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.