The Moroc'n'Rolling Way of Life

It's surreal.

I'm standing here in the waning sunlight amidst the chatter in French and people wearing burkas and skull caps when it suddenly hits me. I'm in Morocco. In Africa. I'm here at the airport pick up point waiting for the driver to come back with the van. I feel totally vulnerable and totally exposed, even though I'm covered up to my elbows and wearing jeans in 28C heat. (Isn't an unaccompanied woman considered "loose" in this culture....?) I have a bottle of Moet & Chandon in my hand (courtesy of duty free flying via Paris), and wonder whether people are applauding my good taste in champagne or whether they are looking down on me, given that this is essentially a dry country. I haven't even stepped out of the airport grounds, and already everything seems so foreign, and so exotic. If countries were restaurants, Morocco makes Turkey look like McDonald's; totally westernised and commercialised.

It's hard to explain. But to the locals, I suppose it's just the "Moroc'n'Rolling Way of Life".


First Impressions
The landscape of Morocco flies past my window; a surprising kaleidoscope of varying appearances. Sometimes dry & rocky, sometimes mountainous, red sand, dusty, and other times lush and green with palm trees.

The driver drives me to the hotel in Casablanca and appears to take a detour or shortcut through what looks like a large drain/sewage pipe, and for a split second, I start to panic and think that I've been conned into some elaborate kidnapping plan where I'm going to end up raped and murdered. There's lots of skillful weaving around potholes, and the sensation is awfully familiar; it's all de ja vu...... Then it hits me - the potholes and the roads are just like Ireland. Africa and the "first world country". wtf.


The Trafalgar Square of Morocco

Location: Casablanca
Name: United Nations Square - (not that it has any association with the UN).
Ever Present: What seems to be hundreds and hundreds of those "rats with wings"

Everybody that has never been to Casablanca has some form of a romanticized notion of the place. Blame it on that movie with Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman. Just to clarify, there's no Rick's and no Sam playing the piano, and not really anything to see.... It's a city of unfriendly grey concrete, and we were more than happy to head off after our allocated morning there.

A Must for Every House Hold....
No matter how grand or shanty the place, a satellite dish is a must to be able to source TV programmes from the Muslim world.

Signage In Arabic
No Standing



Parking


Stop


Coca Cola



Fanta


Esso



It is Illegal to....
....take photos of the police. I used my "cuteness" to my advantaged. M. nearly had a heart attack and started screaming that I was going to get arrested. Bless. In a parallel world, Ahmed our trusty tour guide is still trying to negotiate my bail terms. (That or the "sleep with somebody to get out of jail card" might have had to be played, which means I would still be in jail.)

"You are a Biscuit"

In the rest of the world, a Filipino is somebody from the Philippines. In Morocco, this is not a nation but a biscuit in a variety of different coatings from chocolate to vanilla.....


Moroccan Real Estate

If you wanted to sell your house in Australia, you'd go to the likes of a real estate agent such as L. J. Hooker who would put up a shiny "For Sale" sign right outside your house. In Morocco, just write your name and contact number on the outside wall of your house.


All Creatures Great & Small.....
....are essentially the same.

Above: Mr Camel chills out in between rides.
Below: My cat in her usual position - her paw comes out when you approach her and is used to secure herself onto the carpet, just in case you decide to try and pick her up and throw her out of the house....

Daily Errands the Moroccan Way
It's Saturday morning and there's plenty of errands to do. First, swing by the pharmacy to pick up your prescription.


Next, drop off your car at your local garage for its 6 monthly service.


While waiting for your car to be service, you have a wander down to the shops to have a look at some new phones.


After your shopping, you start to feel a little bit peckish and have some nougat and go and get a freshly squeezed orange juice from a nearby juice bar.

Then it's off to buy cigarettes from a tobacco store.


You head off to the nearest pay phone (after all, your mobile phone is broken,) to check and see if your car is ready.


The mechanic tells you that he still needs another couple of hours so with time you kill, you head off to the hammam for a wash & a massage. (Incidentally, if anybody wants to experience a Hammam, there is a really good one in Marrakech called Hammam Ziani, 14 Rue Riad Zitoune jdid, Marrakech Medina)



Quintessential Morocco
Nothing quite says Morocco like Tagine.



My favourite tagine is the chicken with olives & preserved lemons. The chicken is cooked on a low heat in the Tagine and is infused with powered ginger, paprika, saffron, tumeric, cumin, salt, cinnamon and your usual garlic and onion. The final product is tender chicken with meat sliding off the bone in a tasty brown gravy. Yum.


High Tea with Mint Tea

Mint tea drunk the Moroccan way is served in a glass with mint leaves and lots and lots of sugar.

Think spearmint gummy lollies (the ones with that sugar coating) liquidized. Moroccan pastries are usually made with a combination of honey and nuts, and are delicious.


Election Day is all About Election Space

During political campaigns, politicians get allocated a spot to put up any posters or advertisements.


The Dessert....
...is beautiful. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

(Above: Me & the Sherpa; Below: Me & A watch the sunset)




In England, there's High Tea with the Queen.
In Morocco, there's "Berber Whiskey" with the Nomads.



