I’ve been quite busy in the past week - getting over a cold, avoiding chickenpox and measles (both in seemingly full outbreak here in Meknes), crying over my broken camera, and sleeping. But have no fear - I’ve also been reading your blogs, planning for a “spring break” trip, and spending time with my husband.
Cheers to Ummahfilms.com for making awesome educational yet hilarious films about Islam (youtube has them too) which criticize the media as well as antiquated cultural practices disguised as Islam.

Jeers to this Resident Publications article for starting their article, “The Sheltering Sky of Morocco,” with this paragraph:

For some New Yorkers, the Arab world might seem the worst place to vacation these days. The troubled region yields a battery of images of warfare and Westerners being taken hostage or having their throats slit.

Cheers to this op-ed (entitled “Morocco glimpse of hope for Iraq”) in the Daytona Beach News-journal online for portraying Morocco as a country of peace which, for the most part, it is.

Jeers to Morocco on their new “solution” to the Western Sahara, chronicled here (cheers to the blog itself).

Cheers to Cat in Rabat for her fantastic article on the furan or traditional Moroccan neighborhood bread-oven.

Cheers to inthefray.org (warning: shameless promotion coming up!) for giving me my very own blog on their site, Grains of Sand.

I confess to a small secret - I am a wearer of clogs of all kinds. Rarely a day passes when I’m not wearing some form of clogs, be they Dansko, Birkenstock, or something I picked up in the medina. One day, in class, I was wearing the following, a student asked me, “Teacher, why do you always wear slippers to class?” I had to explain, gently, that my shoes were in fact shoes, not slippers, and were quite comfortable (compared to the stilettos in fashion amongst most of my 16-year-old female Moroccan students)

Nevertheless, I pay them no mind and go about my cloggy ways, convinced that no Moroccan woman could ever possibly understand the delightful comfort of the clog (why, I don’t know, considering how similar it is to the bilgha!). Until last Wednesday, that is.

Heading out to a night of bowling at Rabat’s Mega Mall, I dressed wisely for the occasion: dark jeans, a black sweater. Simple, elegant. I surveyed my shoe possibilities: knee-high Anne Klein boots or ye olde faithful (see picture below) plaid Danskos. I went with the latter, considering the fact I’d be giving them up in exchange for bowling shoes anyway.

On our drive back to the hotel, we spotted what looked like a fun nightspot - Le Reservoir - and decided to stop. As we approached the building, we noticed two burly bouncers standing outside. Hamza asked them if they were letting people in and they replied that it was full. With a little negotation, however, they told us they’d let us in, but the tables were reserved and we would have to stand. Determined to check it out, we decided to go inside, until…

“Pantoufe!” exclaimed the burlier of the two bouncers. Looking at his own shoes (white Adidas), Hamza began to protest, but the bouncer tsk-tsked, waving his finger, and pointed at my very own shoes.

“He thinks they’re slippers,” Hamza whispered to me. “La!” I immediately shouted, kicking one plaid-clad foot, “Mashi pantoufe!”

The bouncers began to laugh, heartily, then finally let us in. Still, I suppose next time I ought to wear something a Moroccan woman might actually wear, so as not to confuse them. Something like…this, perhaps:

HA! Never.

Although I was raised in suburbia, give me car horns and police sirens over crickets any day.  I’d rather sleep through the din of street noise than fall asleep to silence.  And yet, in my apartment building, I am awakened in the morning and night not by the street noise - no, our bedroom is in the back of the building - but by an amalgam of inexplicably obnoxious noises.  My next door neighbors, who’ve recently started an anti-cat campaign against us, leaving lemons and incense around our doorstep, insist on playing the Qur’an - at top volume - every morning.  Perhaps they know I’m a kafir.  Our neighbors in the building across the way just got a new puppy and are either abusing it or locking it on the balcony for hours on end, because all I hear is barking.  Add to that our very own cats, who seemingly destroy the apartment every morning, and it’s quite a racket.

