Alive and in Spain!

          I emerge from the silence with immense shame: how did I let my blog descend into abandon, collecting dust as my faithful followers worried about the state of my health? The honest answer is that I was simply too busy. The last few weeks in Morocco were whirlwinds of three- and four-day weekends filled with travel and friends, and the short workweeks filled with assignments and exams. I had to go try one more kind of juice at the fruit shop at the corner of Muhammed V and the medina! I had to eat one more pastry on Sidi Fatha! I had to go out with my friends one last time before we dispersed upon return to Chicago! I had to travel, to Chefchouen, Meknes, Merzouga! The time flew by and I didn't have time to collect my thoughts in type.
          I'm now in Sevilla, taking in the sun and reading the Spanish newspaper while my host sister is at class. On Friday I head north to Zaragoza, my first return to my beloved city in almost two years. I'm excited beyond words. Even here in Sevilla I've been basking in the Spanishness of it all: talking politics with Paula and her friends, reading the paper to re-educate myself on the news before seeing my journalism teacher again in Zaragoza, the streets filled with buzzing cafes. It's so strange to see bare forearms and knees, but finally I can take in some of the hot sun that beats down with equal midday intensity here as in Rabat.
         Hopefully I'll have some time over the next few days (or, more realistically, weeks) to post about my last few weeks in Rabat and this wonderful relaxing ten days in Spain. Please don't lose faith!

Weekend plans!

I'm off to Chefchaouen for the weekend. Sorry I've been so behind on posting, hopefully I'll have time to catch up soon!

Mezquita de Cordoba

Some things are better the second time around - the mezquita de Cordoba was just as impressive during this, my second visit, as the first. I didn't have a camera this time, though, so I'll have to direct you to my post from almost exactly two years ago, when I was at Cordoba while on SYA: http://somewhereisspain.blogspot.com/2010/02/cordoba-pleasant-surprise.html.

Spain

We spent yesterday in Cordoba and today in Granada. Last night I went out salsa dancing alone, walked home at 3 am, and wasn't even verbally harrassed at all. The food has been amazing - cheese bocadillos, garbanzos, churros y chocolate. And we saw the mesquita de Codroba and the Alhambra here in Granada - so much beauty it's overwhelming. My return to Spain is just as amazing as I thought it would be, as I dreamed it would be. Tonight us already our last night here, and I will miss this beautiful country so much. ¡Viva España!

A Jaunt to the Country

            Despite taking daytime cold medicine to stop my incessantly sniffly nose, I managed to sleep all the way from Rabat to Bouyoussef, a small Berber village in the mountains outside of Meknes. When I woke up with a jolt as the bus turned onto a bumpy dirt road, we were there, surrounded by lush green mountains that maintained their beauty despite the overcast day.

            We filed off the bus and our program director – himself from a Berber village – ushered us through the compound of ramshackle houses to a giant tent. It was flanked by a small outdoor kitchen, where a pair of women fried giant round milawi – those flaky and toothsome Moroccan pancakes – and tossed couscous with their hands. The couscous wouldn’t be served until lunch, still a couple hours away, but making it from scratch is a long process. Our guide, a man from the village who was now an English teacher at a high school in a city a few hours away, explained that the semolina must first be sprinkled with water so that it clumps into larger pieces, then steamed three times until it is cooked. Meanwhile, vegetables and meat simmer and create a sauce for the couscous until it is all ready to be served together.

            Inside the tent, various men in jellabas concerned themselves with the vitally important task of making the perfect tea. They ripped open packages of sugar cubes, generously filling the pot. One brought in a bunch of mint leaves and handed them to the man presumably in charge, who was pouring the hot water into one cup and then back into the kettle in the normal ritual. He sniffed and tasted the leaves, but poured the tea without them. “He doesn’t think the mint is of very good quality,” the program director explained. Better to serve plain tea than less-than-perfect tea. The hot milawi were placed on low tables in each corner, and we tore off pieces of the pancake as we listened to our guide explain the history of the region.

