Meknes: City of Awesome, Part 1

One of Morocco's famous date palms.

So, lots to talk about. Funny how that happens when you neglect you blog for several weeks.

First, J and I have both mostly been in better health for the past few weeks. We're still too tired because of the bed here. I think it might be older than I am. Other than that, though, we've only had minor aches and ailments. No pink eye, no long lasting stomach distress, no fevers, and no food poisoning. Thanks for all your prayers!

Second, classes are going well. J is making leaps and bounds in her Arabic. She's even able to get a lot out of listening to news broadcasts. She can't understand them nearly to her satisfaction, but she can at least follow the general topic of conversation quite well. My classes are also going well. I'm flying through the material, and I've found that I can stumble my way through reading Harry Potter in Arabic. I probably only follow 25% of what's going on, but I do follow it. It's amazing how important already knowing a story is to understanding. Besides knowing all the names and characters, knowing the general thrust of the plot allows me to figure out much more than I otherwise would.

The platform for Rabat's main train station.

Third (and our final subject for this post), two weekends ago J and I visited the city of Meknes. This is the city that J and spent six weeks in two summers ago. It's about an hour from the city of Fez, of headgear fame.

To put it shortly, our day trip was fantastic. We were expecting to enjoy visiting all of our old haunts, but we were not expecting to enjoy them quite so much.

First, we got to train station about five minutes before our train left. J and I have done a fair bit of travelling in our time, and we can rarely afford to cut it so close. So it was kind of gratifying not to have to wait half an hour in an uncomfortable terminal this time. There really is something immensely liberating about not travelling with most of your earthly possessions weighing you down, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, the train ride was uneventful. J dozed most of the trip (got up early in the morning so we could have breakfast in Meknes) and I read a book. We found our stop without too much trouble or stress, and upon leaving the station were accosted by about three cab drivers offering us rides. This was a fun bit of nostalgia for us. In Rabat, taxi drivers almost always use their meters and are rarely aggressive. In our first trip to Morocco, however, we usually had to bargain for our fair, which is a stressful thing to do with tons of luggage. This time around however, we had no intention of taking a cab, so aggressive cab drivers were a fun contrast rather than something to deal with.

Rabat has gates, but they don't have the beauty or
craftsmanship of the gates of Meknes.

Right outside the train station in Meknes, there was a cafe, and since we hungry, J and I decided this was as good a place as any for breakfast. It was a fortunate decision. The food was tasty, as usual for Moroccan breakfasts (usually some combination of bread, sugar, orange juice, and uncarbonated caffieine), but the tea was the best I've ever had. Mint leaves floated in our cups, which left me wary at first. But after one taste I was wondering how I had ever been satisfied with the dishwater (relatively speaking) that I get in Rabat. It was fantastic.

Fueled and ready to go, J and I walked over a few streets to the our old apartments. We had walked these same streets many times before, and it was bizarre to see them again. We saw shops that we hadn't thought about for over a year, places where we had gotten ice cream, and streets that hadn't changed. It's the same place, but it changed without us. Like it's this living thing that won't wait for our return to keep growing and changing. Somehow all the new things we saw made us appreciate the old even more. It felt like coming home to a family member you hadn't expected to see.

That poster of the old woman that looks over the carnival
was there when J and I lived in Meknes. It was gratifying
to see that some things hadn't changed, even if the changes
included a carnival.

But J and I hadn't seen anything yet. When we got to the main square, it became clear that somebody upstairs likes us, or at the very least wanted us to have a good time that day. In front of my apartment had been a large open square. When we came in sight of that square, we were amazed at what we saw.  But when I saw it, I knew that J and I were going to have a good day.

I mean, it's always a good day when the carnival comes to town, right?

Eid Al Kabir

Sorry I've been so unreliable about posting here. I'd like to promise I'll get better (and I really hope to!) but...well, living life here is a lot more interesting than writing about it. So, I tend to get distracted.

Take yesterday, for example. Yesterday was 'Eid al-Kebir (literally, "The Big Holiday*") In most of the rest of the Muslim world, it's called 'Eid al-Adha (or "Holiday of the Sacrifice.") Whatever you call it, it's a holiday to commemorate a story that can be found in both the Qur'an and the Bible: God called Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, and Abraham was obedient until the very last moment, when God told Abraham not to do so, rewarded him for his faith and obedience, and sent him a ram to sacrifice, instead. Interestingly, the one major difference is that in the Judeo-Christian version of the story, God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (who Jewish people consider to be their ancestor.) In the Qur'anic version, Abraham is told to sacrifice Ishmael (guess who Arabs believe that they are descendants of?)

