X. Living in A Thousand and One Nights

29 September 2009

I arrived in Meknès at 10 o’clock at night in the rain, after a fifteen hour bus and train trip from Taroudannt. It wasn’t supposed to be that long, but we missed the connection and had to take a later train which turned out to be a bit of a milk run train. I found a taxi and told him where I was going. Another driver overheard and told him that he couldn’t take me all the way there because taxis are forbidden (mamnuaa in Arabic sounds so much more dire!) in the old city.

So the driver dropped me off at the Square of the Rubble, which is bordered on one side by one of the most beautiful city gates in the Arab world, Bab Il Mansour. I can’t see it very well in the dark, although at least it’s only spitting rain by now. I walk across this huge, wide-open cobblestone square where there is music and men dancing and vendors selling everything from belts to perfume to prepared food and fruits and vegetables at 10 o’clock at night.

I walk to the corner of the square to the old city wall. There is a tall, narrow arched gate, more like a short tunnel, and I walk through it into another century. The street is narrow, paved with cobblestone-like bricks and the building walls tower above and seem to close over you. It is lit by small hanging Moroccan lanterns of lacy metalwork. There are even tinier alleyways (!) leading off into the gloom. Along the way, I pass massive wooden doors with metal studs and huge metal latches, beautifully tiled archways and intricate, decorative metal grates on the windows. I pass lots of cats about their nocturnal business, unafraid of me. I pass a few people mostly dressed in djellabas, long traditional robes, the women’s brightly colored and elaborately embroidered. They don’t pay any attention to me, despite the racket of rolling my suitcase along over the uneven street. The route to the Riad Bahia is well marked, but I ask a shopkeeper closing up shop (at 10 PM!) where the Riad is, just to be sure. He walks along with me until I can see its door, then says good night and heads back.

The door to the Riad is really more of a portal, maybe 12 feet wide, and 15 feet high, with beautiful, but practical metal studs and other reinforcement. A tile sign says Riad Bahia, and below it is a big doorbell with a sign that says, “Ring, please”. I feel like I’m in the Wizard of Oz… I ring the bell, and after a minute, a man pulls open this huge door, and I walk into A Thousand and One Nights.

I have the impression of great space, bounded by dark wood and pink stucco, with an array of potted plants, multicolored tiles, carpets, and antique Moroccan copper and brass ornaments. The interior is somewhat dimly lit, by traditional Moroccan hanging lanterns, with a tiled floor with Berber and Moroccan carpets scattered here and there. The man leads me into a large lounge, with traditional low benches around the walls, covered with embroidered cushions and carpets. Low, carved or painted dark wood tables have books and Moroccan decorative art. He offers me mint tea, and while he goes to get it, I wander a bit, with Saïda on her leash.

I am in the “riad”…the inner courtyard, which goes up three stories and has balconies around it. This one is covered by a modern retractable roof of some kind of plastic, but it exudes the atmosphere of a long time past. It is full of potted plants, vines growing up the wall, low cushioned stools with a small blue and white tiled fountain singing away in the center. Saïda steps in to drink the water (it’s safe here) and commune with the plants after her long journey. I am enthralled.

We do the passports and official paperwork for my stay over mint tea, and then he leads me up a tiled staircase with a monstrous dark wood banister to the next level, then we turn and take another staircase in a different direction to a roof terrace, full of potted plants, little sitting alcoves with cushioned benches, wall hangings, tile work and lacy metal railings painted white. We go up several steps in one direction, then turn and go up a few more in another…it is a constant surprise.

We end at a room next to the retractable roof, with a lacy white railing and a carved wooden door with an eight pointed star on it. The door handle is at about knee level, he turns the knob and I am home for the week. My bed is covered with a traditional purple and gold striped cover, there are red Berber carpets on the floor, an elaborately painted chest and a camel saddle bench. A huge mirror elaborately framed with metal curlicues makes the room seem bigger than it is. Moroccan hanging lanterns light the room.

The bathroom is incredible, and makes me feel as though I have moved into Topkapi Serai (the sultan’s palace in Istanbul). The doorway is a pointed arch with two elaborately painted and stained glass arched doors. The bathroom is elaborately tiled in a harlequin pattern of blue, green and white tiles half way up. The counter is even more colorfully tiled and has a sink and faucet that look like gold and like they belong in a 16th century palace. Carved wooden doors hide the cupboard under the sink. The mirror is framed in turquoise painted wood, decorated with flowers and fanciful designs.

