It is quite noticeable that people spend a lot more time with people of their own gender here. Italy and Tunisia were the same way. In our lives and I think the US in general, we spend most of our time with our partners. I’ve read that people soak up more happiness through same-sex friendships than from romantic partners so maybe they’re on to something.
That said, Jack and I have now spent about 110 days together, where we’ve only been apart for four meals. It’s great.
Most women wear headscarves here. In Marrakech, it was nearly 100% but in Casablanca and Rabat, it is about half. Only a handful cover their faces. The most surprising thing I’ve seen is a few young girls (I mean around 7 or 8, clearly prepubescent) wearing head scarves. Personally, I’m all set with long sleeve shirts, but I did take a bike ride in Carthage (Tunisia, not Morocco) in shorts and I felt fairly uncomfortable.
I’ve seen more dwarves in the past two weeks than in the rest of my life.
Most men, outside of Rabat and Casablanca, wear long cloaks with pointy hoods.
Donkeys are not out of date. Outside of the cities, the country seems to run on donkeys. They are adorable.
Buildings in the medinas (old cities) are quite different. The ones we’ve seen have been built around a courtyard, often several stories high with a partially open roof. I guess this helps in hot weather. Many rooms don’t have windows out, but do have windows in to the courtyard. This is where we stayed in Essaouira. To get to it you walked down winding little streets that were too narrow for a car.
We’ve been to several coastal cities now, and seen several restaurants where you pick out a fresh fish and they cook it for you on the spot. We went to one in Tunisia and while it’s nice to eat such fresh food, we are not well practiced at eating around the bones…
As in most of the world, I suspect, babies and toddlers are strapped to women’s backs. Strollers are rare.
If you have a truck, particularly a semi truck, the thing to do is to decorate it in bright colors.
I love mint tea, but I’ve been disappointed by it here. Usually it is about half sugar and half tea and while it tastes good, drinking tea with someone whose teeth are visibly rotting out of his mouth is depressing. Without the sugar it is undrinkably bitter, unlike what we buy in bags at home. Too bad.
I think on the day of our outing in the Sahara we had mint tea five times and we skipped out on breakfast, which would have included tea as well.
Istanbul, Tunis and Rabat (Morocco) all have pretty light decorations strung up above popular pedestrian streets. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there were Christmas decorations…
I thought Boston was bad about street sings, but that was before Morocco. If a sign is present, half the time it is only in Arabic and if you’re lucky enough to have a Latin script label, it won’t necessarily correspond to your map, especially in Casablanca, where there’s a campaign to replace names of French origin with names of Arabic origin.
Lastly, I’m pretty sure hashish is an Arabic word and they sell all kinds of it in Essaouira. It’s not my cup of tea, but I did appreciate the laid back atmosphere of the place.
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ReplyDeleteIt's a little creepy, though, that people only spend time with the same gender, and dress the way they do, not just because it's a good idea, but because it's the law!
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