To make "Berber Whiskey" ie: mint and rosemary tea, you need to fill the kettle with water from the well....

....and then head over to the bakery to retrieve the freshly baked bread.

(Above: Yes, that leafy thing is their bakery.)


The Mating (and Dating) Game

As Morocco is a Muslim country, it is not done for women to go out in public unaccompanied, and it is not right for Muslim men to approach and speak to women they do not know. With such strict social rules, inappropriate behaviour "leaks" out in a variety of other ways, because as we all know, men just can't help themselves...... It's something to do with that "penis attachment". Enter white western female tourists, with singlets and shorts and varying amount of cleavage and well....to be polite, we're not respected by the local men, and to be more straight to the point, we're considered dirt. Thankfully there were enough blonde women and girls with ample cleavage to avoid most unwanted attention.

The behaviour of the local men is akin to an Acquired Brain Injury Unit. There's no real difference between Western men and Arabic men - only that the Arabic men don't shield what they are thinking or doing, just like those with a frontal lobe brain injury. A Western man would check you out discreetly (applying the Seinfield rule of "Looking at the Sun",) whilst a man in Morocco will openly stare and run his eyes in an undressing fashion, up and down your body. Walking through markets, the local men grin and shout out random, nonsensical statements such as,
"Hello, do you like to make love?"
"Hello, do you want an American boyfriend?"

The nicer ones will shyly ass your their email address - likely slight variations of "mohammed51938@hotmail.com".

But let it be known that the worst culprit was this guy:

Let's just call him Jerry, because everybody thought he looked like the Arabic version of Jerry Seinfield.

We had gone to a pottery place and the man above (who runs the place) spent his time taking what he thought were surreptitious photos of all the girls with his mobile phone, only because this was Morocco, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. Somewhere in cyberspace, there is an Arabic website called "Mohammed & his Posse" with photos of all women who have visited his store. I wonder what his wife thinks. More to the point, I don't think his wife is entitled to her own opinion in that regard. I gave him an evil stare as his phone hovered right in front of me, so I'm unsure whether he did take a photo of me.

To top it all off, one of his workers (a fairly young boy,) shyly gave K a little love heart he made out of scraps of pottery. Jerry noticed that, and the minute we started heading back onto the bus, we could see him yelling and hitting the poor boy.


An Occ Health & Safety Injury in the Making

Spot the Hazard
Assess the Risk
Make the Change


Nothing Says Home Sweet Home Like a Moroccan Home
Gobble gobble.

The Architecture
Who knew that doors and archways could be so pretty?








All in a Day of Shopping....
....In the Medina

(Above at the Butcher's: Fresh mint leaves are used to counteract the smell of the raw meat. Below: Crates of freshly plucked rose used to make rose water.)





Watch out every so often for the heavily laden donkeys carting anything from egg cartons stacked (somewhat precariously on their saddles) to a mish mash of kitchenware.

....In the Jewish Quarters

....Food Market

Every Day Life the Moroccan Way
The "Beer Fridge"


The "Normal Fridge"
(Meat is stored in a mixture of oil and lard to prevent it from going off. Once opened, the meat must be used in its entirety.)


Arabic Graffiti


The "Benefits of Smoking" Campaign

It includes pros such as "making friends".

The Shopping Cart


Child's Play


The Moroccan "truckie"

How do the radishes stay on without falling off?


"Wish You Were Here"
Forget the glossy, slick looking postcards you'd normally see in your usual tourist destination.

The Moroccan postcards look like they were made in the 1980's - literally.


Children of Morocco
Sometimes sweet, but mostly a tool and a means for parents to get money off tourists.




If London is the zoo of the UK, Marrakesh is the is circus of Morocco.

From the ever present wailing music of the snake charmers to the smell of camel dung in the scorching sun, there's only one word for the Djemaa el Fna Square: Overwhelming. The markets of Morocco are one big scam. There are men coming from all directions wanting to put monkeys, snakes and other creepy crawlies on your shoulder for money. I clutched onto my bag with dear life and screamed hysterically when anybody tried to come within a one metre radius of me.

It worked like a treat.



I WOULD have paid good money to take a photo of a snake charmer with that stereotypical image of the snake dancing out from a wicker basket with the lid of the basket on it's head, but sadly, that is just a misconception. In reality, the snake kinda just stands (can you say "stand"?) on a blanket and...does nothing to the music.

Stall keepers have a habit of stalking and calling out things that make more sense to the tourists than to themselves.
"Cheap as chips,"
"Cheaper than Asda."
And sometimes, when you ignore them, the comments get more offensive - "Hey fat arse."

And in the midst of all this chaos, there is an oasis of calm.....the Jardin Majorelle where Yves Laurent is buried.

And Finally, Cheers to the Wonderful People Met on Tour...

...For the record, there weren't any of those "annoying-from-the-first-moment-you-see-them" people, everybody was easy going, and for once, people have kept in touch like they said they would. Best tour guide ever too.