The windows are arched with stained glass and dark wooden shutters, open to the night and the tranquility of the terraces. My main window looks out on pink flowering vines, huge dracaenas, bougainvillea, and,

somewhat incongruous amid all these tropical plants, a blue hydrangea beginning to flower. They are all in pots or tilled garden beds along the walls.

Saïda in the front window

The Riad is altogether charming, fanciful, and enough to make one want to just stay here forever. It is serene, despite the fact that it is in the heart of a large city. In the old, walled heart, but still a very busy, modern city. Welcome to Meknès.
My "office", comes with cat

IX. The first mandarins of the season

23 September 2009

Yesterday, I finally met my colleague from the Hassan II Institute of Agriculture and Veterinary Science, Dr. Mohamed El Othmani. I had talked with him on the phone numerous times, but given the four day End of Ramadan holiday and the uncertainty of when it would be, we were unable to make plans until yesterday. Dr. Mohammad came out here from Agadir, about an hour away, to take me on a visit to one of the most progressive, and the largest citrus farm in the area. His specialty is citrus, but he teaches an array of different classes.

In Arabic, a large commercial citrus operation is not called an orchard or grove, but a farm (ferme, as in French). Small orchards or farms, about 5 acres or less, from what I understand, are called gardens – jnena in Arabic. They are jnena whether they produce fruits or vegetables and even a few animals! Interestingly, the public garden where I walk Saïda every morning is called a jirda, from jardin, the French word for garden.

We visited Domaine El Boura yesterday. In French, a large farm is a domaine (the farmer is king of his domain!) and it is big! 1500 hectares, 1200 of them planted. For those of us still wandering in the non-metric system, that is just over 3,800 acres total, and over 3,000 planted acres. From the guesthouse staff, I understand that I would not have had a chance of getting in to visit without the introduction. El Boura is pretty self-contained, with its own nurseries, tissue culture lab, insectary for Aphytis, and processing facilities. From seed to packed export carton, they do it all, as Monsieur Hassani, the manager said.

El Boura was impressive…acres and acres of citrus, with beautifully pruned navel trees dating to the early days of the farm…1942. After doing a rejuvenation pruning a few years back, they are again very productive, and produce good quality fruit. Chalk up another point in favor of old trees and good fruit! They certainly look healthy and beautiful.

El Boura produces navels, Valencias, a few lemons, but primarily mandarins. Not Satsumas, but Clementines, and lots of them! They grow primarily for export, and their three largest customers are Russia, the US, and Britain. They have 3 farms, of which, this was the largest. Their production is 3% of Morocco’s citrus exports, and 25% of Moroccan exports going to the US. So they are important here, and on the East Coast of the US. And very much on Morocco’s cutting edge.

The common Clementine varieties that we have are Clemenules and what they call Biladi, which is what our guys call Algerian, the original Clementine. The rest: Nour, Sidi Aïssa, and a number of others are not common in the US, although they are in the Lindcove collection.

They also grow Oroval, Marisol, and something called Carte Noir. The Carte Noir harvest starts next week, so we tried some of them, the first mandarins of the season! Eat your hearts out!

While they are mostly green, with a tinge of orange, they are very good and quite sweet. It is still pretty hot in the Souss in September/October, so they have a problem with color. (n.b. I saw a cart full of Carte Noir for sale in the Taroudant market on Saturday, Sept. 26th.)

One of the startling things in the El Boura orchards was the sight of herds (10-15 at a time) of wild pigs, called sangliers in French. They are native to Morocco, and have been in the orchard for years. According to Monsieur Hassani, they are not aggressive, although Dr. Mohamed and I were a little leery. They were not really afraid of us…and let M. Hassani get within about 20 feet, then they would turn and run off.

Anyway, the pigs eat the fruit from the skirts of the trees, carefully peeling it and leaving the peel on the ground! M. Hassani said they were the best judges of ripeness, and workers use them to guide harvest. They don’t dig up the ground much, the way our wild pigs do, and don’t seem to do much damage to the trees. As they are a protected species here, they could not do a lot about it if the pigs were destructive. They seem to live in good harmony with the orchards. I’m not sure what the Food Safety crazies would say about pigs in an orchard, but El Boura, like most Moroccan export orchards, follows a strict program (EuroGAP and others) to be certified to sell fruit through a variety of export channels.

More on their production practices later. Tomorrow I am going to Ait Milloul, where the Ag Institute is, to meet other professors and listen to Dr. El Othmani’s Masters students give presentations on their theses.