But this morning - ah! - I was having quite a pleasant dream of my hometown…wandering down by the central square, following a crowd of people, some in kaftans, others in Western dress, toward what appeared to be a Moroccan wedding.  There was music - oh, sweet music - Aissawa, I think.  Suddenly, I awoke - “What is that?” Hamza asked me.  Aissawa!  There was Aissawa drumming and hollering outside of our window!  I lay still, secretly enjoying it, while Hamza held a pillow over his face.  It stopped, started again, stopped, started again.  Finally, it stopped for good.  “Why are they doing that?” I asked him.  “Usually the morning of a wedding, or when a new business opens,” I heard, muffled by the pillow.

Anyhow, I have prepared for you a visual representation of what woke me up this morning.  I hope you enjoy it.

Yet another excellent article, from the Lebanese Daily Star, opines on Morocco’s seeming regression in freedom(s).  Journalist Anna Mahjar-Barducci highlights this year’s and last’s major events - the Nichane case, Aboubakr Jamai’s resignation - and then goes on to discuss a recent meeting she had with Andre Azoulay, who is a (Jewish) advisor to the king.

Mahjar-Barducci quotes Azoulay as saying, “Nowadays our religions are falling into the trap of fundamentalists.”

She then goes on to say, “The Moroccan government, by condemning Nichane and other publications, is merely doing a favor to Islamists, who cannot seem to laugh at jokes and who would not accept a Jew as an adviser. By condemning journalists, the government only deepens the gap between Morocco and modernity.”

Harsh words, but true - as much as one may disagree, Morocco’s only path to development is to leave the fundamentalists/-ism behind.

Posted all over Rabat last week were campaign signs featuring internationally-known Moroccan actor Said Taghmaoui (left) calling for safer driving in Morocco.  A television ad shows Taghmaoui with a young girl - he pins a bright yellow button on her jacket (I didn’t get a chance to read the text but Hamza tells me it has to do with driving safely and respecting children) and sends her off to school.  The campaign signs stated that February 18th was a national day for driving safely.  Despite obvious jokes - “You mean you only have to drive safely in Morocco one day out of the year?” - the campaign is much needed in a country with an alarming death toll from motor vehicle accidents.

An article published today by Maghreb Arab Presse states that “Morocco has decided to set up a system of e-logbook and e-driving license as off this coming June part of an aggressive nationwide campaign to boost road safety and reduce forgery cases and corruption.”

Excellent!  I can’t think of a trip where Hamza wasn’t pulled over for something stupid, then pardoned but asked to pay the police officer “a little something” in exchange for not officially reporting him to the police.  Although Hamza won’t stand for it and never gives what Moroccans call (incorrectly) “corruption,” I’ve found that he’s a rare case.  Most of my other friends who drive on a regular basis say that not only have they paid a police officer in exchange for not being reported, but that they don’t see the problem in doing so.

And as for the Moroccan driver’s licenses, well, a pink tri-fold, roughly laminated piece of paper with handwritten information and a stapled-on photograph leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.  Considering that Morocco plans to be the first country to biometricize their national identity cards, you’d think that they could do something to improve the technology of driver’s licenses.

An excellent initiative, though I don’t believe this is the first attempt at such a thing.  Hopefully, this time they’ll follow through.

Tonight we went up to the roof to hang some laundry in the hopes that it might dry before we go to Rabat tomorrow morning. Standing at the edge near the front of the building, we have an almost completely panoramic view of the Meknes medina - minarets and Moulay Ismail’s great walls. Despite the pollution, the Meknes night sky is clear, the air fresh.

Gazing up at the stars, Hamza remarked to me that he misses the days of childhood - languorous afternoons spent watching the sky, sunsets; evenings lying on the roof, watching the clouds brush over the stars. “Remember how, as a child, you could just…go there?”

I do, very well. But as we get older we lose sight of that; stopping to watch the ocean, we can only think of all of the things we’d rather be doing, or worse yet, have to do. Obligation takes the place of imagination.

The only time I’ve had that ability to just “go there” as an adult was in Marrakesh, believe it or not. Sitting atop a riad, I observed the varying levels of rooftops, the styles, the girls hanging laundry and the tourists eating brunch and though of how, as a child, this would’ve been my dreamworld. I used to draw medinas - I had no idea at the time that cityscapes like that even existed, but I would draw labyrinthine streets and crooked homes and call them my cities.

