy, beginning this Wednesday. Since I imagine upon my return my thoughts and photographic resources will be entirely absorbed in all things Italian, I take this opportunity to return to my neglected activities in Morocco. Indeed, the time has not been as my bare blog might suggest. Just a week following my return to Fez, Ken and I set off for Jebel Toubkal, so that I might take another shot at reaching its peak (if you recall, my first attempt last year was foiled by snow and thunderstorms). As the photo demonstrates, the weather was perfect for our ascent and we reached the top with only slight miscalculations in route and loose rock.

(The above is another masterpiece that I must credit to Ken Johnston and his mastery of the point and shoot apparatus.)

Céad míle fáilte ~ A hundred thousand welcomes…to Ireland.

Credit for this masterpiece in green must go to ra’ajli and his newly discovered genius in photography. Nobody puts the camera to “landscape mode” like ra’ajli. It should be noted, and indeed it will later be in evidence, that he has also mastered “pet mode”, “food mode”, and several others.

At the beginning of September, I embarked on a journey that I have been dreaming of from the years of my childhood. The mystical emerald isle has always held special fascination for me; I suppose it could be an instinctual feeling of kinship with people of green, wet places. So, off I went to Kerry County, in the southwest of Ireland. I stayed in the town of Killarney – a lovely, extremely popular tourist stop for Irish and international parties alike.

Sellou/Sfuf السفوف او سلو ~ Or, how I’m continuing to develop my Moroccan sweet-tooth.

Medina wall art. Who could this character be? It’s not often that you see a pipe like that here in Fes. He appears to me as a sailor. I love those thick orange lips. What a lovely rendition.

Among other activities this week I decided to attempt the creation of one of my favorite Moroccan desserts. Sellou is a mound of ground almonds, spices, butter, etc. that Moroccans prepare during Ramadan, other holidays, and for pregnancies. It is obviously an efficient means for restoring your body after a day of fasting. I have eaten mountains of sellou and it is a dish that is usually sharply marked by the preferences of those who prepare it. I have tasted sellou that was formed into solid cakes, sellou that had to be eaten with a spoon, and sellou that landed somewhere inbetween – meaning that it crumbles just before it reaches my mouth causing all sorts of mortification. It is a dangerous thing to keep in the fridge and I have spent many tens of minutes standing there, with the fridge door shamefully open convinced I shant remain long, consuming endless spoonfuls. It is rather like my father’s chocolate cakes. I recently tried to explain to someone here how my mother and I would decimate those poor cakes spoonful by spoonful, right under my father’s nose. I think the most amusing part for my listener was that my father bakes cakes.

And so, yesterday, I gathered my ingredients and messily embarked on this mission.

Painting the mood of our neighborhood.

A few weeks ago, I was leaving my neighborhood when I found a long stretch of drb had transformed from its formerly drab grays and browns to the freshest white. It was applied haphazardly, as is often the case in Morocco, but nonetheless the whitewash gave the street a revivified air. As the days progressed, so did the transformations in this area of my neighborhood. Large blue arches were painted over the white early in the process, only to be cloaked in another layer of white. Individual paintings of flowers began appearing at intervals and these were kept. Several doors were repainted in a dark, deep red, and, at last, phrases began appearing on the walls. Phrases like this one above, “Cleanliness is of the faith/faithful.” This project fascinates me because it demonstrates a communal interest in the neighborhood that, based on my research thus far, is often indicated to be lacking.

What am I learning in Morocco?

1. I want always to have time in the mornings to sit through one or two pots of tea while reading things of peripheral meaning to my life.

2. I imagine myself doing everything – before I decide to do it, as I am doing it – I imagine it over and over in new ways. Afterwards, my memories are challenged by preceding imaginations and new, retrospective ones. Sometimes, I get lost in these creations.

And thus, my week of fasting concludes.

Market Day in Sefrou

It has been a very interesting week. One such that I have never experienced before. I was surprised at the ease in which I slipped into this tradition of fasting. I think a great, great deal of that has to do with the environment around me encouraging, and amiably policing, me in these efforts. Having this family next door insisting that I share almost every meal with them gave the experience the meaning I believe it is supposed to have. They do demonstrate the generosity that Ramadan is supposed to incite (unaffectedly explaining that you get points for such thing). Seeing the careful preparations of the glorious spread that Aicha and Nezha put on for each fatur and feeling like part of their family reinforced my glimpse into the feeling of community that fasting triggers in people. It is, from my perspective, certainly designed in many ways to remind individuals of the society they belong to.

Gellaba and a Ville Nouvelle Iftar/Fatoor

Tonight, I was engaged to meet an acquaintance of mine in the ville nouvelle for coffee and an interview. Because I needed to go out anyway to pick up my newly finished gellaba I determined that at that point I would take a taxi up to the ville (ironic, since it’s south…and yet not, because the medina is in a valley).

Several weeks ago, perhaps nearer to a month, I brought a few meters of fabric I had bought in India and made arrangements with a khiyata (seamstress) to make a gellaba out of it. The gellaba is the traditional garment of choice in the medina. It is supposed to cover the body in a modest fashion; it is lauded by my landlord as one of the beautiful pieces of tradition being threatened by globalization and the younger generations. Depending on where you are, you will see a greater density of long, hooded figures. In the medina, the gellaba is prolific, it lessens as you reach the ville nouvelle, and is almost unusual in the ville nouvelle of Rabat (Rabatis, correct me if I speak untrue). If with the gellaba being common in the medina, some conservative minds might not deign to call many of the fashionable designs emerging as being in keeping with the gellaba’s original form and function. The length of the gellaba can be shockingly short these days, with high slits up the side, and a plunging neckline. Depending on your wallet the embroidered decorations and “sfifah” can be quite opulent. There are heavy wool gellabas for the winter and light cotton ones for the summer. It’s a fascinating and flexible piece of Moroccan culture.