VII. Finding the Punctuation and Other Ruminations on Arabic and Islamic Culture

21 September 2009

Finding the Punctuation. I’ve been having a hard time connecting to the internet. The wireless on my laptop didn’t work with the wireless at the big hotel in town, so I tried a cyber café. But I couldn’t access my e-mail because I couldn’t get to the $ sign which is part of my password. There are 4 things on each key on an Arabic keyboard, but no one could tell me how to get to the $ which was in the upper right on the usual 4 key. The bottom two characters were something else. So that was a bust. Today, I found a different Cyber café, and while they tried to help me with the $ sign, I figured out that I could copy the symbol from Word and access my e-mail that way.

Finding the symbol was just the beginning, though. Typing English on an Arabic keyboard gives you really weird words…I kept getting words that looked like s*/ql. The gal running the place thought I was really funny because I spent a lot of time looking for the keys, and often had to go back and correct what I wrote. Some keys, across the middle, are in the same places, but a and q are reversed and m is way out on the end after a bunch of punctuation. I had a hard time finding the period, and never did find the apostrophe. It seemed like there were lots of punctuation keys, but I couldn’t get to some because of the four things on each key. So my e-mails may be a bit screwy.

The cyber café was, however, an interesting experience. A guy repairing a computer in the shop wanted to talk while I was trying to write e-mails. We had quite a conversation in French, and he told me a number of times that I should learn Arabic, but when I tried Arabic, he would switch to French. In theory, I was paying for an hour on the computer, but he talked for at least fifteen minutes…and an hour costs about $0.40, so I figured it was worth it for the conversation and experience! Eid il fitr. Today (21 Sept.), in Morocco, is the Feast of Breaking the Fast (Eid il fitr), the holiday that ends Ramadan. The occurrence of the feast is an interesting quirk. Some (I don’t know whom) Islamic authority in Morocco has to see the moon for the feast to start. All the rest of the Muslim world in the Levant and North Africa ended Ramadan on Saturday, but apparently the authority in Morocco did not see the moon, so Morocco didn’t end Ramadan until Sunday night…so the holiday was Monday. Another historical idiosyncrasy which seems a bit incongruous in today’s world, not knowing when a holiday will be until the night before.

Everything was pretty much closed today, but people were promenading all over the city wearing fancy new clothes. Lots of bright colors and shiny fabrics, and stripes on caftans (for women) and djallabas (for men). It was a pleasure to walk with little traffic and I took quite a lot of pictures. Not of people, though, because I didn’t feel comfortable as it was their holiday. I saw a woman in a brilliant orange tob and several bright reds and a number with vertical stripes, a few abstract patterns. I saw a man in a djallaba that was shiny silver with black and brown vertical stripes…he looked a little like a fancy living room chair, as it looked like upholstery fabric. Very festive, though.

It has been quite a cultural experience to be here and in close contact with the staff of the guesthouse, who were all observing Ramadan. Even though I’ve been in various Islamic countries when Ramadan occurred, it has been much more immediate here. Everyone (except children and sick people) here observes the fast from before dawn to sunset for the month of Ramadan.

So the deal is, you pray, then eat a huge meal at 3:30 or so in the morning, then go back to bed for a few hours, but not really to sleep. It’s hard to miss the racket when they get up at 3 AM for the call to prayer and then eat. And the last few days it has been chaos at that hour, so we haven’t really been sleeping much after 3 AM either. Then, in theory, you work all day, pray a couple more times, and then just before sunset, pray again and then go home and eat another huge meal. And everyone does it.

The half hour before the end of the fast is utter madness. People are crazed from hunger and thirst and men want to get to the mosque to pray or get their food for the meal home, so being on the streets is chaos. Everyone, including pedestrians, donkey carts, bicycles, mopeds, cars and trucks, is in a massive hurry; hungry and thirsty. The traffic, the noise, and the chaos were unlike anything I have ever experienced.

One day I went out half an hour before the end of the fast, with Saïda in a carrier. I turned around and came home after five minutes because she was meowing so loud and I was afraid for my life because of the mopeds screaming down the narrow roads at top speed, cars and pedestrians dodging each other and the sheer volume of noise. I think you get bonus points in heaven if you die during Ramadan. Then, as soon as the fast ends, it is absolutely quiet for several hours while they eat!

It is really amazing that all of these people feel compelled to practice their faith en masse, in the same way it has been practiced for over a thousand years. It is impressive to observe; but, when you really start thinking about it, it is also incredibly scary. Imagine airplane pilots, tanker captains, even taxi drivers - or surgeons, computer system technicians or people making money transfers in banks - after a month of half a night’s sleep each night, no food or water for 14 or 15 hours everyday…by the end of the month, how can they function without making potentially disastrous mistakes? Yikes! It is mind boggling. It helps me to understand why progress is slow. When one month out of the year is pretty much unproductive, that must have massive impacts on the economy, education, the efficiency of any services, etc.

