The Cats of Asilah

When I was searching the web to see what experiences other people might have had with Moroccan children, I noticed that everyone's travel photos of Morocco include a cat. There's a reason why: cats are everywhere. I have a few cat pictures of my own.

Cats on the wall, last year

This year: same wall, new mural, new cat

Another mural, same theme

I showed a closer view of this cat in an earlier post.

Cat at the mosque

Many of the cats are strays, but some have homes. This one goes in and out through the window.

Window ledge cat

Cats love the fishing harbor.

This cat was hanging out on the platform at the train station, a place we also hang out a lot.

Train station cat

Okay, enough of that.  There are a few dogs around too.

Side note: Here's a closer look at the yellow mural in the background.

The blue writing is graffiti (if you consider the mural a form of graffiti, then it's graffiti on the graffiti.) It says "Hercules," the name given to a farmer who has become a local hero for standing up to the developers who want his land. His name is written on other murals as well.

Moroccan Home Cooking

Quote from Mourad Lahlou, chef and owner of a Michelin-starred Moroccan restaurant in San Francisco:

"Preserved lemons are Morocco's greatest culinary contribution to the world. No, wait, I'm going all the way with this: They're Morocco's greatest contribution to the world, period."

Preserved lemon rind is one of the flavors in this chicken and artichoke tagine that the housekeepers cooked for us.

I requested the artichokes. They're plentiful here, but kind of a nuisance to pare down to the heart for adding to a tagine, so I wasn't surprised that Fatima sighed a little at my request. She rounded out the dish with olives and peas (also time-consuming to shell, but you can buy them already shelled.) Moroccan cooking is time-consuming in general because it's largely done from scratch. That's also one of the reasons it's so good.

Market vegetables

Artichokes are common.

Starting from scratch in Fes

Tagines are the signature dishes of Morocco. They're a kind of pot roast, rich stews traditionally slow-cooked in conical pots called "tagines," although these days pressure-cookers are often used to save time. Fatima starts with the pressure cooker then finishes things off on the stove in the traditional clay tagine. When you lift the lid, the steam escapes in a fragrant whoosh. It's the ultimate comfort food.

Some common tagine combinations are chicken with preserved lemon and olives, meatballs in tomato sauce topped with fried egg, and lamb with prunes and almonds.

A chicken and vegetable tagine with preserved lemon on top

Preserved lemons are made by packing partially-cut lemons in a covered jar with salt and lemon juice and letting them pickle for several weeks, until the rinds soften. In Morocco you can buy them at the olive stands.

Preserved lemons are on the front row at the olive stand.

Dried fruits and nuts are sometimes part of a tagine.

Spices, also, are commonly sold in bulk. Some of the spice displays are works of art.
 

Spices for sale in Essaouira

I've experimented with cooking tagines at home in Grover Beach, but I never quite get it right, even using spices from Morocco. I think you might need the Moroccan "terroir."

There was plenty of terroir in this tagine served bedside at the Dar Adrar in the Atlas Mountains.

When we went out to lunch with Ahlam, Mark's colleague, the dish for the day was a vegetable tagine.  Mark and I were happy, but Ahlam was dismayed that they weren't serving meat. She told us that when a Moroccan invites someone to dinner in their home for the first time, it's considered very rude if they don't serve meat. On the second visit, you might get away with serving chicken or fish. At least, the restaurant (the Riad Tanja in Tangier) served a wonderful assortment of Moroccan salads: warm and cold first-course dishes.

The sweet-and-savory stuffed eggplant rolls were especially memorable.

With all the good food here, it's practical to dress in a loose-fitting djellaba.

Women carrying a bag together "Moroccan style". The blue garment is a djellaba.

Beach Weather

We got into the 70's today.  It was glorious.

A good place to enjoy the sun

Fresh air in the bedroom

Some boys ran by under our window, singing, on their way to the overlook.

Below the overlook, someone was fishing on the rocks, and the walls of the cemetery were being white-washed.

He caught two fish while I watched.

Lots of people were fishing today.
In the medina, I saw this odd pile of wool pieces outside of a doorway. I'm guessing the wool was put there to dry in the sun, but I don't know what it's used for--maybe for thread.  It's common for tailors to spin their own.

Things were mellow on the beachfront promenade. Fishing boats were coming in with the catch, and of course there was a beach soccer game going on. The salt water smelled to me like summer in Galveston, even with my cold.

I passed these women on their donkeys, going home from the Asilah Thursday market.

Beware of Children

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We're finally getting some sunny days after weeks of rain. Thank goodness--my anxiety level was rising like the "oueds" (rivers) as I watched for roof leaks or worse (in Fez, more than one building has collapsed due to the excessive rain).  You can almost hear a communal "Yahoo!" as wet things are put out to dry and life returns to the streets.

