9/17 – Explore Chefchaouen and Surrounding Area

We started the day with a breakfast that included fresh squeezed orange juice and freshly cooked eggs (vs. the buffet scrambled kind) and 5 different kinds of bread and toppings – including olive oil. Then Driss took us for a walk around the medina (old walled city) to the wall, the city’s spring, and Al Kasaba (fortress). There were cats and interesting doors everywhere we looked. The walls were mostly painted white and a couple shades of periwinkle blue, while doors were often in shades of turquoise or occasionally unpainted. The city is built against a hill and designed in the 15^th century, so it was a lot of uphill walking – just what we need to stay in shape for home.

The wall itself was not designed for troops to patrol from the top, so it was only 1 layer of bricks thick, but there were guard towers with arrow slits strategically placed. At the top of the hill where the spring emerged was the community laundry. Several women were working on scrubbing room sized rugs and two men would roll them up and take them to an upper level to hang them from the wall to dry. There were also several covered areas with built-in scrubbing boards for washing clothing, although only one was in use.

Jim at the top of the city

Washing rugs. Some in foreground are in buckets. At upper
center, you can see the edges of ones hung over the wall to dry.

Washing clothes at the communal laundry

Bridal carriage: REALLY tiny = small
and/or very young brides

The fortress had photos of typical wedding attire and other historical pictures. Brides tended to be in their teens, including guide’s mother, who was 16 when she married her 19-year-old husband. We walked up four flights of stairs to the top of the tower for a wonderful view of the surrounding area, then headed back to the hotel for a quick break.

Fortress courtyard

Fortress courtyard from the top

Looking out over the city

We piled onto the bus and headed out into the country-side to meet a young couple who are farming and expanding their property to accommodate guests. Hiking is quite popular in the hills and there is a lack of housing for those interested in hikes longer than a single day. We walked through the garden and helped pick vegetables for our lunch and a couple intrepid travelers helped peel and slice them too.

Interesting contrast of the old and the new -- stoves and
satellite dish - buy the dish for $50 and get 400 channels free.

Preparing veggies

Our charming host and hostess

Our host made green tea with mint and I was able to convince him not to add sugar to the whole pot. This made the tea much more palatable in my opinion and sugar was available for those who preferred their tea sweet. This was followed by 3 courses: an interesting kind of salad with cooked but cooled beets, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and rice; a vegetable tagine with potatoes, eggplant, and zucchini; and a goat and quince tagine. I had never had cooked quince before and didn’t know quite what to expect, and it was wonderful. Actually everything was really good, even the things I don’t normally eat, like zucchini and eggplant.

We talked with our hosts and they were interested in learning about what our occupations and home cities were. All in all, we had a charming afternoon.

Back in the city, we had a break to rest or explore – I did some laundry because when I had brought Jim a coke at the airport, I had inadvertently selected one that someone had shaken so it exploded all over his pants when he opened it.

This was followed by a conversation with a married Berber woman about the status of women in Morocco with a focus on the improvements made since the current monarch took power about 15 years ago. Love marriage has become more common, women can initiate divorce and are guaranteed child support and property division in the case of divorce, and efforts are being made to improve the educational prospects of girls in rural areas. Most urban girls go to school, but traditionally rural girls did not. Now, with financial support, many rural girls attend school up to the 6^th grade. For all rural students, study beyond the 6^th grade means boarding school and parents are more reluctant to send their daughters off than their sons. In addition, 18 is now the minimum marriage age for women who no longer require formal male family member approval, although in practice, such approval is preferred. While a judge is needed to approve a marriage for a younger girl, the fate of the children depends on their parents being married. Premarital sex is outlawed and illegitimate children (those without birth certificates) cannot go to school. There are actually significantly more women than men in Moroccan society and ignoring such a large segment of society seemed like a bad plan. Plural marriage is also declining as the current wife has to give formal approval for any subsequent wife.

The group got together afterwards to sample the goat cheese, flatbreads, and candied peanuts that Driss brought for us. This eliminated the need to go out to dinner!