However, it is amazing to observe the unity with which they all observe the rituals. We could do with some of that unity. On the other hand, I am really not up for fasting to this degree! The two Englishmen in the guesthouse and I did a bit of fasting in sympathy…but only to the point of skipping lunch! And we were still drinking water all day. Normal life in Morocco will be a pleasant change tomorrow.

VI. Il Bilad: Tazglimt Berber Village

19 September 2009

Today, I went with a young Berber woman, Dounia, part of the guesthouse staff, and the two Englishmen to visit her father’s village and several adjoining villages in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, north of Taroudannt. A few days ago we went to an oasis at the base of the Anti Atlas to the southwest…the two of the four mountain ranges in Morocco.

We left Taroudant through the gate (called baab in Arabic) called Oulad somebody I don't remember heading out to the mountains. It means the children of whoever. There are many villages in this area called Oulad so and so. The villages were started by a particular person, and as the number of descendents grew, it became known as the village of the Children of So and So.

We drove about ½ and hour to a large village…a county seat sort of place, with the weekly market, a newly built school, police station, etc. Then we walked across a deep, dry wadd, a dry wash with shrubs and grasses growing among the stones and boulders. Dounia said the deepest she had ever seen the water was about 3 feet. At one time there was a lot more water as the wadd is a ravine with water-carved sides that rise a hundred feet or more above the current bed.

The path to the village led up through olive groves, with mostly empty fields beneath them. Summer vegetables and maize have already been harvested, and they will plant wheat and barley when the rains come in October or November…similar to our seasons in California. A few fields still had alfalfa, which they cut five or six times a year…by hand as needed.

The path followed a mostly cemented irrigation ditch for a long way. It brings water down from a spring or runoff when there is rain. Not so different that our ditches, but about half the width. The fields were on a small, fairly flat plateau, with the villages above it, at around 1200 feet. Each field is divided into plots by small (10-12 inch high) earthen walls - to hold water. They flood irrigate by making check dams to direct the water into one plot or another. Each farmer has a set day and time, usually for 24 hours, that he can irrigate. Depending on how many people are irrigating, they get water every 2-3 weeks.

Enormous old carob trees with trunks four or five feet in diameter marked where several paths came together. They provide quite dense shade, and must be pleasant in the heat of summer. Carob powder is exported, but locally people do not consume it. The pods are really high in protein, and are used for animal feed. There were also some argan trees (for oil and browse, see previous post), figs, and pomegranates, which are called roman in Arabic; do you suppose the Romans really brought them here? Prickly pears were everywhere. They still had fruit on them, but are overripe now…only suitable for goats and other livestock, according to Saïd (the source of all knowledge).

The village houses are adobe, with walls two to three feet thick to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter. It gets really hot here and quite cold as well. This summer, temperatures got up to 51° C – somewhere around 130°, I think…my conversion skills are a bit rusty. And winter temperatures hover in the upper 30’s F, although frost is not common.

The adobe of the houses is renewed each year, but the rains are rarely heavy enough anymore to wash them away as happens in more humid climates. Traditional village houses are one story high, although there were a couple of fancy cinderblock houses that were two stories high. There is an outer courtyard for animals, then the house is an open square with rooms around a large inner courtyard. The courtyards had little gardens in the center, with a faucet as the water source for the household. Women stay in the house for the most part, so the courtyard assures that they get sunshine and fresh air. The garden belongs to the women – men do the cultivation of fields outside. The gardens have herbs for cooking such as cilantro and parsley; a lot of basil , which they do not cook with, but use as part of the hammam (bath) process and just for its scent. There were also marigolds and in one, a huge winter squash plant – which produces orange flesh squashes the size of blue Hubbard, but they are oval, green or pale orange in color with longitudinal ridges and occasionally warts. I also saw some that were shaped like enormous gourds with a round end and a long neck, but clearly of the same ilk as the oval ones.

One of the villages we visited is famous for honey, and they make a special wall in the house where they keep the bees. The hive wall is away from where the family lives, but it is still in the house! Another village is famous for pottery. We watched a man make and decorate a tall jar, about 15” high with cutouts of stars, moons, tent flaps and squiggles. A local hotel had commissioned him to make a number of pottery lamps. Apparently each potter in the village has a specialty in terms of what they make. There were some beautiful, enormous water jars that I’d like…but I would never get them home in one piece!

