Dear all,

Once again, the time has flown by and I am only now getting around to updating my blog. There is not a great deal to add at this point of time. I have settled into a nice routine of spending the mornings in the house doing a variety of things, including catching up with people by email or Skype (what a great tool that is, especially with video. It makes the distance seems so small), reading the news, doing some French study and, of course, doing the administrative stuff for Najib's business. Then it's normally time for lunch (which is the main meal of the day here), and then while everyone else is taking their afternoon nap, I head out on my daily walk along the Bouregreg River, up past the Hassan Tower then back into the CBD to stop at one of the many cafés that have remembered how I like my moroccan tea. I usually take a magazine with me (in French of course) and my pocket dictionary, so I can keep on improving my French. I can generally read an article and understand most of what is written, but new words do crop up which I've never seen before, and then there are the unusual expressions! But anyway, it is fun, and I feel confidant in attempting a general conversation - though the pronunciation still needs work.

The little apartment we were planning to get in the CBD is no longer part of our plans. We discovered that the reason it was taking so long to settle was because both the leaseholder and the property owner were holding out for more money - like double the original asking price! But what really put us of pursuing this place was the renovation that Karima's husband recently did to the front of their house in the Medina. I took photos of the process to show the transformation, which you can see here:

House Repair

Anyway, the amount of grit, grime, concrete dust, dirt from the street, etc that made its way into the house either on the shoes of the people coming and going (especially the tradesmen who had to cart their materials up to the terrace), or through the open windows (meaning the little port-hole-like openings that you can't actually see very well in any of the photos, but which lead into the kitchen area), made us think twice about any renovations that would need to be done to the little apartment. Since the escalator in that building doesn't work, the tradesmen would need to cart everything up the common stairwell. I couldn't see that going down well with the other tenants, especially as the amount of work that needed to be done would take weeks to complete. We would have been very unpopular by the time we moved in!

So, the hunt is on for a newer apartment, close to or in the CBD. We have seen heaps of apartments advertised, and really beautiful ones too, however they are located about 15kms or more out of the city which is not convenient for either Najib or me. He needs to be close to the shop, and I need somewhere decent to go for a walk each day - and the suburbs here don't quite cut it!

In the meantime, there has been one wedding and one engagement in the family. These events are always very colourful, though I have been asked not post the photos on my blog out of respect for those who don't like having their photo shown to strangers. Fair enough. So, what I will share with you is a section of a photo I took at the engagement of M'hammed, the son of Najib's second-eldest-brother. The slippers he is wearing are normally worn by men when they go to Friday prayer wearing their white or cream djellaba, not at a wedding. However, he couldn't find his shoes so had wandered into the room to greet his fiancée and guests in just his socks. As soon as he sat down, someone promptly put these yellow slippers on his feet. Just one of those gorgeous moments that he can cherish.

The only other news I have at this stage is that I will be returning to Oz for a few weeks in June. I thought I should use the return airfare rather than waste it, so I was able to extend it to June (otherwise I would be flying out in 5 days time!!). So, lucky me gets to leave a hot Moroccan summer for a chilly Melbourne winter. Though I am planning to head to Qld to visit family there, so that should help thaw me out!

And that is about it for the moment. I hope you are all well and that 2008 is shaping up to be better than 2007.

All the best,
Zohra

Dear all


Well, in Morocco, two religious seasons are nearly upon us. You may be surprised to know that Christmas trees are on sale for all those foreigners who celebrate Christmas, and Christmas decorations can be seen in many shop windows and even in supermarkets. The other religious festival - which will take place a few days before Christmas, on 21 December - is the Muslim festival of Aid Al-Adha (also known as Aid Al-Kabir). This festival occurs approximately 2 months after the end of Ramadan, and coincides with the day that all the pilgrims doing the Haj in Mecca come down from Mount Arafat. The festival commemorates God commanding Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead of his son, Isaac. In Morocco, families have been busy getting ready for the festival for several weeks now. Houses have been fully cleaned, and the necessary utensils (knives, hatchets, and skewers) and materials (spices and charcoal) are ready. On the actual day, men will go to the mosque early in the morning to perform a specific prayer for the day. Once back home they will proceed to the slaughtering of the sheep which is then cooked according to different recipes, depending upon the region one is located in.