I asked Hamza if he used to dream about growing up. He told me he dreamt of growing up and falling in love and finding someone who loves him more than anything - and that now, of course, he’s found it.

And so, even if I can’t get inside of myself and fly to the moon or sail across the horizon anymore, I haven’t lost sight of one of my dreams. Happy Valentine’s Day babe. And to all of you, too.

Kefta is a popular recipe for spiced ground meat used, with variation, from Morocco to the Middle East. Typically, kefta is made with lamb, although in Meknes, beef kefta is also quite popular. You can buy kefta already made at the butcher, or make your own (which is becoming more popular here after a scandal last summer in which a butcher ground up two people he’d murdered in his kefta grinder).

Anyhow, if you desire to make your own kefta, this recipe from Latifa Bennani-Smires will teach you how:

(makes approximately 15 brochettes)

1 lb of boned lamb or beef

100g (4oz) of beef or mutton fat

1 teaspoon of cumin

2 teaspoons of paprika

1 pinch of Sudan felfla (very hot ground pepper)

1 large bunch of parsley

1 large bunch of coriander

1 onion

salt

optional: teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 or 2 sprigs of fresh mint

Wash the parsley and the coriander, drain and stalk carefully. Cut the meat up into pieces and mince. Cut up the fat and mix with the meat. Add the salt, parsley, coriander, onion, cumin, paprika, and hot pepper. Mince all the ingredients together twice. Knead this mix hard and leave to stand for about an hour.

(From Moroccan Cooking, published by Al Madariss - Casablanca in French and English)

After you’ve made the actual kefta, you’ve got to cook it of course. Traditionally, the kefta would be wrapped around skewers and grilled over a charcoal fire - any kind of barbecue would suffice.

Another popular favorite, of course, is the kefta tajine, which I have mostly mastered:

Also easy, the main ingredients are chopped tomatoes, kefta, and if you like, eggs.

But lastly, and aye, here’s the rub - I have recently discovered, via Hamza’s mother, the most delicious way of cooking kefta. You see, meat in Morocco is butchered in the halal method (in which the animal is sliced at the throat, the slaughterer says bismillah, and the blood is drained, among other specific rules), and therefore isn’t so moist. My favorite method of cooking kefta makes it nice and juicy - cook it in butter!

Just melt a good sized chunk of butter in a pan and cook the kefta pieces - sausage-like pieces tend to cook juicier than meatballs. Bon appetit!

The “Benghazi Six”

According to the Focus News Agency, the Arab Maghreb Union is concerned over the European media campaign against Libya’s treatment of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting over 400 children with the HIV virus in 1998. I say, shut up Arab Maghreb Union.

Since the initial sentencing of the “Benghazi Six,” there has been growing evidence that the HIV infection occurred because of unhygienic and outdated hospital practices. Can’t say I’m surprised - if Libyan hospitals are anything like Moroccan ones (and I venture that they’re probably worse), then there’s most likely no soap (even in private clinics here, that’s known to happen), and who knows their practice with needles (though I can assure you that needles in Morocco are new - at some hospitals, you have to go to the adjoining pharmacy and buy your packaged needle yourself).

My own speculation aside, there is also evidence that the nurses were tortured and even raped in order to get testimonies from them. The Sofia Weekly, a Bulgarian newspaper says that:

In the first trial, the judges set aside the scientific evidence in favor of a dramatic cloak-and-dagger scenario based on testimony by Libyans who said they had witnessed the nurses hoarding vials of HIV-infected blood; the testimony was bolstered by confessions that the nurses have since said were elicited by torture.

Nine Libyan security officers and a doctor were charged and later acquitted of torturing the nurses to extract confessions. How then, are their sentences still valid? At the end of last June, the Bulgarian nurses appealed on the basis of the acquitted security officers mistreatment but were rejected by the Libyan court. Then, the Bulgarian nurses were charged with slander because of their accusations against the Libyan officers.

Although the EU strongly opposes the behavior of the Libyan government in this case, they’ve dedicated 2.4 million Euros to HIV education and treatment of HIV-infected children in both Libya and the EU.