V. Arabiy maghrebi: Understanding twelve

Arabiy maghrebi Moroccan Arabic
20 September 2009

I’ve been having an hour long Moroccan Arabic lesson every day since I arrived, and I’m making some progress but barely. It’s a struggle because it’s so different. Yesterday, I told my teacher, Latifa the nice that I might as well be learning a whole new language because I frequently see no connection between the Egyptian Arabic I know and what Moroccans say.

Moroccan Arabic is very different in terms of accent, but also in vocabulary and grammar. The similarities are that many words have the same root, but the Moroccans contract them so that there are four or five consonants together with no vowels, so I have a dreadful time pronouncing them, much less remembering them. I used to be proud that I could pronounce the five unpronounceable (to English speakers) Arabic letters, but when I put together two or three of them in Moroccan Arabic, my tongue gets tied in knots.

The good news is that there are some of the same words, BUT it seems that often they mean something different! For example, in Egypt, the word for room is ouda, the word for house is beit, and the word for the world (or a seaport) is dar. In Moroccan, dar means house and beit means room. No wonder I’m confused. And they conjugate their verbs completely differently. I can see that it might be simpler once I get it down, as they use helping verbs for the present and future tenses. But in the meantime, I’m always putting the wrong pronoun with the verb; she when I mean me or we when I mean her.

The other good news is that they use a lot of French words for things, which makes it easy since French comes naturally, but I have to remember when they use French and not use the Egyptian word!

Today I went on a brief shopping foray to buy food. The Feast for the end of Ramadan is tomorrow, and there will be no meals served at the guesthouse after breakfast, and presuming that the only restaurant open will be at the big hotel, which is rather expensive, I will be fixing my own lunch and dinner. I tried out my semi-Moroccan Arabic, and the vendors semi-understood me. At least I got cilantro when I asked for it; I only got 4 eggs and not a dozen. And the bread vendor understood me and even gave me the millime change for the 1 ½ dirham that a little loaf of bread costs. I’m not just a tourist!

The trouble came when it was time to pay. The vendors seem to use French for numbers, maybe because they think I wouldn’t know the Arabic numbers…which I probably know better than anything else as they are the same except for two and nine, just with a slightly different accent. Then I get confused because I think I didn’t understand.

I went to the same fruit and vegetable vendor that I went to two days ago with the cook, and he helped me some with the Arabic…but he wants to practice his English. I asked him in Arabic how much my produce purchases cost, and he told me douze dirham. I assumed I hadn’t heard him right or I didn’t understand him, even though in a French conversation, I would know perfectly well that douze means twelve. So, then he tried English, but he said 20. So I asked him 20? in Arabic. So then he said, “no, no, ten plus two” (in Arabic)…so I said itnashar, which is twelve in Arabic, and finally we were on the same page! Almost the same thing happened when I bought eggs at the chicken shop. So I need to learn to hear the number in whatever language and translate it. At least they would all be in languages I understand, even if it’s not what I am expecting to hear!

IV. Nmshi issouq. In which I go shopping with Latifa.

I had an Arabic lesson last night about vegetables and fruits, and another one this morning about buying things. I’m not entirely sure that my Egyptian Arabic is helpful. Moroccans use so many different words…some seemingly completely unrelated, some so contracted I barely recognize that they have the same root. But I’m getting better, and “big” Latifa, my teacher, assures me that I’m progressing quickly compared to someone with no Arabic. But I’m finding it hard to remember the Moroccan words a lot of the time, and fall back on Egyptian instinctively, which is not what I want to do. The Moroccans understand me, and I’m understanding more of what they say, but it’s slow going.

After my lesson, I went on a shopping trip with “little” Latifa, one of the cooks. She is a short, round woman, maybe in her late 20’s. Inside the guesthouse she wears pants with a tunic/shirt and a scarf on her head. To go shopping, she put on a djellaba, a long gown that goes over the clothes and two scarves to cover her head and neck. We walked about 10 minutes to the first shop…a fruit and vegetable shop. A shop is open in front, and most of the wares are out on the street under an awning. Latifa made me ask for the vegetables and pick them out and the vendor was helpful and patient with my Arabic. They had very nice fruits, but the vegetables were a little less attractive, but she said it was the best shop in town. The tomatoes were the best I’d seen, but they would be sauce tomatoes in our markets. A caterpillar has recently invaded from Spain and is devastating the tomato crops. In Casa, all the tomatoes I saw had ringspot, a disease, so clearly tomatoes are a problem this year. Big Latifa told me the price of tomatoes has almost tripled this year over last, and they are very poor quality. They are mostly smallish salad type tomatoes, I have not seen any cherries, and only a few really big ones like some of the heirlooms.
Then we went to a meat shop, for lamb. Apparently each kind of meat is a separate shop and the meat shops are mostly open in the morning. They have the butchered lamb legs and other parts hanging on big hooks out front. I had to ask for ‘nuss ikkilo ghanim’…half a kilo of lamb – just over a pound. Then I asked the vendor if I could take his picture, but unfortunately my pictures of the meat shop didn’t turn out…next time. We walked by a goat shop where there was a small goat head set on the side of the counter (the real thing - probably from the meat hanging in front)