            Berbers first came to Morocco between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age when a group called the Capsians migrated into North Africa. Their first appearance in written history is in Egyptian sources from around 2,000 BCE. From the 2^nd century BCE until the 3^rd century CE, we have written evidence from the Berbers themselves. They developed a script based on the Phoenician alphabet, and left inscriptions, some of which I saw in Tangier in the Kasbah Museum (which I somehow forgot to mention when recounting my weekend there – I guess the fact that I waxed nostalgic about the pancakes but forgot the gorgeous restored palace/museum reveals my true priorities!). However, somehow the script fell out of use, and when the Islamic Arabs arrived to anachronistic Morocco in the early 8^th century CE, the Berber language was spoken universally but not written.

            The Berbers, for the most part, quickly adopted Islam, and used its egalitarian message as an argument for equality with the Arabs. Ethnic strife ensued, but Berbers managed to establish their own dynasties, including the Almoravids and the Almohads, both of which united Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula in the 11^th-13^th centuries. However, even as they embraced Islam, the Berbers were slow to adopt Arabic. The Almohads, for example, were very strict Muslims who nevertheless used Berber as a liturgical language to some extent, and even today about 50% of Moroccans speak one of the Berber languages as their first language. (Most are bilingual – at least 90% of the Berber speakers also speak Moroccan Arabic.)

            Until recently, French and Arabic were the only two official languages of Morocco. In the last couple years, Berber – or Tamazight, as the main language is called – was added to the list. For the first time, elementary schools in Berber communities have at least two hours of Berber a week, thanks to the efforts of the fledgling Berber identity movement. And one sees the occasional Berber script while walking through the streets.

            As for literacy rates in the village, they are certainly up from the dismal rates that hovered around 90% illiterate when the French withdrew and Morocco gained independence. This town had only a one-room school house that served the children of the 15 or so families who lived there. The main occupations are tending livestock or farming. It is a simple but relatively comfortable life: there is enough for subsistence and extra to sell. Regardless, the limited opportunities have caused many families to move to the bigger towns nearby, although many people born in the town are also deciding to retire there. I can’t wait to come back to Morocco in twenty years to see how much is changed. Globalization is a powerful force, and it is hitting Morocco hard. Will most people take the route of our guide, learning a foreign language, moving away from the town? Will they, like him, still appreciate Berber culture and teach their children Tamazight? Or will jellabas be abandoned for suits and sweatshirts? Will double-shot lattes someday outsell even mint tea? Would that necessarily be bad? (It would probably decrease the diabetes rate!) It’s an interesting shift to watch as the young farmer movement blossoms in the United States. Even the enthusiastic new agriculturalists in the states, though, value having heat and running water and living near cities that offer culture and leisure, or at least large farmers’ markets patronized by equally eager urbanites looking for a way to connect with their food. If no one wants to live “the Berber life”, is it really something worth preserving? I know that simplicity is gaining new value, as is connecting with nature and the Earth, taking time to slow down and just think or gaze out across the mountainside. So perhaps the next occupants of this village will be Americans desperate to escape the big city and return to their 10,000-year-old roots.

            Existential ponderings aside, after our breakfast, we followed our guide a little ways down the mountain to a cave, where the villagers supposedly lived until the late 19^th century. It had definitely been inhabited – one wall was blackened from smoke, “the kitchen”, our guide said – but our history professor warned us not to generalize. Berbers had been settled for millennium, presumably not just where there were enough caves to support an entire village.

            The houses now still don’t have running water though, but the spring is not far from the settlement. Cement troughs carry the water from the source down through the town, so water is available outside the front door. For pure drinking water, though, it’s better to hike to the source, just a few minutes uphill from town near the tiny mosque nestled into the hillside. Standing by the spring, I looked out over the green landscape, blurred a little by the rain that just started falling. It looked like an impressionist painting, full of greens and purples and tiny doll-house-like settlements in the distance.

