Back from Casa
14 - 16 May, Ian
So we did the Hassan II mosque, which was the
high point of our Casablanca weekend. If you want to read about what we saw in
the mosque the girls have made some nice notes that will be included in their
Morocco newsletters, which will be posted on our homepage when we leave; this
month we're trying to avoid the scramble to remember that we ran into at the end
of last month by having them type at least some notes - in electronic format -
as we go. Over and above the use of Moroccan cedar in the roof and marble mined
from the Atlas mountains, the screaming headline about the mosque, in my
opinion, is that it's
contemporary.
I don't refer to the construction tricks, such as the fact that the roof slides
open like a gigantic version of the Melbourne stadium, or that the doors are
made from Titanium, which, they proudly boast, almost as if it's why they chose
it, is more expensive than gold. I don't even primarily refer to the design,
although it's notable that while almost all of the building materials are
indigenous (the exceptions being the Venetian glass in the chandeliers and the
Carrera marble) the mosque was designed by a French architect. (I actually love
the building, especially the exterior, which is like a super-grand version of
Canary Wharf station, veiled up with porticoes and Islamic arches, in the way
that it creates a huge yet comfortable public space. Paula, though, prefers the
older Alhambra-style places we've seen where the colour and the zellij are more
dominant.) The aspect of contemporality that is
striking
is the more primitive fact that it was only recently built: the ability of this
society to find over $1 Billion for a successful, relevant, public building is
solid evidence that power lies in different places in these countries.
To get inside the mosque as a non-Muslim you have to go on one of the guided tours that are sandwiched between the five daily prayer slots. And - here's another telling sign of modernity - rather than barring infidels at the gate, they use our money, extracted as revenue from the tours, to fund the running costs of the mosque. One of our cheery guide's pat jokes was that she always gets two American questions and one Moroccan question: the American questions are How much did it cost? and Who paid for it? (the King paid about a third and the rest was raised by public subscription), while the Moroccan question is How many people does it take to clean it? (There are 200 cleaners and security guards on pay-roll.) Not only did they raise a pile of money without an obligatory tax, they also built it in about 6 years! What are the equivalent architectural symbols of contemporary cultural vibrancy from Europe and the US? I can only bring to mind the odd art gallery. (If too many people cite shopping malls, Disneyland or the Dome I'm not coming back... )
While the Hassan II mosque regularly houses 25,000 worshippers (see what I mean), in the evening we walked past a mosque in Casa's medina that was open to the street; I'd guess it had about 100 guys inside and could not have struck more of a contrast. The medina in Casa is very different from the one in Fes. In place of donkeys and small hand carts there are scooters and petits taxis, and it has far less ancient charm. Right by the mosque we passed there was a huge satellite dish attached with tape and bin liners to a pole in the street, with frayed flex running into a nearby house. While the medina in Fes is a distinct area from the ville nouvelle, the medina in Casa is much smaller, dwarfed by the newer sprawl of commercial buildings and completely encircled by the city's highways. Frankly, it's a dive. Even so, I enjoyed the buzz of it, and the atmosphere from busy stalls cooking up little pots of live snails, the mechanics working on beat-up bikes and the tatty clothes stands; but I wouldn't recommend it for your next weekend break and almost as soon as we'd entered the medina Paula and Zoe were keen to get out.
I should say that we were walking across the medina as a short cut on the way back from dinner, which was excellent. We ate at a little cafe set in the old garrison. It was set out in a garden arranged around a Moorish/Zen water feature, with a group of traditional musicians playing discreetly under a niche. I also had my first Moroccan meal here (a plank of salad dishes) that bares comparison to Momo off the back of Regent Street (although they're all, of course, far cheaper!).
We had a quiet morning in the park on Sunday, taking lunch (which was actually also excellent) at a cafe where we were among the few non-students. This was one of the quite frequent times when we've run into someone who didn't speak French - one of the waiters had to call his colleague over to take our order. Strangely, I'm enjoying getting by in French here. There's something refreshing about the fact that it's a second language for most of us, and so we have more of a relationship of parity than we do when we're trying to get by in France. My friend Luca, when trying to console me for the tough time I'd had communicating in rural Italy pointed out another factor, which is that, unlike in the big cities, the folks there just weren't used to someone who wasn't Italian trying to enunciate their words. I think I can see now why people coming to London and especially New York get on with the language better than you might expect in some cases - there's that nurturing English-as-a-second-language culture that you don't get in, say, Peoria or Somerset.
After a dip in the (now filled) pool, we drove home and, to my shame, I got pulled over for speeding again, though thankfully by different policemen. Again, they were nice as pie, and once they'd established that I wasn't resident in Morocco, they waved me on my way. In fact, I enjoyed the rest of the journey more, bumbling along at a sedate 120 km/h. With the sun setting behind us and casting long low light over the patchwork of olive groves and corn fields, and with desert dunes occasionally framing our horizon to the south, we had a chilled drive back to Fes.
It was great to be back. A while ago when we were planning this trip we ran into a guy from the Moroccan Tourist Board at a travel expo. When we told him we were planning to spend a month in Fes he did everything he could to persuade us not to, telling us that Rabat would be a much better choice. He was dead wrong! If you're ever thinking of coming to Morocco my advice is come to Fes! The medina was humming when we got back and, while there may be unsavoury animal parts arrayed on the butchers' stalls and intestinal flora in the water, it's such a friendly and civilised place.