Finally we went to the pastry shop…full of trays of all kinds of little pastries, some sticky, some like dry cookies, and some chocolate. They looked really good, but generally I’m not fond of the pastries. Then we had to walk home with a big basket of produce for making dinner at the guesthouse. It was heavy, and Latifa is so small, I just wanted to carry it, but she insisted that we share the load…each of us holding one handle. We must have been quite a sight – she’s more than a foot shorter than I am, so one of us was struggling to hold it at a reasonable height the whole way home, but we made it!

III - Sept 16 -Seven Time Zones and No Water

I travelled about 7,000 miles to get to Morocco, and I’m seven time zones away from California. It’s a long way in place and time. I’m readjusting to a different way of doing things. It’s not so different than many places I’ve lived in the past, so the adjustments are somewhat familiar. It’s pleasant, and maybe a bit nostalgic to recapture how I’ve lived with similar situations in the past, but it still requires a bit of thinking to change current habits.

I know I’m in the desert because I was up early this morning (6 AM), turned on the tap, and found there was no water. In many desert places, they turn off the water at night, and that’s the case here. I just asked Noureddine, the guesthouse’s general handyman, and he said the town turns off the water at midnight, until about 7 AM.

Things don’t start very early here right now. It’s still Ramadan, so locals eat very early and then go back to bed, and get up later. There is no noise until after seven…and so far I haven’t heard any early morning breaking-the-fast noise. Since it’s warm during the day, I like to be up and out early, but apparently that’s not how it works here.

My computer says it’s 1:12 AM…here in Taroudant it’s 8:12 AM on a cool, sunny morning, and breakfast is being cooked downstairs. There is a central air shaft in the building, as is apparently common, which brings in light and circulates air. It is whitewashed a bright white, so it brings in a lot of light. The kitchen is three floors down, and opens onto the airshaft as well, so all the amazing smells of cooking waft up to me on the 4th floor. As the air moves nicely, they don’t stick around, though.

On the way to the oasis, the road goes through what is called the Argan “Forest”. It is now just scattered argan trees and a lot of bare ground. It used to be much more dense, but overgrazing and reduced rainfall have made it look like the Sahel. We saw a number of mixed goat & sheep herds browsing on the argan trees. Literally “on”, the goats climb up to get to more succulent branches. The sheep mostly eat branches around the base and only get up on horizontal trunks, but the goats were at least 20 feet up in one of the trees! Look at them in the tree!

Argan is a very drought tolerant tree with very deep roots, which produces a fruit like an olive. The kernel inside the hard shell is a little bigger than a shelled pumpkin seed, and it produces a very high quality oil which is used for cooking and cosmetics. There is a high demand for it, but it is labor intensive to produce, and it is mostly hand labor. As a result, it is very expensive – a liter of the cooking oil costs almost $40. It tastes okay, but apparently the big draw is the health properties of it…and the trees are not really cultivated, so it is sold as “bio” or organic.

We went to a cooperative where they produce argan oil. The coop was started to provide income for women. The fruits are harvested dry, so the pulp is dried like a husk and has to be separated. They had a mechanical huller at the cooperative, but it was maybe 50% effective, so then someone has to sort the clean nuts from those still with the dried fruit on them. Then they go to the women who, by hand, use a small stone knocked against a larger stone to open the shell and get the kernel. They were incredible fast, but it sure seemed like they would hit their fingers – it takes skill. They are paid by the amount of kernels they produce, so they work very quickly.

In the coop shop that sold the oil, I tasted it…it was okay, but I wouldn’t pay $40 a liter to cook with it. On the skin, it was a good moisturizer, and is supposed to reduce scarring, so maybe it would be worth it for that. If it gives women some independent income and power, I’m all for it!

Nearby the “Argan Forest” is the oasis of Tiout. There is a Kasbah or fortress high above it dating from the 16th century and the oasis is green with thousands of date palms. Tiout was a way station on the ancient salt route from Mali & Niger and the date palms are relics of that era. According to Saïd, they are not the best varieties, but just grew up from discarded date pits over the centuries. Visually it seemed there were lots of varieties, as there were many colors …red, yellow, orange, green and brown dates, some were different stages of ripeness, but none were ripe for eating - another month or so.