At the moment, it is not unusual to see sheep being delivered by truck, hand trolley, the boot of someone's car, or on foot throughout the Medina and other parts of the city. Hay bales have been stacked all over the place so that the sheep have something to eat prior to D-day, and one can see big stone wheels dotted about the Medina to be sure that knives are well sharpened for the occasion. As well, mini BBQs, shish-kebab skewers and other items for the event can be found for sale on every corner! No tinsel for this occasion, but special halawa are made and these have been selling out before they are even out of the oven!

I have taken some photos of the souk where Najib was selling his sheep this morning (one of the many souks he has been selling at over the last week, so he is looking abit tired and in need a nice long rest), which you can find here:

At the sheep souk

While it may seem as though we will be eating lamb for some months, a large portion is actually given away to the poor, much is salted and dried for later use during the year, a small portion is eaten, and the rest frozen. I suspect that a lot of fish and vege's will be eaten as people tire of eating lamb - though the price of these items has been increasing steadily over the last week. As an example, tomatoes (which are eaten by the kilos per day in every household) have doubled in price from DH4.00 (about A$0.60) to over DH8.00 (about A$1.30) per kilo. Whilst this may seem a pitiful amount, it is actually quite expensive given the wages here.

And that is about it for the moment. I hope you all have a very happy and safe religious holiday, which ever one you happen to celebrate, and a very safe and happy New Year. If I don't do another update before the end of this year, chat to you again, inshallah, in 2008!

Love and kisses, as always,
xoxoxoxo Zohra

Hello there

So sorry for the long pause since my last post. So what have I been doing? Well, half of September and October was taken up with the month of Ramadan which saw our days and nights completely turned upside down to accomodate the new routine. For those not familiar with Ramadan, this is the Muslim month of fasting. The fast starts at dawn and ends at sunset. Fasting not only means no eating or drinking during that period, but no smoking, no swearing or abusive language (this can be quite difficult on occassion, especially when it gets closer to eating time and one is in a rush to get home and competing with the crowds who are all trying to do the same thing), and no sexual activity. It is a month where one learns to be patient and appreciative and, importantly, to recognise how some of our regular daily routines and rituals to which we are so attached are things we can easily do without.

Anyway, for those so inclined, the day would start at about 4.00am, where we would get up and have something light to eat before the fast started. For me this consisted mostly of having a banana and yoghurt and drinking heaps of water (to keep me hydrated during the day). Then, after doing Fajar prayer, it would be back to bed and a nice sleep-in until about 10.00am! A nice time to go wandering through the Medina without the need to duck and weave around people was during the early hours of the morning - from 9.00am onwards. The place was virtually deserted as most businesses wouldn't open until 10.00am. I managed to get some photos of the Rabat Souk (where the carpets etc are sold) which normally would be crowded with people. It was great seeing parts of the Souk that are normally obscured by bodies. The busiest parts of the Medina at this time were the streets where the fruit, vege's, fish, meat and eggs are sold. You can check out those photos here:

Rabat Medina - Ramadan 2007

So, once up and about, the better part of the morning (or what was left of it) was devoted to the usual household tasks of cleaning etc, or buying food for the evening meal. As the fast didn't break until around 6.30pm (this time reduced as the month wore on), the food preparation wouldn't start until a few hours before, so many people would sleep some more during the day, catching up on what they had missed out on during the night.