Lessons resumed this morning and at my request we learnt enough vocab for me to saunter into the barbers down the street and ask for a haircut and a shave. I'd rehearsed my Arabic phonemes well enough that the guy knew what I wanted and we got on fine. Sadly, of course, my supplementary vocab was as limited as the shelf-life of my haircut and shave words so we had to struggle on with his poor French being marginally more useful than my caveman Arabic. But I like the cut (basically a number 4 buzz round the back and sides and a short cut with scissors on top/front). The shave was an experience. First, you get lathered up good and proper. Then he does this about five more times (literally). Then you get a going over with the F*ck-off blade. And after this, which is far and away the closest shave I've ever had, he does it three or four more times. Then you get splashed with high-alcohol after-shave. I really might go back.
To get inside the mosque as a non-Muslim you have to go on one of the guided tours that are sandwiched between the five daily prayer slots. And - here's another telling sign of modernity - rather than barring infidels at the gate, they use our money, extracted as revenue from the tours, to fund the running costs of the mosque. One of our cheery guide's pat jokes was that she always gets two American questions and one Moroccan question: the American questions are How much did it cost? and Who paid for it? (the King paid about a third and the rest was raised by public subscription), while the Moroccan question is How many people does it take to clean it? (There are 200 cleaners and security guards on pay-roll.) Not only did they raise a pile of money without an obligatory tax, they also built it in about 6 years! What are the equivalent architectural symbols of contemporary cultural vibrancy from Europe and the US? I can only bring to mind the odd art gallery. (If too many people cite shopping malls, Disneyland or the Dome I'm not coming back... )
While the Hassan II mosque regularly houses 25,000 worshippers (see what I mean), in the evening we walked past a mosque in Casa's medina that was open to the street; I'd guess it had about 100 guys inside and could not have struck more of a contrast. The medina in Casa is very different from the one in Fes. In place of donkeys and small hand carts there are scooters and petits taxis, and it has far less ancient charm. Right by the mosque we passed there was a huge satellite dish attached with tape and bin liners to a pole in the street, with frayed flex running into a nearby house. While the medina in Fes is a distinct area from the ville nouvelle, the medina in Casa is much smaller, dwarfed by the newer sprawl of commercial buildings and completely encircled by the city's highways. Frankly, it's a dive. Even so, I enjoyed the buzz of it, and the atmosphere from busy stalls cooking up little pots of live snails, the mechanics working on beat-up bikes and the tatty clothes stands; but I wouldn't recommend it for your next weekend break and almost as soon as we'd entered the medina Paula and Zoe were keen to get out.
I should say that we were walking across the medina as a short cut on the way back from dinner, which was excellent. We ate at a little cafe set in the old garrison. It was set out in a garden arranged around a Moorish/Zen water feature, with a group of traditional musicians playing discreetly under a niche. I also had my first Moroccan meal here (a plank of salad dishes) that bares comparison to Momo off the back of Regent Street (although they're all, of course, far cheaper!).
We had a quiet morning in the park on Sunday, taking lunch (which was actually also excellent) at a cafe where we were among the few non-students. This was one of the quite frequent times when we've run into someone who didn't speak French - one of the waiters had to call his colleague over to take our order. Strangely, I'm enjoying getting by in French here. There's something refreshing about the fact that it's a second language for most of us, and so we have more of a relationship of parity than we do when we're trying to get by in France. My friend Luca, when trying to console me for the tough time I'd had communicating in rural Italy pointed out another factor, which is that, unlike in the big cities, the folks there just weren't used to someone who wasn't Italian trying to enunciate their words. I think I can see now why people coming to London and especially New York get on with the language better than you might expect in some cases - there's that nurturing English-as-a-second-language culture that you don't get in, say, Peoria or Somerset.
After a dip in the (now filled) pool, we drove home and, to my shame, I got pulled over for speeding again, though thankfully by different policemen. Again, they were nice as pie, and once they'd established that I wasn't resident in Morocco, they waved me on my way. In fact, I enjoyed the rest of the journey more, bumbling along at a sedate 120 km/h. With the sun setting behind us and casting long low light over the patchwork of olive groves and corn fields, and with desert dunes occasionally framing our horizon to the south, we had a chilled drive back to Fes.
It was great to be back. A while ago when we were planning this trip we ran into a guy from the Moroccan Tourist Board at a travel expo. When we told him we were planning to spend a month in Fes he did everything he could to persuade us not to, telling us that Rabat would be a much better choice. He was dead wrong! If you're ever thinking of coming to Morocco my advice is come to Fes! The medina was humming when we got back and, while there may be unsavoury animal parts arrayed on the butchers' stalls and intestinal flora in the water, it's such a friendly and civilised place.
Lessons resumed this morning and at my request we learnt enough vocab for me to saunter into the barbers down the street and ask for a haircut and a shave. I'd rehearsed my Arabic phonemes well enough that the guy knew what I wanted and we got on fine. Sadly, of course, my supplementary vocab was as limited as the shelf-life of my haircut and shave words so we had to struggle on with his poor French being marginally more useful than my caveman Arabic. But I like the cut (basically a number 4 buzz round the back and sides and a short cut with scissors on top/front). The shave was an experience. First, you get lathered up good and proper. Then he does this about five more times (literally). Then you get a going over with the F*ck-off blade. And after this, which is far and away the closest shave I've ever had, he does it three or four more times. Then you get splashed with high-alcohol after-shave. I really might go back.
Posted: Mon - May 16, 2005 at 06:04 AM
Quick Links
Links
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Comments powered by
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM