Haggling

Not the blanket I bought. 

Cookies we bought after the seller made us sample many.

Being picky and frugal works to my favor, Rebecca commented. While wandering through the blue streets of Chefchaouen, not getting lost in the old medina, thanks to the city's circular nature, we were all on the hunt for blankets. Blankets are what Chefchaouen is known for. Fes for its leather. Casablanca for its....fumes? The blanket I fell in love with started at 450dh (bezzaf!), so I managed to bring it down to 200dh with the feeling that I could have gotten it for cheaper, if I had smaller bills.

Haggling is like a game. First, you go through introductions "Salam wa alikum. Le bes? Humdullah?" Then, when the store keeper asks if you speak arabic, say "shwia. Shwia be shwia" with a smile tehn switch to French and ask for the price. Say 1/3 of what the man offers, and when he laughs and counter-acts it, or refuses, raise it a little. When he doesn't respond, explain that it's too expensive/that you saw the same blanket for cheaper around the corner (but mine is real. It's good)/that you are a student/that you are a volunteer and it's expensive to get to Morocco etc. Feel free to add in a few bezzafs, walk away, or leave and consider if it is really worth it.


Sometimes we wonder why we argue, haggle, and use so much energy to lower the price a couple dollars, or even just 50 cents. We all know we are probably better-off than the sellers. Is it about morals? Sam thinks that it's about being treated equally - being treated like a Moroccan, like everyone else instead of the foreigners that we are. I think it's because our mind has been warped by dihrams. I've even started converting dollars into dihrams, seeing how much I could buy here with X amount of dollars. I think of how many hanout sandwiches I could buy for any price under 100dh, and everything over 100dh in terms of how many Chefchaouen blankets I could buy (although now since being tempted by insanely cheap exotic animals, when I saw a price of a full meal for 110dh the other day, I thought, "I could buy an owl for that price!" Oh how I wanted that owl...). So, I think that the reason we argue so much over a few dihram is because dihrams get you so far (and we are used to being frugal college students. Anything else is uncomfortable and strange to us). That 5 dihrams you save is a petit taxi ride, or 2 pieces of insimin and once piece of harsha, that 10 dihrams you save is a hanout sandwich. 

Ethics and Free Food

I keep telling Alex that someone studying ethics should come to Morocco. I've never understood the appeal of an ethics course, and never wanted to take one. Good, bad, it's subjective. But in Morocco, there are such extremities between good and bad that I've never experienced before. Maybe that's a feature of an unstable country. 

A good example of this is what happened to Rebecca last week. I'll summarize it for you: A boy on a scooter came up to her and started pulling on her bag. Luckily for her, she had a firm grip on it- and she was extremely motivated because all her money and her passport were in the bag. She yanked and kicked him until he finally gave up and ran away. Suddenly, swarms of taxi drivers huddled around her, asking her if she was okay, then ushering into her car, continually asking her if she was okay. Still shocked, she got into the taxi unsure of her next move. He offered her an orange, drove not to Twin Centers (where we live), but to the police office. He wrote a report, dropped her off at twin centers, refusing to accept any money. 

While stretching our legs after a three-hour train ride from Fes before calling a petit taxi, Alex and I were followed by a young man with dreads around our age. Although he seemed friendly, and with good intentions, we were still weary of him. "What do you want?" We asked in French. In order to get away from him, we went to a gas station to ask for directions to Twin Center. An older man filling up glass pointed the way. So, we began walking. Only a few minutes later the same man honked at us and beckoned us over to the car. He was with his wife, and his four small children were stacked on each other in the back seat leaving two spaces. He insisted he drive us back. So we got a free ride. 