The first meal, Ftour (or, breakfast, as the word implies), consisted of Moroccan Harira soup (which is a tomato based vegetable soup, which has a small amount of meat in it, lentils, chickpeas and heaps of fresh coriander and parsley), served with dates, boiled eggs, and a variety of Moroccan sweet cakes, or halawa, that are especially made for Ramadan. After Ftour, people would either go out and visit friends, or browse through the market, or go to cafes, or whatever else they wanted to do for entertainment and return for the main meal which would be served at around midnight, sometimes later, depending on what people were doing. If I recall, the latest time we had our main meal was about 1.30am!! Anyway, by the time we finished that meal, relaxed a bit, then hit the sack, it was only a few hours before we had to get up and have our quick morning meal before the fast started again! You can probably understand why people slept as much as they could during the day.

As I couldn't drink any water during the day, I had to forego my usual hour long daily walks. Which is not to say I didn't venture out, but my strolls were shorter and were mostly later in the afternoon closer to the time the fast would break. To fill in my time during the day, I started doing the redesign work on a little apartment that Najib and I have put a deposit on. I used an excel spreadsheet as my design space, shrinking the columns and rows to make tiny squares, with each square representing 5cm. As a result of the drawing and moving of each item (walls, furniture, equipment, etc), I have given myself RSI (or tennis elbow) in my left arm. (Which happens when one uses a lap top at an awkward angle for hours at a time ..... so it's true .... ergomonics is important!). It sounds like a pathetic excuse, and if I didn't suffer from this I would probably roll my eyes and say "yeah, right" at anyone saying so, but I haven't actually been able to type anything longer than a paragraph without suffering severe pain that lasts for hours. So, I'm back to using the mouse and hoping that I don't get RSI in the right wrist as a result!!!

Anyway, the apartment. Najib and I have been wanting to have our own space for a while, but wanted something close to Najib's work plus the CBD (so that everything I need is within walking distance). Anyway, Najib found out about a little one-bedroom apartment in the CBD, located close to the park and the main avenue. He asked me to have a look to see what I thought. I wasn't expecting anything flash, and wasn't disappointed in that respect. However, as Najib and I are no strangers to home renovations, what I saw didn't put me off - if anything my mind started racing and I was planning how I would rearrange things as I moved from room to room, We haven't finalised the lease yet (deposit has been paid, but, like alot of things in Morocco, these things move slowly especially when the owner is rarely in Rabat), so we haven't started on the demolition work yet. But, in the meantime, I went for a second visit to take the measurements of each room, and took my camera with me to record how it currently stands. You can check out the "Before" photos here:

The Apartment ("Before" renovation)

There certainly are some design challenges, but we are quite excited about this little project. We've gone and checked out all the types of toilets, hand basins, shower recesses etc that are available (and Morocco, being so close to Spain and Italy, has some of the nicest European designs available), plus checked out the kitchen displays so we can get an idea of the materials available, and cost. Still need to get to the floor and tiliing places to see what is available, but in the meantime I'm thinking about what colours will work best. Anyway, will keep you updated on the progress of this project as things develop.

And that is about it for now. Hope you are all happy and life is treating you well.

Until next time, all the best,

xxx Zohra ooo

Dear all

For those who have had to listen to me rave on over the years about our little farm in Skhirat, finally some photos. The captions on each photo will give you a general idea of the direction the farm faces etc. Enjoy.

Seahaven Farm - Skhirat

xxx Zohra ooo

Hi there!

Najib and I went to Casablanca Monday this week to collect my possessions from the docks. Had what we thought were the necessary documents in hand - the bill of lading, my passport, and money to pay the port processing fees. We weren't anticipating any customs duties since I am permanently relocating here, my husband is Moroccan, and the things I brought into the country are well used personnal effects. Got to the docks, identified my stuff and then was given paperwork that had to be taken to the customs control department in the city centre. This had to be signed-off and stamped to indicate no customs duties were payable before my stuff could be released.

So we trundled into the city. Decided to leave the van near the docks as driving in Casablanca is only for the very brave, or foolhardy. The traffic is chaotic and drivers will not hesitate to move into the smallest possible gap or opening to get where they want to go. Pedestrians cross whenever the traffic slows enough to allow them to squeeze through without getting run over!

