I live in a neighborhood called Ocean. It's not the chicest neighborhood, but I don't think I'd like anywhere better. It's perfect for me. Everything I could need or want is within walking distance. For example: This is the shop that shares the entrance into my apartment building. George Clooney apparently frequents this salon whenever he visits Rabat. A three-minute walk to the east past a laundry, several bakeries, an auto-repair shop, an optometrist specializing in progressive lenses, a party store, a billiards and games place, and several restaurants gets me to this corner: nice clothing shop next door to a Carrefour (good grocery) and right at a tram stop. The tram, and a very nice little schwarma restaurant. Three more minutes and I am passing this gate to the Medina, although I usually walk on the other side of the street if I am not heading in. (This is Bab El Had, also pictured on the homepage of my blogsite.) After a couple of blocks, I turn and walk down this main street (Mohammed V Ave) though the Nouvelle Ville (new French-built city from the Protectorate days) and in 10 more minutes, I arrive at the Gare de Ville, the main train station. I have passed clothes and shoe stores, jewelers, books stores, a movie theatre, the Parliament building, (where they were filming a movie last night), and many restaurants. Usually I walk here in the mornings and pick up the tram to the university here at the train station. It's good exercise, and endlessly interesting. The Avenue continues beyond toward the Grand Mosque. By the way, it's not that everyone in Rabat loves little blue cars. These are the "petit taxis" that take you all over town for pretty cheap. If I wanted to taxi this walk instead, it would cost me 50 cents. Back to my apartment. That's mine, in the first floor corner apartment, with the plant in my living room window, and a small balcony off the guest bedroom. And there's George again. I could have chosen a picture showing the Salon de Thé (coffee and tea shop) right there on the corner, but why, when I can show you George again? Now, we're going to go 3 minutes to the west, passing an ATM and in the direction of several good quality patisseries: This souk, or market, has just fruits, nuts, eggs, and veggies, and stretches for three blocks. When you get to the white church at the end of this street, the Eglise de Mer, you turn right... and you walk 3 more minutes (maybe more, due to traffic, because you have to cross a street), and you can sit yourself down to enjoy this: which I really, really do enjoy. Even in the winter.
1 Comment
Tangier is about 4 hours north of Rabat by train, and the first class ticket costs about $15. On Friday after my Darija lesson, I hopped on the train and headed north to explore. This was my view at dinner, in a riad near the top of the Medina at the Kasbah, overlooking the old port. There was only a single French family dining when I arrived, and when they left, a group of Argentinians arrived. So I got some great practice overhearing conversation in two languages! While this seems unusual for Americans, it is absolutely common here. People speak many languages, no matter what their language of conversational choice is. So you can never assume that you are saying something that everyone around you doesn't understand! My hotel-- recently renovated, but a classic French hotel from the 19th century, the Grand Villa de France. A heated room, loads of hot water in the bath, a flatscreen TV on which to watch French language broadcasts, a super comfy bed-- and a view over the Medina and out to the sea. Lux and lovely!! View from my window. I visited the American Legation, which was the first US Embassy in the world-- remember, Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1777?-- and a wonderful Museum of the Kashbah, which had a great display of the history of the people of Tangier from pre-historic times to the international zone that it was in World War II. As a former sultan's palace, it also had some spectacular architecture and gardens. I visited the Medina souks and tried to take a few more surreptitious photos, and I wandered down to the beachfront (where there is an actual sandy beach) along the corniche. I enjoyed really great food-- the breakfast buffet at the hotel was a symphony of fruits, nuts, and French pastries-- and I had my favorite dinner so far in Morocco at a seafood restaurant where there is no menu. Just come in, sit down, and let them bring you the prix-fixe whatever-is-freshest menu of the day. There are some pictures below of all that. I have also created a page here on the website where I uploaded a few of the other images that I took of the day. Click on the three little white lines at the top right of this page, and a drop-down menu will appear of the other pages on the site. (This is for you Dad.) There is now a page called Tangier with more photographs. One last cool thing: on the train ride back, there were 3 American college students on study abroad in my compartment, and one of them is from the same small college where I went! We were both quite excited to meet another person who had even heard of Ohio Wesleyan, so we took a picture of ourselves! It's on the Picture of the Day page. Minaret at the entrance to the Medina from Nouvelle Ville. Multi-cultural movie theater on the Grand Socco. La la Land, Adios Carmen, Fils de Pub Interior courtyard of the American Legation. Window