A few days ago I made Sara come with me to a patisserie I really like for insimin. Insimin is basically fried bread. Sometimes known as a "moroccan pancake," although I shun and correct people who call it a "pancake." It's insimin. I ordered it with cheese and honey and then this man pointed to harsha, which is like corn bread, and said how delicious that was with cheese and honey. I told him that I loved harsha, but that I didn't have enough money, even though he said it was cheap. He ordered two with honey and cheese. When I tried to pay, he wouldn't let me, but I thought you just didn't pay right away. He was asking where I was from, and told me he motorcycled across the country. When Sara and I sat down, he asked if we wanted moroccan tea or café au lait. I got moroccan tea (which tastes like mint syrup). Then he came over as we were eating all of our food, said that it was all paid for, gave me his number, shop address and left. Later that day I sorted books, and then Alex and I went for a walk around four to take a break from the apartment. We ended up getting back around nine. We walked for an hour until we got to where we wanted to Habous, a somewhat touristy place where the French settled so they could segregate themselves from the Moroccans. Since we were planning on making peanut butter cookies for Terry's birthday, I was inclined to turn back. But Alex really wanted to walk more, and I didn't want to turn back by myself because it's far away and I have no sense of direction so I was sure to get lost. A few minutes later, we found a spice/date/nuts market. The first seller gave us a few dates, which we ate and marveled at how delicious and juicy they were. "These are the best dates I've ever had," I said. Alex agreed. The second seller gave us a couple dates and full walnuts (yum!). I put the walnuts in the dates, which is one of my favorite snacks. Then, no joke, the next seller gave us more dates, more almonds, and more walnuts. "Now THESE are the best dates I've ever had." Again, Alex agreed. That same scene took place today as well. There's no way I'll be able to eat dates the same way. After our snack, we wandered around, came upon a cookie shop, thinking we should get cookies for our housemates and Terry. The guy working there immediately grabbed two sugar-dusted cookies that were buttery and flavored with coconut and lemon. Then he gave us this rosemary-tea cookie. We bought 1/2 kilo of a mélange. Ten or fifteen minutes later we passed by clothing markets, and Alex was trying to haggle for shirts. A young man working there gave us (or forced upon us) café au lait (which was really just hot, sugared milk flavored with coffee) and chocolate filled croissants. After that, we walked more, looking at people's carts, and this other guy forced a delicious fruit-pudding on us. Although we repeatedly told us no, he kept it in front of us for a couple minutes, then proceeded to take a bit of it, ensuring us that the pudding was, in fact, edible. 

We are constantly exposed to people expressing incredible amounts of generosity. I've never experience this much generosity in my life. At the same time, we have to keep on our toes. I've never experienced this much negative attention from men in my life (though nothing particularly dangerous), or people trying desperately to scam me. At least life is interesting.

Weekend in Fes

Honey Cooperatives!

My camera died a few pictures into Fez. Apparently it didn't charge :(

Fes was awesome! Alex and I couch surfed. We stayed at an American English teacher's apartment, who was spending the year in Fes with her 17-year old son, Naveen. All of her other six children (yes, six!) had been abroad, so she said one day, "Hey, Naveen. How would you like to go to China next year?" He said ok. Unfortunately China didn't work out because they didn't want any more English teachers, so they went to Morocco instead.

The first morning, Jennifer treated us to huge oatmeal pancakes, and introduced me to a new spice I fell in love with called Ras al-Hanout (does the last word sound familiar? It should!). In the olden days, Ras al-Hanout was made from all the spices that spilled on the floor. The owners would simply sweep up all the spices at the end of the day, and voila! Ras al-Hanout. Now, the mixture of spices is created more hygienically (or so they say). It is a blend of various spices,the taste unique to the city. Fes apparently has a famous sort of Ras al-Hanout. I treasure the bit of it I got. I thought I lost it and was pouting for the last hour until I discovered it, hiding from me behind the salon pillows. 

Moroccan families and our last day in Chefchaouen

the mosque we hiked up to

the family that adopted us and fed us for a morning

There were two tables of this food. Mostly made by the older women of the family.

Our last morning in Chefchaouen was magical. We woke up early to hike up to a mosque, situated on a hill that looks over Chefchaouen. As it was a Sunday, we witnessed local women washing their clothes at the laundry station by the river. This is where we picked up Yogi, a plain, white dog who probably belonged to the town, rather than to any one person. We named her yogi because of the various yoga poses she did.

Yogi escorted us up the hill, stopping when we stopped along the way, and then again at the top as we laid down, looking out at the view. She then followed us down the hill through a goat-herder path, not leaving our side even as we re-entered the medina. We kept tabs on her, wondering at which point she would turn around, until we got into our hotel and realized she wasn't with us.

We grabbed "breakfast" at Chez Aziz, a patisserie place we went to the morning before. It was a very light breakfast, so no wonder Claire and I kept peeking desirously at a Moroccan family who set up at a table nearby ours, taking out piles and piles of breads, and cakes, and various sweets. Our yearning was rather obvious, as they beckoned us over and made us eat until we felt like we were going to throw up, offering us everything edible on their two tables. They even bought us moroccan tea. It was a delicious experience, and one of our first insights to Moroccan hospitality. As we were about to end our breakfast, one of the only women who spoke English proclaimed to Claire, "Our lunch is packed in the backseat of the car. Do you want me to get some for you?" We didn't even want to start thinking about lunch.

Chefchaouen

soap/incense shop in Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen was wonderful and blue. The tradition of painting Chefchaouen blue comes from its former Jewish population.

We all fell in love with Chefchaouen, and I would have loved it more, had it not expressed such an influx of tourists.