The oasis is also a victim of global warming…it used to be fed by a spring, but it dried up, and rainfall runoff is not enough, so they are now pumping groundwater to keep it going. They were growing alfalfa, maize, pumpkins, and other vegetables under the date palms. They plant three crops a year, rotating from grains to beans or fava beans, then to vegetables. It is considered organic as no pesticides are used…but I don’t know about fertilizers. I only saw manure from donkeys and sheep.

In this scarce water area, it seems odd to be growing so many high water use crops, but apparently if you have the money to dig a deep enough well, you can use all the water you want. Saïd says there have been efforts to legislate water use, but it has failed every time. I was surprised to see a lot of corn, even on government land that is allotted to individual farmers: 6 hectares (about 15 acres) per farmer. I thought all couscous was made from wheat, but here they make flour and couscous from barley and corn as well. Apparently the maize couscous is preferred.

After seeing all the abandoned farms, Lesson for the day…use water wisely, or you may lose it.

II. Il Wasl. The arrival. 15 September.

Yesterday, I arrived in Taroudant, flying from Casablanca to Agadir; then about an hour’s drive inland. Taroudant is a small desert town, surrounded by old city walls. The predominant color is beige, but in a multitude of variations…peachy, yellowy, whitish, duff, etc. Mostly multistory buildings, and narrow, winding streets. The countryside and buildings remind me of Upper Egypt, but not quite the same. Within the walls, at least, it’s much cleaner. The streets are pretty empty during the day, perhaps because it is Ramadan, the month of fasting. Only in the souq (market) was it at all crowded, but even then, not as crowded as souqs in larger cities.

I’ve taken two walks in Taroudant so far, and gotten lost each time. Both times, I eventually found my way back, but walked a long way around. The map they gave me is not very accurate, streets have no names, and none of them go in anything resembling a straight line or even a curve. They zig and zag and all look pretty anonymous when you get to residential areas…the faces of the buildings are quite blank, with a fancy door here and there. I found exactly one street name, and thus need to identify landmarks to get me home. I walked around about half of the outer wall this morning. There are numerous gates, some quite elaborate and well kept, but one looked like it had been just knocked out of the wall. Outside the walls is apparently the rubbish dump. There are no houses abutting the walls on the outside, just rubble and trash.

The guesthouse where I’m staying for the next two weeks is a pretty traditional building…four stories high, with two roof terraces. There are lots of potted plants – hibiscus, poinsettia, rose, Madagascar periwinkle, and gazania. Saïda the cat is on her leash wandering around among them. She is fascinated by the little birds and she’s having fun stalking them but they are wise to small feline predators. We’ll have to stay on the lower terrace…the upper one has too many pathways for an inquisitive little cat to get into trouble. No more rooftop rescues!

The guesthouse hallways are covered with colored tiles, mostly blue and white designs. The door to my room is gold colored, painted in red and green arabesque designs, with metal studs here and there to decorate it. Walls are white washed, and the décor is simple but nice. And it is cool inside…wooden shutters keep the sun out and thick walls keep it pretty cool.

Today it’s alternately overcast and bright and sunny – when the sun is out, it’s hot, so I am trying to stay in the shade. I’ve just had a Moroccan Arabic lesson, it’s quite different than Egyptian Arabic. Lots of different words, some related to Egyptian, some not. It’ll be hard to get myself out of the Egyptian habit, but now I understand better why it’s been so hard to understand the Moroccans. They have a very different accent and make contractions of many things, which makes them sound completely different. If I can take it apart, and find the word root, I may understand more.

I’ve learned that the names for citrus are quite different than in Egypt. An orange is a limoun…which in Egypt is a key lime; a lemon is limoun hamid…literally sour “orange”; a mandarin is a mandaline. A navel orange is a nabil. And the collective name for citrus is hawamid: the sour ones. It provides an interesting perspective on how people view citrus.

I also learned how to say leave me alone and then if that doesn’t work, how to say go away and shame on you…all different than Egyptian. But I didn’t really get a chance to use them as almost no one bothered me.