at the Legation Olives-- see the reddish-purple ones in the back row? Yum! Look! Prepared, packaged veggies! Babouches-- traditional leather slippers; these are for women, and children. I am wearing one of these pairs right now as I blog! On the way up the hill to the Kasbah. Tangier's medina has much steeper streets than Rabat's! Saturday at noon: school is letting out for the day. Note the winter jackets they kids are wearing. Sultan's palace courtyard at the Kasbah Museum Ceiling of one of the rooms in the palace. Turns out good architectural photography is difficult!! This is really 3-D, like a Ryan Homes coffered ceiling on steroids. A wall in one of the rooms. Ceramic mosaic, carved plaster, and I don't even know how they did that wood! Gardens within the palace. Garden gate to a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Enjoying the sun and the view from one of the hotel terraces Afternoon ferry arriving from Spain A dusk stroll while waiting for my chosen restaurant to open for dinner, brought me to a sandy beach right in the heart of downtown Tangier. (If you were to look 180 degrees away from here, you'd see a lot of traffic businesses, and high rise hotels and apartments.) "Well, this is something unexpected," I thought when I realized there were camels waiting to take you for a ride. This is why you should never be without your camera in this country! Now for my fantastic prix-fixe dinner. First course: still warm toasted walnuts, almonds, and other nuts, three kinds of bread, hot peppers, and olives accompanied the fish soup. No, that is not wine in the glass. This is a Muslim country, and the only place I've seen wine was in the piano bar of the Grand Villa de France. This is a fruit punch with about 10 kinds of fruits juiced and mixed. Wonderful, and the glass kept getting re-filled. Second course: "fruit de mer" (seafood) mixture, onions, spinach in a searing hot little tajine. Main course: some kind of fish (turbot maybe??) grilled and seasoned with Moroccan spices, most especially cumin. And for good measure, there was a "brochette" of some other kind of fish. And, dessert: this was just absolutely the best! Seasonal strawberries and raspberries, with a nut, honey and maybe sugar topping. There's a bowl of the sugared nuts back there in the background if I needed more. Notice the rather rustic wooden utensils. The owner came by my table at the end and gave me two sets of utensils to take home as "souvenirs". And no, it wasn't because I was snapping pictures of my food. Everyone was! And I'll end with a picture of the restaurant itself, in case you ever want to go there: Saveur de Poisson.
Moroccan storks, of course! They have quite a few of them to do the job, too! More on the storks in a minute. Saturday, I visited Chellah, which was the site of the first city on the Bouragreg River where it meets the Atlantic. It is actually about 3.5 km upstream, and it was the site of a Phoenician city, then a Roman one, then a Merenid (Moorish) one before the current Kasbah and Medina were built. Today it is an elaborate set of gardens, with the ruins of the Roman city (2nd century BC-2nd AD) and the ruins of the mosque, madrasa (Koranic school), and royal burial site from the 13-14th centuries. Here are a few pictures of it. Some reconstruction of the walls is happening. Hydrangeas! Dragon tree. See it? Standing in the forum, surrounded by market stalls, carrara marble columns, half a toga-ed statue, and an inscripted column. Ignore the gray socks, please. I clearly did not bring enough socks with me to Morocco. If you are wondering how I got such a shot of myself, I had a personal guide through Chellah. Here's what happens: when you enter one of these sites and look like a tourist, suddenly a very helpful young man appears to give you directions or identify a tree you are looking at. If you let them, they will give you a very good tour of the site, and point out all the best places to get a photograph. You pay them something at the end, of course. I am quite glad to do it, since these are public-school educated (and most of them clarify for you that that means "poor") young men who have really learned passable French and English in order to do this work. Roman bath complex; there was a thermal water source, so there were three temperatures of baths available. Koranic school-- sleeping alcoves for the students. I imagine because they lived there full time, not because the lessons were boring. Sultan's burial room, and the minaret. There's alliteration if you say it in French: les chats de Chellah. These cats are lounging by a pool, still held sacred. There are eels in there, and women come to feed them eggs in order to receive help with fertility and childbirth. My guide asked if I wanted to see a sacred eel, and I said no, thanks. Artisans village from the Roman period, with a view across the river. Belladonna tree, which I 've only read about in books. #HarryPotter