Anyway, the central part of the celebration involves each family that can afford it buying and slaughtering an unblemished ram of their own. Afterwards, they eat one half of it themselves and give the other half to the poor. For the past month or so, we've seen a steadily-increasing number of rams in our neighborhood, and during the last week especially it seemed like they were everywhere. By the weekend, you could barely have a single conversation without being interrupted half a dozen times by the bleating. And while the smell wasn't quite as bad as you might expect, it certainly wasn't enjoyable...

On Sunday, H (the father of the family we live with) had bought a ram of his own. I don't know if we've ever described this house in detail, but it's very, very nice. Old (we have strong reason to believe it was built in the 1300s) but still lovely with some incredibly ornate mosaic decorations. And it's clear that the family is pretty well off...so try to keep that in mind when you imagine walking in through the (big, ornate) front door and see a ram standing calmly in the front entryway (just below an beautifully decorated calligraphy painting), held back by a table that's been laid on its side. H was clearly very proud of the ram and eagerly asked us what we thought of it. After we assured him that it was beautiful (and it really was), he introduced us to the ram as his friends from America. So that was nice, I guess. H and Y (the younger daughter) both seemed quite taken with the ram in general. H mostly seemed excited to have such a lovely animal (and he's just a cheerful man in general) while Y, who can be quite shy, seemed to love quietly petting it.

Anyway, H and M (the mother) had already made it clear that we were invited to spend the day celebrating the 'Eid with them, and we - eager to be good guests - had asked around to see what would be expected of us for the celebration. We were told by several people that there were two important things: first, to bring some sort of gift (ideally something white, such as milk or sugar or a sugary snack); and second, to buy and wear traditional Moroccan clothing, which should be new and relatively fancy.

The gift was easy, but the clothes were a bit of a challenge. We had both actually bought some clothes last summer, the first time we were in Morocco, but as we had been planning on being in Turkey, we had left them behind. Since money's pretty tight, we debated skipping the new clothes, but decided to go ahead and splurge because (a) we hadn't bought much of anything for souvenirs yet, (b) we wanted to be good guests, and (c) we're hoping to come back to Morocco plenty of times in the future, so we should get plenty of use out of any outfits we buy. 

Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to go clothes shopping until Sunday, and by then all but one of the clothes stores in our area was closed. That one had a lot of lovely outfits, but most of them were WAY out of our price range (as in, $150-200 each.) On top of that, there was the fact that we didn't really know what to look for. And the fact that I way overthink things. So, for example, I knew that the best thing to wear was something white. But I couldn't find anything that fit and was affordable in that color.  But then I started worrying about how other colors would come across (like, would I inadvertently do the equivalent of wearing black at a wedding or bright pink at a funeral or something like that?) And then it really hit me that I was completely clueless about Moroccan fashion. Like, obviously I know what people on the street wear, but I don't have the first idea about what different styles convey. So I could easily show up dressed in the equivalent of a 40-year-old housewife's outfit, or a 16-year-old's prom dress, without realizing it. And then I tried to just ignore those voices in my head, do the best that I could, and trust that at a minimum they'd appreciate the effort...but then somehow all the outfits I was picking were WAY too big. But because the style of clothing was something I was completely unfamiliar with, I seemed to be incapable of eyeballing anything and figuring out how it fit on me. Apparently it was bad enough that the 20-something man who worked there stopped me, on more than one occasion, before I even made it to the dressing room, to tell me to put the clothes I had picked out back because they were way too big.

Anyway, the pressure of needing to find something RIGHT NOW plus the money concerns and the color/style concerns and the fact that I seemed to be hopeless at finding anything my size really started getting to me. I think one of the other men working there (who was probably at least 60 years old) realized it, because he called me over and handed me something to try on. Which, amazingly, was one of the least-expensive items in the store. And fit perfectly. And was really pretty. And mostly white. So, the good part is, a really nice man helped me find the perfect outfit for the 'Eid! The bad part is, I'm apparently so hopeless that I need fashion advice from little old Moroccan men! Oh well...I think I've said this before, but Morocco really has a way of making me swallow my pride, which certainly isn't a bad thing. Mostly.

So. Yesterday morning, Andrew and I set our alarm extra early so we'd be sure to be ready when the family called us down for breakfast (we had asked what time it would be, and just got the response "Oh, we'll call for you.") We dressed in our brand new Moroccan party clothes, took lots of pictures, and when the time came, gave ourselves one last look in the mirror before proudly coming down to meet H...who was wearing blue jeans and a sweater. And then we saw M, who was wearing khakis and a T-shirt.  And soon after, Y joined us, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. For what it's worth, though, they both seemed to love our (apparently completely unnecessary) new clothes. Although H did mention that A looked rather like Osama bin Laden. He really needs to shave his beard...

