Word of the Week: June 9th - 14th

Wizarat – (n)

Moroccan Arabic

1. Ministry. In order to get a spring camp in my province I will have to speak to the Wizarat. 

On Buying Bread

Buying bread is one of the few jaunts that I can manage to pull off. Generally leaving my house is no small thing. As soon as I walk out the front door I am bombarded with ‘Brahim, Brahim, how are you? Come drink tea.’ and the small social niceties that make up the day. The bakery, however, is close enough along back alleys that I can usually get there and back without too much delay. Today I went to get some bread for lunch. Out the door, forty feet there, buy two loaves, forty feet back. It took about ten minuets. I had to say hi in Berber to the old man who owns the store across from my house. I had to talk about the weather with Mohammed my grocer in his funny patios. I had to wave a general hello to a group of about five teenagers who saw me cross the street. I had to actually buy the bread. And lastly I had to sit down to a cup of tea with the men on my street who watched for my return and asked me about the World Cup.

In the end, I’ve had quicker bread buying experiences. 

Word of the Week: June 1st - 8th

Swimmin’ – (v)

1. English vernacular – to propel the body through water. I am swimmin’ because it is hot.
2. Tamazight -  Sw imin (Sew Amen), sw – to drink, imin – water. “I’m drowning” the boy called. “Sw imin” the Tamazight speaking lifeguard replied thinking of his thirst. 

Morocco in the News: June 1st - 6th

Morocco is open for business

By SALIM MANSUR, QMI AGENCY Last Updated: June 5, 2010

The massively towering Hassan II mosque in Casablanca sits on the edge of Africa, looking serenely across the waters to the new world beyond. This impressive architecture — as I watch from its terrace the sun sink into the Atlantic — stands for the newly confident Morocco as the westernmost anchor of Islam.

Here in Casablanca, the north and south, the west and east intersect in a burst of sound and colour that speaks for fusion rather than clash of civilizations.

I am surprised by the overflow of energy of some 6 million people in this city that by name will remain associated with Hollywood’s all-time favourite 1942 Humphrey Bogart movie Casablanca. And Rick’s Cafe — the saloon made famous in the movie — which opened in 2004, a short walking distance from the grand mosque and a popular meeting place for Moroccans and tourists with a love for music and fine food.

Morocco, unlike its North African neighbours Algeria and Libya, has no petroleum or natural gas. Ironically the relative success of the Moroccan economy is related to this fact, making it Africa’s largest agricultural producer.

The country is open for business and eager for investment from abroad. The construction boom in Casablanca and Rabat, the capital, is indicative of the flow of offshore money into the economy.

Tourism is a huge part of the success story of Morocco. It reflects the openness of the people to foreigners and their instinctive understanding of how closely tied their well-being is with the world outside.

Morocco is a blend of the traditional and the modern. The relative success of the Moroccan economy and society — compared to the recent violent history of Islamist terrorism in Algeria or the repressive one-man demagogic rule of Libya’s strongman Moammar Gadhafi ­— is in part the story of monarchical rule providing for stability and tolerance in a country of mixed races, Arabs and Berbers.

On Ice

Near the Cascades de Ozude there is a remote Berber village. A forty-minuet walk along a scattered path down to the canyon floor and back up takes you to the interconnected mud houses that climb the hillside. There is something classical about the hike through red soil almond groves and lush river bottom foliage, from a time when all human settlements could only be accessed in such a way. It feels like a local outpost of the Inca Empire or something similarly prelapsarian. 

In the village lives a man named Mohammed who, lord only knows what the authorities make up so that he can, at least on paper, have a last name. Mohammed, like almost all Moroccans, will invite any foreigner he sees into his home for tea. There in the quiet of the second floor of the mud house Mohammed will show off something he is rather proud of, a bottle of solid ice. The implications of having a bottle of ice in such a place are clear, power and wealth. Such a bottle was either brought in that day from town, showing an ability to get things with ease, or it was made there, showing the ability to afford to run a freezer in May, not the hottest or most necessary of months for refrigeration.

Of course, amongst those who know, Mohammed and his village has something to be far more proud of, some of the best olive oil in Morocco. This traditionally extracted, flavorful oil is a high mountain rarity, scratched out of steep cliffs moistened by the falls of the cascades. And yet this oil is insignificant, passé, compared to the awe inspiring sight of ice.

Morocco in the News: May 24th - 31st

Doctors, Dentists Provide Medical Care in Morocco.

By Staff Sergeant Brock Jones  / Utah National Guard

AGADIR, Morocco, 

May 24, 2010 — Moroccan medical personnel and their U.S. counterparts from the Utah Air National Guard's 151st Expeditionary Medical Group began the medical portion of humanitarian civil assistance missions of Exercise African Lion 2010 in the southern Moroccan town of Manizla, May 18, 2010.

Men, women and children of the village in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains waited in the courtyard of the Mohamed El-Alem School for their turn to be examined and treated by Moroccan and U.S. medical personnel who had set up temporary medical clinics in the surrounding school rooms.

On Al Mazar

Think Peace Corps. Think small mountain village. Think a worn soccer ball rolling across red African dust. Think of kids in sandals, their clothes a patchwork of old Americans fashions.

Now forget all that.

For three hours on Sunday I was not in my little mountain village. I was not leading my sandal-clad feet across the red dust of Africa. I was not surrounded by the worn clothes an America gone by. I was somewhere quite different.

Think Ikea. Think Virgin Megastore. Think Wal-Mart…

 Now you have got a better idea of where I was.

This weekend I went to the brand new Al Mazar mall in Marrakech. And I could not believe it. The nicest, fanciest mall I have ever been to in my life is in Africa. On the bottom floor was Carrefore, basically Wal-Mart but bigger. My entire village could have fit into its cavernous depths. On the next level there is the Viennese version of Starbucks complete with Frapachinos for three dollars, wildly beyond the sixty cents most coffee in Morocco costs. There were also two United Colors of Bennington, a small kitchen and dinning version of Ikea, and a version of Clair’s accessories. On the top level, shoppers can access the nicest restaurants that Marrakech has to offer. TGI Friday’s coming soon. And to top it off a Virgin Megastore with electronics, music and dvds, and a bookstore which even had an English section.

Of course I could not afford more then just lunch, but even so, real New York style pizza, in Morocco. The only difference… the salami was Halal.

I wish America had malls this nice.