I’ve just met the rest of the guesthouse staff…You’ll like their names…Yesterday I met Latifa (which means pleasant), who manages the house; her husband, who is driver/guide/naturalist, Saïd (which means happy and is the masculine of Saïda!); and Noureddine (literally, light of God) who seems to be the general handyman, waiter, etc. I just met Fatima, who is the cook, Dounia, and the other Latifa, not sure exactly what they all do yet. I don’t know what Dounia means, Fatima was the prophet’s daughter-in-law. They all wanted to pet Saïda the cat and talk to her. She is a curiosity. When I took a walk with her all the kids wanted to pet her, and they talked to her, not me. There are lots of cats here, but mostly they just run wild.

I found the food section of the souk - vegetable and fruit sellers, as well as spices, fish and meat. Well, the only meat I saw was chicken and what I saw was mostly on the wing. The chicken stores have a sign with a picture of a chicken out front and they sell eggs, butchered chicken, as well as the live bird. I only saw a few hanging carcasses, though, mostly eggs and chickens walking around.

I bought fruit in the souq…figs, dark purple ones with pinkish brown middles. I saw some green ones with bright red flesh in a bin in a stall. Apparently, the owner of the figs was trying to sell the bin to the vendor and they were discussing it…at length, so I moved on and bought the less exotic ones. They are good, but I want to try the green ones as well. I saw many figs on my walk through town, but none were the green ones, so they are apparently not so common.

I. Cindy & Saïda’s Big Adventure

September 14, 2009

We are in Morocco…Well, at least in Casablanca. Tomorrow we continue to Agadir and then Taroudant, the citrus area. So far, smooth sailing - good Air France flights, on time, no issues. Saïda did great…she slept on my lap under the blanket a lot of the way from Boston to Paris…once they turned off the lights. She attracted a lot of attention in the airports in Boston and Paris because she was walking around on a leash. We’ve been out of the hotel briefly, and a couple of the watchmen called to her. There isn’t really a garden, it’s pretty grubby, and loud with traffic, so she’s inside for the moment.

As a matter of a fact, no one has yet asked to look at Saïda’s papers…All the certificates signed, sealed and delivered by USDA and the Moroccan Embassy. When I asked at the airport, the customs inspector told me to skip it. Okay, I wouldn’t want to take a chance and travel without all the papers, but it seems such a waste.

Casablanca is on the coast, with a good stiff sea breeze where I am, but still pretty warm and humid. It’s very busy, lots of traffic, lots of road construction, but I did take a walk through the medina, the walled old city and market area. The front is mostly tourist stuff, but I kept going until I got to more mundane things like clothes and shoes. The shoes are certainly NOT mundane! Many people here wear light leather slipper-type shoes called babouche, mostly with very pointed toes, some that curl upward, and they come in every color of the rainbow; pink, yellow, blue, orange, as well as more sedate colors. I saw a man in a light colored suit with bright yellow babouches in the market, now that’s a fashion statement! And they are decorated – embroidery, dyed leather designs, rhinestones for women and girls, all sizes, shapes and colors. Enough to satisfy anyone’s shoe fantasies!

It’s Ramadan, so most people are fasting from sunup to sundown. I went for a walk to the market around 4 PM, and everyone was buying provisions for the meal to break the fast. A guy on the street was selling freshly caught silvery fish in plastic bags, and doing a brisk business. In the market, I went looking for the fruits and vegetables (what else?!). The main seasonal fruit now is prickly pear, it’s all over on wooden pushcarts. And carts of beautiful, round bread loaves, about 5” across and about 2” high, covered with some kind of coarse grain.

There are some imported fruits such as mangos and avocados labelled “expo”, but lots of local stuff too. The only citrus was some rather wizened oranges…they were green and pinkish orange. I was tempted to buy a couple to see if they were part blood, but decided to wait until I got to Taroudant. There were lots of dried dates and figs, small purple plums, grapes of all colors, bananas, apples, quince, beat up nectarines, and lots of melons…all sizes and all colors. From small, greenish Charantais-type to giant yellow-orange ones that are probably like Persian or Egyptian shamam melons. I can’t wait to find out!

Vegetables were interesting…basics like peppers and potatoes and different ones like cardoon. Mint and cilantro you can smell as you walk down the narrow streets. All of the tomatoes had spotted wilt. Processed olives in every color of the rainbow…white, green, purple, black, with chilis and garlic…mmmm. Hard to resist those.

I didn’t take pictures yet because I thought it might be too awkward on my first day. I would like to as the stalls are very eye-catching with the variety of fruits and vegetables.

Even though the streets in the medina are very narrow and crowded, no one bothered me, which was nice. They all looked at me but didn’t hassle me at all. It probably helps that I was head and shoulders over most of them and walking like I had a purpose, not being a tourist. Nice first day. Now I’m going to go get some dinner…I/m going to find out what the menu calls “exceptional Delight Pastilla” is.