The Kasbah des Udayas is a walled, protected region of Rabat. At various points in its history, the kasbah has been destroyed, reconstructed, deserted, and occupied by pirates.
Candy (and Kisses) from Strangers
Last Saturday, within the span of about two hours, Theo received seven kisses and two lollipops, all from people we’d never previously met.
We mentioned the attention to a Rabat resident, who told us that this was typical in Morocco. When he was visits Europe, it feels strange to not pick up and play with random children. Even further on that extreme: the United States*, where he found that mothers would look concerned if he simply smiled at their children.
Cultural norms – they vary. Brian and I acknowledge this, and understand that in some countries (well, Turkey) strangers will find it very natural to spend an extended period of time petting our child’s blondish hair, even though it feels odd to us. And that in most parts of the world, people just give candy to children. This is in stark contrast to the United States, where we actually have a saying about candy from strangers. (For anybody from outside the US, the saying is: “Don’t take candy from strangers.” Pretty simple.)
Couscous Fridays
Friday is the day when most Moroccans eat couscous for lunch – so last week, Brian and I did as well. The couscous, vegetables, and sour milk were all very good, but our favorite part was an amazing chutney, with onion, raisins, and cinnamon.
People at the cafe explained that Friday was couscous day because it is the holy day in Islam, but I still wasn’t exactly clear on why holy day equaled couscous. After some searching on the Internet, it seems like in Morocco the weekend previously included Friday, and this was the day when families would gather for this filling, tasty meal. The Moroccan weekend now falls on Saturday and Sunday. While many people are still heading home to eat with their families each Friday, some people (like us) are eating their couscous in restaurants.
Soaking Up The Sun
We’ve experienced amazing weather in Rabat, with blue skies and lots of sun most days. It can get warm in the afternoons, but it’s not very humid and cools down again overnight. This is probably the closest climate to Oakland, California (which I think is pretty perfect) that we’ve experienced since starting traveling.
I’m not the only one to appreciate the weather. We found the yard-tortoises hanging out on the sun drenched patio outside our neighbors’ house.
We also saw these cool cats in the medina, soaking up some sun on a motorcycle.
(The general state of cat-health in Morocco seems not great – but these seemed better than average, at least.)
Hassan Tower
In 1195, Sultan Yacub al-Mansour started construction of Hassan Tower, intending it be to be the largest minaret in the world, attached to the largest mosque in the world!
Then, the Sultan died in 1199. Construction stopped with the tower only half of its intended size. Continue reading “Hassan Tower”
Street Art in Rabat
The Old, The New, And Our Home, All In Rabat
It’s easy to get lost in the winding, narrow maze of the medina of Rabat…
… and then, after passing through a gate of the city wall, find yourself on wide boulevards lined with cafes, shops, and an excellent modern art museum. Continue reading “The Old, The New, And Our Home, All In Rabat”
Connectivity
Our one big gripe with Morocco has been the state of the Internet – and for us, because of our work, the state of the Internet is a huge deal. The DSL at our home was unreliable with glacial upload speeds. Voice-over-IP is banned in the country – for practical purposes, this means we need to use VPN when making calls or screen-sharing, which throttles the already slow speed. We couldn’t get a local cellular dongle to work with our Macs, and the T-mobile international plan that we’ve used to tether in other places isn’t available in Morocco.
Sigh.
After much experimenting and several French-practice sessions at the local telecom shop, the best solution we found was to get a local sim card for Brian’s unlocked iPhone, tether it to our computers, and take turns using the quicker connection. We’ve found the cellular Internet impressively, shockingly faster than our home WIFI… but it can still be dicier than ideal, usually during important calls.
Anyway, just to say – sometimes working remotely (especially working closely with others remotely) is challenging.
(This was still not even close to our hardest Internet month, which was definitely spent in Costa Rica.)
Delicate Tourist Noses
We visited a tannery as part of a tour of the Fes medina. Upon entering, we were each given bunches mint to sniff, so as to not offend our delicate tourist noses. (The people who worked at the tannery, much closer to the smells than us, were not holding mint.)
Cavorting Around Fez
Fez’s winding, extensive medina is a UNESCO world heritage site. Because we were staying in the city for just two nights on our way out of Morocco, we arranged for a guide, Adbul, to show us around.
Adbul explained that each district within the medina has a mosque, hamam (public bath), school, market, and water fountain, so theoretically, someone might live within a district without ever needing to leave it. While this probably doesn’t happen so often anymore, Abdul’s grandfather apparently didn’t leave the larger Fez medina until he was buried. Continue reading “Cavorting Around Fez”