So now, the Arab Maghreb Union, according to Focus News Agency, “calls on all the countries, especially the European ones, to adopt a positive attitude to the case of the medics sentenced to death and the HIV infected children with a view to human and legal aspects of the issue, and lay aside any politization.”

Sure - let’s forget about the fact that Libya is mistreating foreign medical workers and just focus on the children. Let’s forget about justice and Libya’s outrageous human rights violations (and please, their lack of hygiene in hospitals which allowed 400 children to become HIV-infected in the first place certainly falls into that category) and “lay aside politization.”

Libyan news sources have been slandering the nurses and Bulgaria as well, as this article from Focus News demonstrates.

More information on the case can be found from the following sources:

Nature News - Outlines the scientific evidence which backs the medics

The Stanford Progressive - Excellent overview of the case

Sofia News Agency

Ifrane on Saturday nights is a madhouse. Imagine all of the wealthy Al Akhawayn University students who didn’t go home for the weekends, add a dash of scantily-clad girls from Azrou, a pinch of Meknassis, and a sprinkle of tourists and you’ve got the weirdest nightclub scene in the country (perhaps).

Last night, fueled by a delicious dinner at my favorite spot, Le Pub, three of us headed out in a lovely new Seat on the windy, dangerous road to Ifrane. We arrived a little past midnight, only to find that popular club Tilleuls was over their limit. We argued with bouncers and a female manager, all of whom told us that we wouldn’t be entering. Since I was with two Moroccan men, we even tried to pull the tourist ticket on my behalf, but that didn’t work.

Slightly crestfallen, we wandered around the corner to the Grand Hotel, a beautiful chalet-style hotel that would look more at home in the mountains of Switzerland and is home to a bizarre basement spot called “Library Club.”

The club was filled, filled with girls, not prostitutes, who had come in from the neighboring villages and towns (and while I say they’re not prostitutes, I’ve been informed that many of them are still, you know, looking for fun). Very few university students were present, although there were a few from the fac in Meknes, as Hamza ran into some friends. Drinks were everywhere, the smoke filled the air, the heat was on, and so was the techno.

The bizarre part in all this, I think, is that the hotel is expensive (1200 dirhams per night - we considered booking a room for Valentine’s Day) and mainly caters to tourists, but the din from the nightclub is so loud that I’m sure it can be heard in the first-floor rooms.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it more than I would have Tilleuls, had it not been full. If ever you’re in Ifrane and want to experience a bit of Moroccan youth nightlife - check out the Library Club. Apparently the hotel has a lovely restaurant as well.

To book a room, e-mail the Grand Hotel and Spa Ifrane at grandhotelspaifrane@menara.ma

For other hotels in Morocco, check out Morocco Savvy

 Yesterday, the PUMA website posted a press release that the company and the Moroccan Royal Football Federation (FRMF) would be making PUMA the official supplier to the Lions de’Atlas (Atlas Lions), the national team of Morocco.

According to PUMA, their company will supply all on-field, sideline, training and representation apparel and equipment to the men’s national teams, as well as the women’s ‘A’ national team well beyond the upcoming 2010 world cup. PUMA is known for its support of African football - they also supply to the national teams of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Egypt, Tunisia, Angola, Togo and Senegal.

Jochen Zeitz, PUMA CEO and Chairman is quoted on PUMA’s website as saying “the partnership with Morocco further underlines PUMA’s commitment to African football. Morocco has a great football tradition and we are proud to be able to associate ourselves with one of the dominant forces in African football. We welcome Morocco to the PUMA family and are looking forward to a successful partnership.” The President of the FRMF seconded Zeitz’s enthusiasm, stating that PUMA’s support of African football is “unquestionable.”

Although Morocco didn’t qualify for the FIFA World Cup in 2002 or 2006, they did play in 1994 and 1998, albeit poorly.
Morocco also bid in 1988 for the 1994 World Cup and in 2004 for the 2010 World Cup, but obviously failed in their goal to host. In my opinion, they’re not particularly ready, lacking infrastructure and well, stadiums. Not to mention that it would be a shame if they didn’t qualify for their own hosting year.

Perhaps the team’s new look will inspire them?