            From the cave, we hiked back up the hill to return to the tent for lunch. The other two vegetarians and I found ourselves once again at our own table, with our own giant dish of couscous with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Delicious is an understatement. The couscous was steamed to perfection and wonderfully spiced – a difficult task based on the number of people who have experienced dry and boring couscous. We made only a dent in the huge pile in front of us. Feasts seem to be a common Moroccan experience. Along with “mashi muskela”, “Thank you, I’m full” is another phrase that has become a motto. Even in a Berber village far from being endowed with resources, we were safi, schbaat, shukran!

Tangier, Part Three

            I opened my eyes on Saturday morning and smiled. I was in Tangier, the loveliest city on earth, and I had a nice long shower and a big fluffy towel to look forward to. We all met on the hotel’s terrace, which had a refreshing view of the strait of Gibraltar, the satellite dishes stretching out over the medina, and the mountains rising up to the south. We feasted our eyes on the ocean until our stomach’s protested for a feast of their own. Thus began a search for Moroccan pancakes, known as ghaif in their square form and milawi in their round form. (There could very well be additional differences, but to me the shapes are the only particularity of each!) Our search quickly terminated at the site of a street vendor offering more varieties of milawi than I’d known existed. Plain, chicken, lamb, cheese, and egg milawi were coming off the griddle, worked by a pair of Moroccan women and served by a man who was eager to answer our questions. He only knew Arabic, so we pointed to the bowls of various toppings and asked, “Schnou hadi?”, What are these? Most of the words we knew: lus – almonds, licheen – orange jam, zeitoun – olive paste, zubda – butter, ‘aasl – honey. Pointing to the last bowl, our culinary guide said, “Coco!” A quizzical look at the bowl revealed that it wasn’t coconut, nor was it chocolate, so we asked him to repeat himself. “Coco, coco!” he said, gesturing enthusiastically at the dish. We still didn’t get it. One of the women hurried over to a corner and then back over to us, stretching out a handful of peanuts. “Coco!” she said, pointing to the peanuts, adding a new contribution to our Moroccan Arabic vocabularies.

            The choice was difficult, especially considering the bins of Laughing Cow cheeses also available, but I decided to try one milawi with olive tapenade and another with the almond paste. The vendor grabbed a hot pancake, deftly spooned the almond butter into the middle and spread it evenly with one motion before folding the milawi twice and cutting it down the middle. Another got the same treatment, but with olives, and they were each wrapped in paper and handed to me piping hot.

            These two pancakes were undoubtedly the best breakfast I’ve had so far. Toasty and crisp, thick and toothsome, the milawi themselves were as good as the fillings they wrapped around. The savory tangy olive paste was the perfect foil for the sweet thin almond butter. Filling and satisfying, we were well-fueled for a search for the elusive tomb of Ibn Battuta, a medieval traveler who hailed from Tangier and ended up as far as Timbucktu and China, travelling three times the distance covered by Marco Polo. We walked along the uphill road past the kasbah and into the ritzy modern part of Tangier, with beautiful overlooks of the strait and Spain. Ibn Battuta’s tomb escaped us, but mashi mushkela – we headed back to the center of town, Grand Socco, for a look at the Spanish cathedral. It was closed for lunch, but mashi mushkela – there was a lovely, calm, and verdent cemetery around it that we were happy to spend time in. After a spell we headed downhill towards the port, walking along the bustling riverside and searching for the Tanger Inn, a café where the famous beats like Paul Bowles and Jack Kerouac rested their elbows while sipping espresso. It was closed, but mashi mushkela – we knew that just a few blocks away was the enticing smell of fresh hot pizza.