Rugs put out to dry

Merchandise displayed

Soccer games resumed

Cats back on the streets

The palpable relief at the improvement in the weather put me off my guard. That's why I was so surprised to be accosted by kids on my way home from shopping. I had taken a detour to try to get a picture of a street soccer game when two girls and a boy, between 8 and 11 years old I'd guess, ran up behind me shouting "hola".  I hola'd them back, then they started asking for "un dirham". I said "no" to the money and turned around to go back home when the boy made a half-hearted attempt to grab my shopping bag. I kept walking and they turned to follow me. Just as I reached my door one of the girls reached inside my bag and ran off with what she found, which happened to be some cookies from the bakery. I called out "ladrón" because Spanish is all that comes to me in moments of indignation, even though this was the perfect opportunity to use one of the phrases from my French Phrase Book: "On m'a agressé". (I've been mugged!)

Scene of the crime

Street value of the stolen goods: 5 dirham

This isn't the first unpleasant incident we've had with children. Last year some very young boys threw stones at me when I passed by them in the medina, and another time Mark and I had trouble getting past two little boys who aggressively blocked our path. The children were even more brazen in the beautiful medina of Chefchaouen. When we were leaving our hotel there, a group of 3 or 4 blocked our exit until some adults intervened on our behalf.

Chefchaouen medina

Chefchaouen: beautiful medina, aggressive children

In Marrakech  last year, our hotel had a list of warnings, one of which was to avoid groups of young boys. I don't remember the age range in the warning--maybe it was 8 to 14--but I remember thinking, why so young? I'd tend to be more wary of teenagers or young adults.

Tangier, potential perps

Young children on their own in the Tangier kasbah

 Is it a good or bad thing that girls are now joining the offenders?

School girls in Asilah

Anatomy of a Medina

Asilah medina sunset colors

Asilah medina before daybreak

When I arrived in Asilah, I thought the medina was beautiful but also foreign and forbidding.  My feeling of not belonging was so strong that I didn't dare to go out by myself.  I soon came to realize that as a Westerner, I'm not an anomaly. Tourists come here by the busloads.  But I'm not a local, either, and I don't pretend to understand what lies beneath the surface.

Portal of the Raissouni Palace, home of an infamous Asilah pirate in the early 1900's

Medinas in Moroccan cities were the original towns, often surrounded by walls. Eventually a city would have to expand outside the walls, leaving the centuries-old medina as a living history museum.

A cart transports goods along the medina wall.

Especially, after France negotiated the right to "protect" Morocco in 1912, the new French residents found the chaotic medinas too messy for their taste. They established "villes nouvelles"--new towns--outside the medina with wide, straight avenues and updated conveniences.

Asilah Ville Nouvelle

After Morocco regained independence in 1956, many wealthier Moroccans found the villes nouvelles more to their liking and moved out of the medinas, which ironically are now being gentrified by non-Moroccans, especially the French.

A gentrified cul-de-sac in the Asilah medina

The medinas remain as microcosms of Moroccan culture. The Asilah medina is small but it has most of the elements of a self-contained town:
     little grocery stores called "hanouts", also tailors, clothing stores and jewelry and crafts bazaars;

Clothing for sale.  The grocery in the foreground is closed.

Carpets for sale in the main square

      mosques, shrines, and schools;

One of 5 mosques in the Asilah medina

The medina "medersa", an elementary school

Mausoleum and cemetery

   a  communal oven (ferran) and a communal bath (hammam);

Hammam in the Asilah medina, with wood supply (for heating) at the entrance

A girl takes bread to be baked at the communal oven, Asilah medina.

Baked bread (khobz) awaiting pick-up at a communal oven in Fes

     a few workshops in pottery, wood, leather, and calligraphy (but nothing like what you find in the huge medinas of Fez and Marrakech);
     and lots of residences in the form of townhouses. From the outside, it's hard to tell what's inside.

Some colorful medina doors

A gated compound. Not all the houses have been gentrified.

There's a fresh food market along the medina wall just outside the Bab Homar, one of the main gates.

The Asilah medina benefits from a cultural festival that's held every summer, when artists paint murals on the white-washed walls. Visiting artists come from all over Morocco and around the world, and have spurred the proliferation of local artists and galleries in the medina.

Festival poster from 2000

2012 mural

A painter works on his gallery.

One of the medina's most persistent itinerant salesmen.  He can sell you his art in a dozen languages.

 Asilah is also notable for the efforts taken to keep the medina clean.

Medina street sweepers wearing traditional hats from the Rif mountains