前途: A Year in Morocco

For Spring Break last week, I went up to Tetouan (te-twan), which is located a few miles south of the straits of Gibraltar and about 40 miles east of Tangier. The north of Morocco is very beautiful, and hosts wide sprawls of green green greeeen mountains, known as the Rif (reef), which are home to the Rifian Berbers (the ones that everyone says I look like). The woman wear a distinctive type of blanket, primarily red and white striped, but may also have blue, green, or other colored stripes. They also wear a funky kind of hat, but I don’t know its name to find pictures of it on the internet!

Because the North is close to and was occupied by Spain, people here tend to speak Spanish instead of French as their first foreign language, which is such a welcome relief from the constant need to navigate in French (a language I can barely survive in). It took a good 36 hours for the ol’ Spanish brain to kickstart, but once it did, I was able to follow and participate in the majority of conversations that took place. I haven’t used that much Spanish since high school! The other notable thing about the Rif area is that it is home to rather extensive (and illegal) cultivation of Mary Jane. The fields are not visible from the road, but are reputedly vast and can be stumbled upon if one is not cautious when hiking in the mountains.

For the first few days while I was there, the Sharqi (or Chergui), a wind that is created as a result of a pressure difference between the Sahara and the Mediterranean sea, was making its windy way up out of the desert and into the rest of Morocco. This wind occurs every spring and raises the temperature several degrees while flinging dust and grit high into the sky, which in turn facilitates the creation of clouds, and just generally blocks out the sun and blue skies.

I stayed at a gracious fellow ETAs apartment, along with 3 other ETAs from other sundry parts of the Maghreb.  We had quite a lovely time chatting, and exploring the Tetouan medina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site like Fes, and (I think) second only to Fes in terms of size. We did our weekly hammam visit, where we spent about 3 hours steaming, soaking, scrubbing, and relaxing in the heat. We also went food and fabric shopping in the medina, and I was able to buy fabric for jellabas. I will have them tailored in my own city, and then choose and buy embroidery and buttons to decorate them—and I’m sure there will be an extensive post about this process sometime in the future.

We also undertook a day trip to Chefchaouen (shef-shao-wen), a city in the mountains which is known for its powder blue décor and popularity with inappropriately-dressed hippies, and was apparently a founded as a fortress city to battle the Portuguese invasion of Morocco in the 15^th century. Incidentally, at the same time, the Portuguese Navy was making inroads in Japan, and tempura, a well-known item on Japanese menus, was introduced by the Portuguese. In Chaouen, we wandered around and made a few handicrafts purchases, then had an excellent salad and shrimp tagine at one of the many restaurants-that-all-look-the-same.

All in all, it was a relaxing week, notable especially for the excellent company, lovely hostess, and smashing Mediterranean cuisine.