            With just an hour before we had to catch our train, we took a table in a small restaurant specializing in pizza and Lebanese food. Pizza battled falafel in a fight for my order, and the 7 dh falafel sandwich won, along with a plate of smooth and tangy baba ghanoush. The pizza smelled delicious, but I hadn’t had falafel for a while. It was served freshly fried snuggled up with tomatoes and lettuce and wrapped in flatbread, with a little dish of yogurt sauce on the side. It was the perfect lunch to end our international trip: French baguette sandwiches and pizza the first day, Moroccan pancakes and Lebanese food the second. We amused our taxi driver with our limited darija on the way to the train station, before bidding goodbye to him and to our new favorite, beautiful city.

Tangier, Part Two

            I wish I had a photo, because words can’t describe how beautiful the view from Tangier was. Of course, a photograph can’t really do it justice either, but then you could at least get an idea of the lovely blue sky, the dark blue ocean, and the hazy purplish blue mountains of Spain in the distance.

            After drinking our fill of the evening view of the strait of Gibraltar from both a vista in the kasbah, the fortified corner of the medina, and from an overlook further west in a snazzy residential neighborhood, we turned back towards the ville nouveau for dinner. We wandered through busy, brightly lit streets until the smell of pizza stopped us in our tracks. The unmistakable smell of oven-fresh pizza, our first whiff since coming to Morocco, lured us into Oslo Restaurant. I have no idea where the name comes from, but the food was delicious and the place was full of young Moroccans. My vegetarian pizza had cheese and just enough vegetables, and was delicious doused in the hot sauce on the table, which served a double purpose as a decongestant as I found myself coming down with a cold. We also discovered a new meaning for the word “quality”. The burger section of the menu included a hamburger, a cheeseburger, an eggburger, and a qualityburger.

            “Excuse me,” our friend asked the waiter. “What’s on a qualityburger?”

            The man was taken aback that we didn’t know, and just to make sure we weren’t totally clueless, he started at the beginning. “A hamburger is just the burger,” he patiently explained. “The cheeseburger is the same but with cheese. The egg burger is the hamburger but with egg. And the qualityburger,” he finished with a smile, “is a hamburger with cheese and egg.” Of course!

            Dinner was phenomenal – pizza of quality (not qualitypizza, we joked, since although it had cheese, it lacked egg), and we left the restaurant with only the smallest smidgen of room for dessert. Moroccan cities are filled with patisseries, one of colonization’s legacies and one that I would hesitate to lament. The particular bakery we stopped in had a wide array of both traditional Moroccan cookies and fancy French cakes. A golden slice topped with what looked like slivered almonds caught my eye, and at only 5 dh I couldn’t resist ordering it. The topping turned out to be wheat flakes, and the cake whole wheat sweetened with honey and maybe date syrup. Not what I expected, but wholesome and incredibly delicious nonetheless. We took our sweet purchases and took a table at the attached café among a few scattered tables of men drinking tea, eyes glued to the Dutch soccer match on television. Most cafés have large televisions, as their clientele would surely go elsewhere if they had to have their afternoon tea without a soccer game to watch.

            Although we didn’t dine at them due to the unfortunate fact that our stomachs had reached capacity, we were very taken with the fluorescent-lit second-floor restaurants and cafés lining Tangier’s main streets. They offered gorgeous views over the strait with European style…definitely a destination for the next time I’m in Tangier. (Which will actually be Thursday – we are going through on our way to Spain, where we’ll be spending three nights as a group in Cordoba and Granada.)