Now for more on the storks. For some reason, this is a favorite spot for storks. They have over 75 nests on the grounds of Chellah, and another 25 in the area just to the south. There are a pair sitting on each nest, and the "cigonettes" are supposed to hatch in March. I so wish that I could upload video to this blog: they make an incredible noise that sounds like woodpeckers really attacking a tree, but it is entirely with their beaks. (Come to think of it, I am glad this is not a sound in the Arabic language! haha!) Here are few pictures of the storks: I was able to visit two other cities this week: Casablanca and Kenitra. Casa is about an hour to the south, by car, and another hour through lots of traffic in to the site of the book fair, which is very close to the new Hassan II mosque near the port. I was planning on taking the train, but Ahlam invited me to go in the car with some of the MACECE staff. Casablanca is about five times the size of Rabat, and more congested. As we left the Book Fair at about 4:30, a fog had rolled in from the ocean and made a magical view of the minaret of the mosque. Do you remember in the movie "Casablanca" (which was not shot here, BTW) the foggy scene at the end? I wonder if it is often foggy, or if it was just something special for my first visit! This is the Mosque in the morning when we arrived. On Friday, Adil and I took the train north to Kenitra, the town where he lives, so that I could enjoy Friday couscous with his family. He has a beautiful wife named Rajat and two young children. Rajat made a lovely couscous and a wonderful (and large!) flan for dessert. Of course we had tea too. This one wasn't mint, though. The plant in it is called "sheeba" in Darija, but I'm not sure what it is in English. It is in season now, she said. When Hamza, the 4-year-old boy met me, he asked, "Comment t'appelles-tu?" in French. It was adorable! The children are learning French, and Rajat speaks it, so we could carry on very well. We had a very interesting discussion about arranged marriage in Morocco (which theirs was) among other things. Thank goodness I didn't have to rely on my Darija!! This is Adil. He's been awarded a Fulbright in the US next year. He's waiting to hear to which university he'll go. The salon of their home. Look at the carved and painted plaster ceiling! The couscous! This one had beef (chuck roast) between the couscous and veggie layers. Hamza and Mariam with their father. Tea and flan. "It's so much better than restaurants," Adil said (because I had ordered a flan in a restaurant one day at Darija lesson/lunch). "You can have two pieces!" It WAS absolutely delicious! And I had two pieces.
My work week was busy this week, though it's a flexible schedule that I have! Every morning (at the crack of 11:00!) I have a Darija lesson with Adil. He is a good teacher, and I'm learning a lot (bzef) though it is really hard for me to make some of the sounds of Arabic/Darija. For example, there is a sound that you make somewhere in the bottom of your throat, like where you gargle, and it's a pretty common vowel. Adil says it is the "sound that sheep make". Well, I can tell you that American sheep do not make that sound! So I struggle with it, and sound a bit like I'm choking, and eventually I get something like it coming out of my mouth. But putting it into the middle of a word is something else entirely. The struggle is real. I got to go to a dissertation defense this week. The gentleman who was earning his doctorate went to public schools all the way through, and my advisor Prof Mderrsi thought it would be interesting for me to see the eventual possible outcome of a totally public education. There was an audience of his family, friends, and colleagues, and some students who came to see what a doctoral dissertation defense looks like. He explained his research for about 20 minutes with a power point, and then a panel of five judges who had previously read the 250-page written version each made 20-minutes-worth of comments. What was most interesting to me was that their negative comments had to do with his French writing style and the composition of the dissertation, not with his research, which was in the field of management of a large public project for transportation and development. Ultimately, they gave him high honors after their deliberations, because, as the president of the jury said, they weren't conferring a doctorate in French. His mother yipped, his wife cried, and I felt honored to be a witness. Afterwards there was a reception with tea, fresh fruit juices, and sweet and savory finger foods. I saw a cat come streaking through the reception room and into another connected room, where my advisor was talking on her phone; she shared some hors-d'oeuvres with the cat, too. On Thursday, I accompanied some of the MACECE staff to the International Book Fair in Casablanca. Publishers from all over Africa and Europe have booths there where they have their publications on display and for sale. MACECE went to the Dar America booth, hosted by the Consulate in Casablanca, and talked to people who might be interested in study abroad in the US, and the Fulbright Commission. There was also a booth hosted by the Presidents of Moroccan Universities, for which Mme Mderrsi had handled some logistics for UM5. There were TONS of school children. It must be quite the annual field trip. Think of it as the Scholastic Book Fair at an elementary school on steroids, with an adult version layered over top. There were guest speakers and hand-on activities. I wandered, bought posters for my classroom (of course! fruit and vegetable posters with the names in French, Arabic, and English, etc) and met an interesting man who was a Fulbright scholar in Michigan and teaches English to the blind at a school in Casa. He invited me to come and observe a few of his classes, and I will be taking him up on that.