After breakfast, we joined the family to watch (on TV) a concert that had apparently been put on last night. There were an enormous number of musicians, including (according to M) some extremely famous ones. We noticed that the area they were playing in looked very familiar...and M confirmed that it's a part of the city that we literally walk through every single time we go to school.

All I could think of was last summer, when we celebrated our first Moroccan holiday (Throne Day) with a family we'd gotten to know in Meknes. We had asked them what they recommended we do to get the most out of the holiday, and they'd quickly invited us to spend it with them at their house. We had eagerly agreed and had a lovely meal together. After eating, everyone was relaxing and watching the TV when we heard a succession of startlingly loud booms.  We asked the family what the noise was, and the father casually replied, "Oh. That's the cannons." The moral of the story being, of course, that while hanging out with Moroccan families is fantastic, sometimes they fail to mention things that we might find interesting. Like cannons. Or live world-class music events taking place less than a mile away. But back to yesterday.

A little while after we began watching the concert, the TV switched to show a mosque where the king (among many others) was praying. Watching the service felt surprisingly like viewing a Christmas or Easter Christian service on TV in the U.S. Which, I suppose, shouldn't really be a surprise at all. Once the service ended, the TV showed the king slit the throats of two rams, which was the official "go ahead" for our family to kill theirs (the king is supposed to be the first one to do it.)

WARNING: FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF OUR RAM BEING KILLED. IF YOU'D PREFER TO SKIP IT, SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS.

Ok, for those of you who are still here, we turned around and saw that a butcher and his assistant had arrived at some point during the show, and they were ready for action. A and I had briefly debated whether we wanted to watch the ram being killed, and basically agreed that we should both be able to handle it just fine, and it was probably a chance that we'd only get once. For anybody who cares, I have a lot of problems with excessive cruelty to animals, but I've got little problem with eating meat otherwise. This ram had obviously been treated well and was going to be killed quickly and humanely, so besides being a bit nervous, I didn't have any real objection to what was about to happen.

Basically, they pulled the ram to the inner room, where all the furniture had been moved out of the way and a big tub of water had been brought out. H and the butcher's assistant held the ram down, while the butcher quickly slit the ram's throat. The most disturbing part, I think, came next: A and I aren't entirely sure just when the ram died, but its body definitely kept twitching well beyond that. That was...unpleasant. Anyway, after that it was basically a process of the men gradually draining the blood while M  kept busy in the background keeping the floor as clean as possible with the use of the water in the tub. Next, they removed the legs and head, and then they hung the body upside down in the doorway to the kitchen, and from there the butcher began skinning it. Mostly, A and I were able to watch with a detached curiosity, but  M clearly hated the whole thing. At one point, she had to sit down and looked close to throwing up. (I can hardly blame her, as she was the one who had to clean up most of the blood, while A and I could - and did - keep our distance. I do have to wonder what the butcher and his assistant thought of the two foreigners - and the only ones present wearing traditional Moroccan clothing - just standing off to the side and staring at the whole procedure.) The entire process took about an hour, at which point M and Y got to work in the kitchen while A and I returned upstairs.

A few hours later, we were called back down to join the family for a (very late) lunch of the ram they'd just killed. I think it might have bothered us more if it weren't so ridiculously tasty. Although it certainly didn't help that H liked to report what part of its body we were being served - mostly heart, if anyone's wondering.

OKAY, EVERYONE SHOULD BE FINE TO START READING AGAIN.

After our meal, we sat back and chatted for a while (mostly in Darija, which I can totally do now! Well, if they talk slowly and are patient and stuff. But it's still really cool!) And then we all went our separate ways to nap and digest. Later that evening, A and I went for a rambling walk that ended up taking us to the end of a rock outcropping at the beach. I really wish we had brought our cameras, because it was one of the clearest days we've seen yet. And then we watched the sunset behind the lighthouse with the waves crashing up against the rocks and it was all so beautiful that it felt too cliched to be real. But it was.

Not a bad way to spend a holiday, if I may say so myself.

Eid mubarak sa3iid!

* To my fellow Arabic nerds: Ok, yes, technically it's "The Holiday of Big." But I'm trying to translate it in a way that doesn't sound ridiculous to non-Arabic nerds. So hush.