            After another hour of wandering the bright and crowded streets, we decided to look for Caid’s Piano Bar, the prototypical Moroccan bar that supposedly inspired the famous Rick’s Café (the movie Casablanca was actually filmed in Hollywood, so Rick’s Café itself didn’t exist until an entrepreneurial British woman opened a place by the same name a few years ago). Caid’s is located inside a hotel, but we didn’t know that, so we literally walked by it a few times thinking aloud, “But it’s supposed to be right here!” Perplexed, I decided to ask an older Moroccan woman on the terrace of a nearby café for help. As I hoped, she spoke Spanish, so I was able to explain our predicament quite fluently. She hadn’t heard of Caid’s – I realized as I was asking her that an older Moroccan woman was probably of the wrong demographic to ask about a place of libations – but she knew there was a bar up around the corner. I thanked her profusely and we headed off, only to find Dean’s Bar, fully occupied by older Moroccan men and a cloud of smoke. It was not the scene we were looking for so we soldiered on and I found another woman to ask. She didn’t know, but in the headstrong way that many Spanish women have (I quickly started thinking of her as Spanish since that’s what we were speaking, despite her head-scarf and jellaba) proceeded to suggest to us/order us to ask the men at a nearby hanoot. They didn’t know either, so we resorted to plan c and called our friend who had been in Tangier the weekend before. While on the phone with him at an intersection between a busy street and a smaller road leading downhill into darkness, the original woman I’d asked for directions passed by us. She recognized us and asked if we’d found it yet, and I explained that the bar she’d told us about wasn’t the one we were looking for but that we were on the phone with our friend now. “Good,” she said. “But don’t go down that street!” She pointed in the direction of the darkness. “It’s very dangerous! Continue up this way!” She pointed down the well-lit boulevard. Oh, how I love Spanish-speaking Moroccan women! Meanwhile, our friend enlightened us as to the fact that Caid’s was inside the hotel we’d passed about three times, so we returned and entered this time.

            We found ourselves in a beautiful courtyard with serene bubbling fountains and wicker furniture. A doorway seeping soft piano music opened into Caid’s, where a huge dark wooden bar faced giant floor-to-ceiling windows with red velvet curtains, and a piano in the middle of the bi-leveled room. The music was currently coming from a stereo, since it was slightly before ten. We settled into plushy upholstered chairs and a low couch around smart wooden tables and waited for the server to take our order. To keep up with our classy surroundings, we ordered a bottle of red wine and a cheese plate to share. Although drinking wine is explicitly prohibited by the Qur’an, Morocco has a robust share of vineyards that make pretty good reds and roses (and possibly whites – I haven’t tried any yet). Our waiter returned with the bottle and glasses, and poured perfectly until spilling a little on the third glass. “Mashi muskela!” we assured him, “No problem!” (The phrase had become the motto of our easy-going trip.) He returned about ten minutes later with the cheese, carrying two plates. “One is yours,” he said, and with a flourish set down a second. “And one is a gift!” If a little spilt wine meant extra cheese, then I am certainly glad his hand slipped! The cheese was phenomenal, almost definitely imported, and served with tart fruity raisins and toasted marcona almonds from Spain. We also stuck our toothpicks into a little dish of complementary olives. The three flavours – the heavy-bodied wine, the rich camembert and tangy Iberico cheeses, and the salty olives – complimented each other wonderfully, with the now live piano music making the scene utterly perfect. We felt just like stars in Casablanca, lingering and listening to the piano and the low murmurs of the other customers, watching the delicate smoke curl up from their cigarettes like we’d gone sixty years back in time.

            Finally and unfortunately sleep overcame us, and we walked out into the now-empty streets and back to our hotel. After a gloriously hot and long shower I finally collapsed into bed, warm, clean, and wonderfully content.