I'm so glad you asked! Happy Valentines Day! I was glad to see that February 14th dawned with bright blue skies, and though I carried my umbrella all day, it wasn't needed at all. La vie est belle when the sun is shining! I was surprised to see heart-shaped boxes of chocolate in my local grocery story (the Carrefour). It was an endcap, sort of like a a promotional display, but there they were. Adil and I talked about it at my Darija lesson. He says Valentines Day is a pretty new thing here, and that many people aren't too happy about it. "Some people say it's nice and it's fun and why not. But others say why should we take on the holiday of a culture that is not ours? We don't believe in St. Valentine." Well, I told him, there are mixed feelings about it in the US, too; it's what I call a commercial holiday. And so I could see throughout the day the creeping evidence of Valentine's commercialism. At the flower market that I passed, they had lots of red roses, opulent sprays, and small bouquets in vases ready for sale. At the restaurant where I had some dinner tonight, the tables were decorated with floral centerpieces. I took a survey of the customers (OK, I didn't ask them, I just attempted to perceive their reasons for being there tonight.) All of the women were wearing western clothing: A pair of Gal-entines having dinner together; two families with young children taking Mom out so she didn't have to cook, and one For Real Date-- a couple very dressed up and flirty, and the woman took pictures of the courses as they were served. Perhaps she expects this to be a date to remember. But as I walked by the tea room on the first floor of my building, I could see that it was packed with men--all men--watching a soccer game on TV. Even now I can hear the play-by-play and cheering in my apartment. Maybe they already gave their wives flowers and chocolate. Bouquet in vase: $5.00 In the Agdal neighborhood on February 15-- sadly, the concept of the half-price sale has not immigrated to Morocco.
Driss very kindly decided to have a tajine dinner party on Sunday to introduce me to some of the other Fulbrighters that he knows here, and some of their friends. (That is Driss over there to the left.) He told me he'd teach me to make tajine, which is a pretty common dinner dish here. The word refers to both the ceramic dish that you cook it in, and the food itself. So I went over to Driss' apartment for an evening of mint tea and conversation, salad, and tajine. Here are my two take-aways about the food so far in Morocco: I still love that red pepper paste that I mentioned in a previous post. But, there are two other foods that I have decided are the bomb! One is pickled lemons. I know! Doesn't that sound weird? But they are pickled still in the rinds, and then they get sliced up and added to the tajine near the end, and we also had some in the green salad and they were so yummy. And, the second one will really surprise those who know my eating habits: OLIVES! Honestly, I generally don't like olives at all, and make a beeline right past the olive bar at Wegman's. But here, I have tried some that are probably marinated in that same red piquant paste, and some that have a bit of a lemony back-flavor, and I really liked them. In the fashion of Morocco, and of Youth everywhere, we started cooking at 8:30 pm and ate our dinner at 11. It was late dining for me, but I met some pretty interesting young people, I ate a tasty dinner, and I now have the basic recipe for tajine under control. I understand though that although the basics remain constant, every cook has his Tajine Maison, and no two are really fully alike. Here are some pictures, but I'll put the full process and pictures over on the Recipes page of this site, which has been waiting patiently for an entry. I am getting better at the "bread as utensil" technique. Clear benefit of eating right from the tajine itself: very few dishes!!