I left with Sara, Rebecca, and Claire to Chefchaouen on Friday morning. It was a six hour train ride to Tetaouan, during which we faded in and out of sleep, then took a beautiful 1 hour grand taxi ride to Chefchaouen. Us four were squeezed into the backseat, two men sharing a front seat, with our bags lined up across our laps. Like most taxis, when we wanted to roll down our window due to the stuffiness that the intimate cab ride produced, we had to ask the driver to hand us the nob that we could attach to the door to roll down the window. We saw rolling hills and beautiful views, totally unlike those seen in Casa.

That night we got a cheap dinner of couscous and tajine at a local restaurant, then headed back to la medina ancienne to our hotel. From a distance, it is noticeable that Chefchaouen buildings spiral around. This ended up being favorable to us, and especially me who has no sense of direction, because we unintentionally ended up where we needed to be after wandering around aimlessly due to the curvature of the streets. At one point when we were about to reassess our surroundings, we realized we were only a few feet away from our hotel. I liked Chefchaouen if only for its navigability.

The next day we walked around, going into shops and making some of our first true purchases of the trip. After inspecting many blankets, feeling very grown-up and picky, I settled on a berber blanket, hand-made at one of the cooperatives, whom I trusted more than random men in side street shops. I also bought honey from Chefchaouen (wild flower honey) and from Tetaouan at a cooperative (eucalyptus). Both are delicious, and are my first honey specimens in a collection I've been contemplating for some time. Yes, I want to collect honey from various places I visit. Maybe not one from every city, like I did this weekend, however...

That Saturday night, after stopping by two recommended restaurants from the Lonely Planet that were unfortunately closed, we went to an anonymous restaurant, that, from the outside, looked like a residential area. As I stepped in hesitatingly, a man encouraged me in, let us inspect the menu complet and led us to a terrace that looked on to the mountains. We bought 2 complete menus, and Moroccan tea, and it was hands-down the best food I've had all trip (and most expensive too at $5.75! We thought a splurge was necessary). We got the usual appetizers of Moroccan bread, olive oil, vinegar and olives, with "salads" (Moroccan salads are sautéed vegetables, no matter what nationality they put in front of "salad"), an anonymous meat tajine (goat?) with almonds and prunes that we scooped up with bread, and a vegetable couscous. Dessert of flan and orange slices with cinnamon. The entrees were sweet, as common with Moroccan meals, and the tea was very well sugared, as usual. Its no wonder that Moroccans have horrible teeth.

FOOD pt. 1

Some of my Eats

My favorite sandwich here! Fresh baked bread cut pita-style, filled with a hardboiled egg, olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin.

Avocado-date smoothie with fruit!

First cup of Moroccan tea 

We bought 1/2 a kilo of a couple of each. They were sweet, soft, mostly marzipan and nutty - my favorite. 

The small brown ones are called harisha or something. They are sweet, corn-bread like teats, the yellow flat ones with bubbles are soft, cooked only on one side, and delicious with honey and wrapped around a banana. The ones below are insimin and delicious with hard boiled egg and cheese.

You can get grilled corn everywhere for somewhere between $0.25 and $0.40. Yum!

Refreshing on a cool day, $0.15 treat.

Ce Week-end

From Mohammedia to Lac de Sidi Bourhaba. 

We try to travel almost every weekend, because traveling is fairly inexpensive in Morocco, and when are we going to have this opportunity again? No one knows, is the answer. Alex and I have been dying to get away from the city, so I researched reserves and parks in our travel guide and Lac de Sidi Bourhaba was the closest. With the train, taxi ride, and walking, it probably took us a total of 3 hours to get there. Then it was almost time to head back. 

CASABLANCA

MOHAMMEDIA

on the beach in Mohammedia. There was also a camel nearby. We lovingly thought of Khalid.

Eating grilled corn after swimming and lounging at the beach. 

We missed couscous Friday (again!), so we had Couscous Saturday. Alex, rebecca and I cooked. Fish, couscous with sauteed onions and bell peppers, 'a taste of indonesia' spices, boiled string beans and a cucumber/bell pepper/carrot salad with olive oil, and the same spices. It was good. We also had the best dates ever that night.


KINETRA/MEHDIA

McDonald's is for the middle class here. My delicious sandwiches are cheaper than their wraps or burgers. And higher quality too. Take that!

Wade eating a fried fish head....not 

All and all, a very tiring weekend. We had meetings of our week plans and goals this morning and then we are going to go to the school in the afternoon. A couple members are sick, and it could easily be me. Alex and I have been eating raw veggies and fruits, sometimes unwashed and often un-peeled, I drink water out of the faucet and we eat food off of streets, handled, probably  unhygienically. But I feel great! Either I have a good immune system, or I have been extremely lucky. Either way, I am going to continue my ways until failure (except I will better about washing/peeling foods).