Tangier, Part One

          We disembarked from our petit taxi in Grand Socco, and tried to figure out which street was Rue d’Italie. No matter what Moroccan city you’re in, locating yourself on a map is difficult. In Tangier, the situation is complicated by the sheer number of names referring to each street and square. Grand Socco, for example, was renamed Plaza/Place/SaaHa 9 de Abril, since everything that is labeled in Tangier is labeled in Spanish, French, and Arabic (and occasionally English too). The multilingualism is a vestige of Tangier’s time as an International Zone. During French colonization of central and southern Morocco and Spanish occupation of northern Morocco, the city was exempted from both foreign rulers and placed in the hands of the West at large – a committee manned by representatives from Spain, France, the United States, and (until the first World War) Germany. The architecture serves as evidence for the multicultural influence, if the place names weren’t enough. Art deco facades pepper even the medina, and traditional stained-glass and punctured-aluminum lanterns hang over intricate iron-wrought balconies. But the most beautiful part of Tangier was there before even the Arab army in 707: the sun shining in a perfect blue sky over the strait of Gibraltar, with fuzzy purple Spain in the distance and a far-away Moroccan slope filled with white rectangular abodes off to the right. It’s the same view that drew the Berbers, Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, French, Portuguese, Spanish, the American beat writers, and now finally me.

            Back to Grand Socco, we walked under a horseshoe archway away from a particularly persistent false guide and discovered we were on the right street. “Our riad should be right up here on the right,” I said as we neared a steep hill where the sidewalks turned to steps. Luckily we saw it right at the base of the incline, although climbing it wouldn’t be difficult – we’d packed light with only backpacks for our one-night stay in the coastal city.

            The hotel, Dar el Kasbah, was charming and comfortable and modern. The front desk attendants spoke Spanish, the second language of many people in northern Morocco, so I happily collected our keys and we went up to our rooms. I usually prefer to stay in hostels when travelling short-term, since they are clean enough, great social hubs, and so wonderfully cheap. However, our trip was very last-minute, so we had to “settle” for an upgrade. The rooms were still marvelously inexpensive – the five of us had two doubles and a single and the bill came to about thirty dollars per person. The thick comforters and heavy knit blankets, plus the hot showers and big fluffy towels, made us forget we were travelling in the cold off-season.

            Our train got in around 1:30, so our first order of business after dropping our backpacks at the riad was finding somewhere for lunch. We found ourselves in Petit Socco, the small square in the old medina where the less-ritzy famous figures who frequented Tangier in the early and mid-20^th centuries drank mint tea and smoked local marijuana. Choosing to forsake both of those, we instead climbed to the very low-ceiled second story of a cheap café/restaurant overlooking the square. Perusing the menu, we decided what we wanted and signaled the waiter. “Couscous with chicken,” my friend ordered, since it was Friday and couscous is a Friday tradition. “I’m sorry, we don’t have that,” the waiter told us apologetically in Spanish. Putting a positive spin on the situation, he happily announced that they had sandwiches. “Salchicha sandwiches, vegetarian sandwiches, chicken sandwiches,” he listed. Realizing that the menu was of little help, we ordered what we could and waited for the cooks to surprise us.

            I was extremely pleasantly surprised by my sandwich: tomato, olives, cheese, and peppers stuffed into a baguette with spicy harissa on the side and freshly fried thick-cut potatoes. It was fresh, simple, and unexpectedly delicious. I’d been worried by the lack of décor, the lack of customers, and the lack of a menu, but the-café-whose-name-I-never-really-knew delivered.

            Our post-lunch destination was the American Legation, a United States owned building in Tangier’s medina and the only national historic landmark not in the U.S. Morocco and the states have a long relationship: the Sultan was the first head-of-state to recognize America as an independent nation, and the U.S.’s first diplomats were sent to Tangier. The Legation building is now a museum and a research center. The labyrinthine rooms, outfitted with classy upholstered furniture, display old and contemporary artwork depicting Moroccan markets and the “Barbary peoples”; letters between George Washington, the Sultan, and diplomats; antique maps where north is often south; and random collections of memorabilia of famous Americans who spent time in Tangier, such as author Paul Bowles. After learning a great deal about the United States’ long relationship with Morocco, we were about to leave when a man who looked like he knew what he was doing asked if we were students. We explained that we were, and he replied that he was the director of the Legation and insisted we come see the research library before we left. “It’s usually not open to the public,” he told us, “but since you are students you just have to see it!”