On Friday morning, I had to say b'salaama (goodbye) to Najat and her family, and head off onto my own. I was a little sad about this prospect, because I have enjoyed being with their family, and having someone to talk to, and someone to practice my Darija with and give me advice about how and where and what to do in Rabat. But their spaces are rented for the spring, and I found an apartment of my own, so I packed up my suitcases and left in the rain. My apartment agent Driss came to help with the move. After a while (thankfully my suitcases can take the rain) , we found a taxi that was large enough to carry my three suitcases and us, and it brought us to the new place. There were some disappointments. Since I had given a deposit on the apartment a week ago, and it was not previously rented, I expected that it would be cleaned, non-working things repaired, and the missing items supplied. This was not the case. There was additionally the question of getting Wi-Fi installed, and so we had to head over to Maroc Telecom to get that business taken care of. At this point, Driss had to leave; it was Friday, and he needed to go to the mosque. (As a side note, it surprises me that life goes on pretty much normally on Fridays, even though that is the day that everyone has a big couscous dinner, and you are supposed to go to mosque, but businesses remain open. Oddly, it seems like more things are closed down so people can be home on Sundays. But maybe I just don't know enough about that yet.) Anyhow, the Maroc Telecom agent wanted me to sign a 12-month contract because my landlady refused to sign the contract... well, it was all a bit crazy and maddening. Here is a thing that I did not realize about Morocco before I got here, though people probably told me and I didn't get it: LOTS of people here don't speak French. At all. Or poorly. Including my landlady. So, let's just say that the moving experience was not going well, and I was supposed to be at a couscous luncheon being hosted for all the Fulbrighters at MACECE. Where I showed up a little late, on the absolute edge of tears. Plus I was having an exceedingly bad hair day. So dear Ahlam and Mustapha (who went with me to get my telephone) snapped to attention, called Driss and the landlady over to MACECE, and after the couscous, we had a big powwow. There are many more steps to this process, but I will end it now by saying that I am posting this from my apartment, where there is now wifi, along with hot water, a kitchen table, a pot and tea kettle to heat water on the little stove, a working washing machine, a functional television, bulbs in most sockets, and an excellent supply of polar fleece sheets and blankets that I purchased to keep warm. Let me totally conclude this episode by saying that I have met the most kind and wonderful and helpful people here, especially in the persons mentioned above. There was a bit of a rocky jumping off point, but if I didn't have any kind of cultural correction to make, how would I know I'm in a different culture? It's why living somewhere is different from vacationing there. Kitchen eating area Kitchen cooking area, and that's the hot water heater on the wall. Polar-tek bedroom #1 Second bedroom, with access to a small balcony, where I will enjoy my morning coffee as soon as it warms up and dries out a bit. Bathtub/shower and washing machine in the "salle de bains", Living room by night My street. Najat hosted a dinner for a group of Americans who were, as it turned out, a group of skiers from Chicago who having finished skiing in Zermatt, made a side trip to Morocco on the way home. I gotta say, that is my kind of ski club! Najat and Rashida (and truly, the whole family) worked for two days to make a tajine meal for about 30 of them, and turned on the party lights in the downstairs "salons", and did up a Moroccan tea ceremony, and otherwise provided a lovely night for them. Here are some photos of the evening. Alternating colors for a party effect! The photos on the wall are from Najat's late husband, who was a professional photographer. Incense was burning . Actual plates and silverware for the guests! And the dessert fruit plates are ready to go. These are the cookies that were baked the day before. They go with the tea, which was served before the main course. Hamza waiting for the guests to arrive-- and yes, the TV stayed on the whole time. A soccer match was on. The sugar for the tea. It comes in giant chunks. pouring with a flourish And the main course. The red stuff in the middle may be my favorite thing of all so far in Moroccan cuisine. It's hot peppers, cooked, crushed up, and served in a lemon shell. The flavor is both piquant and lemony. Great garnish for the chicken.
Today I finally made my way over to the Hassan Tower complex. It's one of Rabat's biggest landmarks, and truly, I can see the tower from the roof of the riad in the medina and from other high points in the city. So finding it wasn't hard. I just kept walking in the general direction, and then, suddenly, there it was, just down the street. It was built in the 13th century, and the tower was meant to be one third higher than it is, and would have been the second largest mosque in the world at that time. But the king died, and and construction was halted, and later an earthquake did some damage to it. On the grounds, though, there is the mausoleum of King Mohammed V, the grandfather of the current king, who was apparently a wise and effective leader as Morocco emerged from being a French protectorate in the 1950s and into the Kingdom that it is today. So here are some photos from the afternoon. And by the way, I am reducing the quality of the photos that I'm putting on the blog. The previous uploads were taking about 5 minutes per photo, and today they aren't loading at all. So I apologize for the lesser quality of photo, but you will still get the idea, and I can get the blog completed!! The tower from the entrance park. Guards on horseback by the entrance to the plaza. (Everyone wants a photo with them, and they are happy to do it!) Mausoleum, looking from the main plaza. Not sure what these are, but they are on the corners of the Mausoleum site. Guards at the entrances of the tomb-- and everyone wants a photo here, too. An almost solitary guard. Plaza fountain, though I guess because it's winter, none of the fountains were working. I think these were the foundations of the complex that was never built. It would have been ginormous. People were climbing and standing on these columns, and some were trying to make photos of the Tower like when people look like they are "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa. These cute girls were happy to have me snap their picture. I will head back in sunnier, hotter weather to catch the fountains in action. They are beautiful! The architecture is lovely; this is part of the mausoleum complex. |
Marcie StutzmanTeacher, Researcher, Adventurer, Explorer; Maybe crazy; Possibly too old for this Archives
October 2018
|