As for getting a taxi in Casablanca - this requires alot of patience since everyone uses them to get around. There are hundreds of taxis, but the moment someone gets out of one there are at least two other people trying to get into it. Suffice to say the taxi drivers tend to be picky about where they will go. Often we would flag down a taxi only to discover the driver didn't want to go in that particular direction. However, the good thing is that if a taxi only has one passenger, the driver will still stop to see if he is heading in your direction. We often found ourselves sharing a taxi in this manner.

Once we got to the customs control dept, and eventually had our turn at seeing the person in charge, we were asked for proof that we were married and proof that I was now resident in Morocco. Reasonable requests really when you stop to think about it, but annoying because when Najib asked beforehand what paperwork we needed to bring with us, these two were not mentioned! So, we had to go back to Rabat to get those papers and then return to Casablanca the next day to finish processing the customs form! Fortunately a certified copy of the marriage certificate was already available since I had to produce this for my Moroccan ID card. Also fortunately, the police had finished processing my application for my Moroccan ID and had prepared a temporary residence permit while my ID card was being prepared.

So, back to Casablanca on Tuesday. We decided to take the train instead of driving as we would need a larger truck to cart everything back to Rabat and Najib wanted to be on that truck with the gear to make sure it actually arrived in Rabat and didn't end up in some other part of the country! We had to go to the port first to show them the paper work that the customs control dept said we had to produce. They then stamped the form acknowledging they had sighted those documents. Then back into the city to the customs control dept to receive sign-off that we didn't have to pay any customs duty. Then back to the docks to give them the stamped sign-off from the customs control dept! Then organising the truck. Najib and I spent at least two hours at the docks waiting for that to arrive. Was fascinating watching the way all the containers were moved around by this huge crane, but when everyone knocked off for lunch things got abit boring.

As the truck only had room for one passenger, I headed back to Rabat on the train. Got to the train station just in time to catch the 2.00pm train. I was running down the platform just as it started to pull out of the station and only just managed to grab the end rail before the train had gathered too much steam. Was pulled on board by other passengers who had just done the same thing! If the train had been one of the modern versions I would have had no hope and would have had to wait half an hour for the next train!

Anyway, with those two trips I didn't really get to see anything of Casablanca so headed back there on Wednesday with my sister-in-law, Karima, who wanted to buy some fabric for caftans that she sells in her shop. Casablanca has an area where the shops only sell fabric - whether it be fabric for furniture, curtains, suits, caftans etc. The shops that sell fabrics for caftans have a greater range to offer than can be found in Rabat, and for a cheaper price. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take some more inspiring photos of Casablanca, so we went into its old Medina area first. It was lunch time, so there weren't many shoppers around which meant I could actually get photos of the streets and the shops - otherwise it would have just been photos of bodies! Unfortunately, my camera battery decided to run out after only a few photos, but I did manage to get enough to give you an idea of what Casablanca has to offer in the way of Moroccan antiquities etc. The rest of the city is like any typical large city - but with really chaotic traffic, as I mentioned earlier.

Casablanca Photos - Sept 2007

For those who like the hustle and bustle of large cities, Casablanca is great. It has everything one could possibly want as all the large companies are located there. The people who live there tend to be less conservative compared to those who live in Rabat - as could be seen by the patronage of the cafés and restaurants, where families with their children were sitting down to have lunch, and the dress sense is very European. I tend to think the difference is because, like any large city, people are too busy with their own life to worry about what other people are doing or thinking, whereas Rabat is much smaller and everyone seems to know everyone else, so people tend to be concerned about what others will think if they dress a particular way or do a particular thing.

Well, that is about it for the moment. The sacred month of Ramadan is just around the corner - Thursday, next week to be more exact, so there is a charge in the air as families go about the business of preparing for the festivities. The smell of honey and cinnamon is in the air as the traditional halawa are being made by the hundreds in every household. I will be keeping a keen eye on how Karima makes her halawa and even try to get some decent photos as well. More on that in my next post.

Until then, stay healthy, happy and safe.

Love and kisses
Zohra