            Although the rooms are relatively new and lacking much architectural interest, we were treated to wonderful tidbits of history and news about the Legation and its sisters: TALIM and a literacy program for Moroccan women. The director lamented some cut funds but was proud of the impressive programs the organization still had to offer, as well as the vast resources, the extent of which are still unknown. My friend, a geography major, asked about the center’s maps collection, and the director told us that in a room upstairs were at least dozens of old maps, uncatalogued and disorganized. “We don’t even know the extent of our resources here,” he said with an excited gleam in his eye. The enthusiasm was catching, and we left on a historian’s high to explore the rest of the city. After a quick stop at the Jewish cemetery (the Hebrew inscriptions on the gravestones were the fourth alphabet we’d seen in one day, in addition to the Arabic, Latin, and Berber scripts) and the Instituto Torin, a disarrayed and under-labeled display of 19^th and 20^th century photos, we went in search of that famous view of the strait that has drawn visitors to Tangier for centuries.

Routine

I'm settling in to life in Morocco, which leads to not-very-exciting blog posts.
Mondays and Wednesdays are salsa, where I'm beginning to make friends. Yesterday I discovered the Insituto Cervantes, where I had the most amazing experience of hearing the protesters outside chanting at the same time as the call to prayer. Although I can get by in the streets with my Modern Standard Arabic, being in a building where everyone speaks Spanish was fantastic - I could communicate fluently! I think the Instituto may become my new hang-out. Between homework, getting coffee with friends, and planning my next excursion, the days go by pretty quickly.

This weekend, I'm heading off to Tangier. I'll be able to borrow some photos from my friends so look forward to a blog post in a couple of days!

Eid Mubarak!

       Ghaif, beghrir, arzaza, cookies, and small dishes of honey – as well as a giant teapot of sweet mint tea – decorated the breakfast table this morning. We feasted in honor of the Prophet’s birthday, celebrated today in Morocco. I had seen arzaza for sale on the streets before; it looks like angel hair pasta wound into tight disks, but I hadn’t ever tried it. I was pleasantly surprised by its bready texture, and the hint of rosewater in its flavor. The beghrir – Moroccan crepes – were familiar: cooked only on one side, the other side bubbles up and leaves a wonderfully nooked and crannied exterior. The spongy crepe soaks up the honey, sticky but delicious to eat. The flaky, toothsome ghaif – Moroccan pancakes – are my favorite. Hearty but also delicate, they are best fresh off the griddle on some hidden street in the medina with a thin layer of Laughing Cow cheese, but the pancakes this morning and the sweet honey to go with them were nothing to complain about. The cookies were almond-based - think giant French macaron shells, or a thin pastry wrapped around rose-water flavored almond paste. Fortunately I passionately love almonds.

            I’m pretty sure only Morocco celebrates the Prophet’s birthday today. Most Muslims, especially in the 9^th and 10^th century, would have been horrified at the idea of a holiday on Muhammad’s birthday. The Qur’an makes it clear that Muhammad was just another man, not divine in any way, and certainly not the son of God, like Christianity claimed for its prophet. The idea of a “Muslim Christmas” would have Ibn Taymiyya rolling over in his grave. However, in the 11^th century, a mystic movement, called Sufism, gained a lot of traction in the Muslim world as foreign invasions in the east caused major political and economic instability. Sufism became popular in the Islamic west as well. One trait of Sufism that led to its denunciation by many traditional Islamic scholars was its attribution of supernatural or divine qualities to the Prophet, or excessive veneration of him. Today’s holiday would probably fall into the “excessive veneration” category, but luckily for the traditionalists, it’s nothing like Christmas. Besides the large and delicious breakfast, the day proceeded as normal.

(Also, if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted any photos lately…I’m embarrassed to admit that I dropped my camera and it’s no longer working. I’m giving it a rest and am hoping it works next time I turn it on, but there’s a good chance you might be reading a lot of flowery descriptions in lieu of images for the rest of my trip. Sorry!)