Alison’s Gellaba Spread

(inspired by hosts of Moroccan gellaba fashion magazines)

Kt3jbni, if I do say so myself.

The modeling session was interrupted by a screeching child.

Hood shot.

So ridiculous.

This is the look I give annoying boys who call me "sweetie."

After fetching my gellaba I found a taxi in the mayhem that is the 5:30 PM rush home. Arriving in the ville nouvelle 2.5 hours early for my appointment I decided to sit in a coffee where I saw several others settled, presumably awaiting the appointed time of relief. As I sat, pulling out my French exercise book, an older man and his daughter-in-law engaged me in conversation. They were lovely, friendly people and eventually invited me home to break the fast with them. Under other circumstances, I might have acquiesced, but I had been looking forward to eating alone for the first time all week and so I made my excuses and they departed. With 45 minutes still lacking to the call the busy thoroughfare before me had emptied. The waiters were busy in the kitchen preparing trays containing juice, milk, dates, shebikiya, milawli, harira, and bisara (by special request). From where I sat I couldn’t hear the call to prayer or canons at all. They turned on the TV, I assume to confirm the occurrence, or they were just going by their watches, for while I heard nothing, eventually one of the waiters came out and told me it was time. There was almost no sound around me, only the soft clinking of spoons. It’s hard to express the quiet that overtakes any given area at the moment of iftar. In just an hour perhaps, the streets and gardens before me would be completely full of families and young people.

All of a sudden the same older man appeared before me again. He had returned to smoke and drink coffee in his “man place.” He inquired kindly if I had eaten well and then said he would pay my bill…it will be like you broke the fast with us. I was embarrassed and touched, a little ashamed of not choosing to join them. An interesting occurrence.

Day 5. Not that I’m counting…

The first week of Ramadan is moving rather quickly. I think I imagine my world between two temporal points now – waking up at three and breaking the fast at 7:30. Both are heralded by enthusiastic pounding on my door. Despite the preceding sounding a little bit depressing, I have found a great deal of satisfaction in the last 5 days. With class only two days a week, the days stretch before me full of possibility.

No serious health concerns have manifested as of yet. I take more consistent afternoon naps than I used to and my energy level (for cleaning and running around the medina) is quite low now. The only significant bodily manifestation I have experienced is the shedding of a considerable amount of my epidermal layer. “When it is in fast-mode, the body will scavenge for fatty deposits and dead/damaged tissues,” according to one website that came up on my search. All that dead skin I had accumulated during my sunny jaunts in the new city mshat (“left” – losing my English). I do know though that I am low on fruits and vegetables. I am taking a multivitamin everyday, but have determined that I should have some salads on hand to supplement the delicious sweets and soup I break my fast with.

Fasting is such public property. When I walk around the medina shop keepers I barely know will inquire if I am fasting. I wonder what reaction they will give when I stop this. They seem so personally proud of me now when I reply in the affirmative (yes, I am “saaima“).

Last night, I broke the fast again with Aicha and her children. I love watching them interact. Aicha and Driss discussed the concert his music institute gave at the end of the year. Aicha, eyes shining, recounted the numbers she found the most beautiful. Driss listened attentively, smiling at his mother, occasionally singing bits of songs to help her remember the number she pondered. Nezha is currently studying and practicing to take her driver’s license test. Driss has his permit, so part of the night was drilling her on different signs. It came to me as a comedy to hear the subtleties in law that often emerged from Driss as rhymes, “No, Nezha, you have it backwards, this line, from right to left, signifies mumkin wawqif wlakin matawqif.” I was the only one who really found it that funny. Later that night Driss and Nezha went off and I laid on the couches with Aicha and the cat, Shakira. Shakira, when I carried her in from the other room, graced me with her presence for a few minutes, all the while eyeing Aicha, and finally abandoned me to snuggle beneath Aicha’s chin. It was a scene of pure devotion – one I don’t often see from cats. Eventually, she favored me again. But, it was all too clear to the both of us that I lacked the ample, mother’s bosom that she prefers.

Tonight, I sat with the three kids in my dining room, as we taught one another French, Arabic, and English. And generally wreaked havoc in my papers…which Ibtisaam later organized for me. When we finished iftar, the three males of the household (a visiting uncle included) went off to mosque and I sat with ladies going through Ibtisaam’s workbook. These private elementary schools have some pretty great workbooks. This one was filled not only with exercises on her letters, numbers and colors, but also with copious songs, hygiene rhymes, and free-draw pages. Not to mention it being in both Arabic and French. Ibtisaam sang me every song she could remember, smacking her sister whenever she tried to join in.

I recently finished a book called, “A Street in Marrakech” by Elizabeth Fernea. It’s essentially a memoir written by an anthropologist of a year spent with her researching husband and three young children in the medina of Marrakech (in the 1970s!). It’s a narrative and not a study, focusing on how their family managed to integrate into this very different community. There are some interesting perspectives on urban Marrakech therein. Fairly well-written, it educates in an laidback, easy manner from a distinctly singular perspective (by this I don’t mean unusual or innovative, but that it is the perspective of one, foreign female).

Bonne nuit.