Rain, Rain, Stop Being So Loud

So, J and I have had the last two days off because of a big Muslim holiday here. J will (maybe) write about that soon. Anyway, I’ve promised myself I’m actually going to get a post off with this time, so here goes nothin’.

I don’t remember if it was my last post or not (gosh, I really do need to write more), but one of my recent posts talked about how fun it was to run through the rain. I stand by that. However, the weather on Thursday and Friday took something of a nasty turn, so I guess not all rain is so much fun.

When J and I were leaving our school Thursday afternoon, we decided to take a cab because the weather looked bad. When we got out of the cab, J was almost blown down the hill from the wind that had started up during the ride. I don’t know if it’s just our proximity to the coast that made the wind so bad, or if it was bad all over Rabat, but that was some of the strongest wind that either of us has ever been exposed to.

That was mostly just fine. While the storm started and stopped intermittently between Thursday morning and Sunday afternoon, J and I were snug at home for all of the nasty parts. We live in a house at least as old as our parents’ parents (and probably a good deal older) made out of hard clay or cement, for all I can tell. The walls seem to be half a foot thick, so there’s not really much chance that we were going to be blown away anytime soon. (Which, as you can see in the picture below, isn’t necessarily universally true)

However, there is one quirk of Moroccan architecture which was an inconvenience, if a minor one. In order to keep cool in the long Moroccan summers, our house was built with a large central courtyard open to the sky. This courtyard is somewhat protected from the elements by a raised tin roof that covers the opening while still letting air flow through. That roof keeps out any rain that isn’t blowing sideways.

Problem is, the rain was blowing sideways. A sheet of plastic had been put up just before the storm (because, like I’ve said, we’ve entered the rainy part of the year here), to keep out the rain, but I was concerned the tin roof would blow off. The plastic never had a chance.

So our hallway got wet. No big deal, by itself. We weren’t in the habit of storing anything out there, so other than getting your feet wet to move from room to room, it wasn’t really a problem.

The cold that came with the storm was less fun. I’ve been congested and coughing all weekend, and I have a suspicion that cold and wet feet are why.

Probably the worst aspect was the noise. Like I said, we have a slab of tin between us and the elements. More than enough to protect us from any weather except some leaks from bothering us during the worst of storms, but not much in the way of sound proofing. Really, the noise of the plastic flapping and the tin buckling was probably the most unsettling of all the things we dealt with. It’s a bit difficult to sleep when it sounds like the world is ending in the next room. I’m pretty sure I heard some noises the likes of which I haven’t found since I watched Jurassic Park.

But then the sun came out. It’s still a bit chilly, but all the puddles have dried and my cough is clearing up. A meal of veggie tagine (kind of like a stew with more veggies and less broth) put J back into form. It’s funny how this trip has caused me to miss so many things I’ve never thought about before at the same time it caused me to realize how little I need them. Heating is nice, but a good blanket works too. Sound proofing is helpful, but life goes on without it. I’ll be glad to get back these conveniences when I return, but I’m just fine without them.

That’s my bit of reflecting for this post. In other news, J and I have completed the second of our four week sessions with our school here. We both learned a lot, and look forward to learning more in the coming month.

Our health is has continued to fluctuate. We’re not really sure why exactly we did so much better in Meknes, though the no heating thing certainly isn’t helping. It’s strange, J seems to feel the cold more than I do, but I’m the one who’s had a runny nose and cough for the last four days. I won’t mind when we can go more than a week without one of us getting sick.

 

J and I had lunch yesterday with our Moroccan family. It was Eid Al Kabir, a Muslim Holiday. I could go into that more, but I think J is planning on doing a post about it. For now, I’ll just say it was the tastiest lamb kabobs I’ve ever had. Also, we got to dress up for the occasion. Hence, our shoes.

One last note. Reading back through my post, I feel that I might have given a false impression about Morocco. The house we’re in does not have heating. Most places in Morocco don’t, but heating isn’t uncommon either. The apartment we stayed in for a week did have heating. What our house does have is satellite TV, as most Moroccan houses do. We constantly hear the father of the family downstairs talking on his cell phone, and the younger daughter is usually on her Nintendo DS (which I didn’t realize they come with cameras now, but they must since she’s always taking pictures with hers). Heating isn’t popular because it isn’t necessary most of the year, and people here have better things to spend their money on. And we live in an old Moroccan house, newer ones don’t have a courtyard that lets in rain. Honestly, I think J and I prefer the rain if it comes with a courtyard. We certainly like our current housing more than the more recently constructed housing we were in last.