A Weekend in Rabat

I'm gonna be real.  Rabat was kind of boring but I have many more interesting things to talk about so bear with me for the time being.  There were some interesting things about Rabat that I will delve into now but the fact that I found it less exciting than Tangier coupled with the lack of things to do during the day because of Ramadan made for a sub-par experience.

We stayed in a hostel right near the old medina a about a kilometer away from the water.  It was my first experience in a hostel and it was basically everything I expected and nothing more.  The only thing that was provided by the hostel was sheets for your bed but no pillow case.  I can go into more detail on that if people desperately want to know but complaining about something I paid total of 15 american dollars for is not the best use of my time in general or in this blog.  So onto the city itself.

Rabat is about the size of Baltimore surprisingly enough.  It is much more city-like in comparison to Tangier.  I say that because it is much denser and more congested where as Tangier is bigger and wider in just about every sense imaginable.  There was one main street that I heard people talk about/actually went to so my knowledge of the layout is to an extent basic.  Nonetheless, I was happy to be able to walk along the cornish near the water and through the old medina.  The souq in the old medina was much more established and rustic than any souq I have seen thus far in Tangier.  It was clear that people had been going to this souq every day for many years.  What was more interesting was seeing how quickly the medina and the area surrounding the towering walls of it were cleared out in the hour leading up to Ramadan.  I mean, our walk through it began around 6:30 and then we spent some time on the water and the return walk around 7:45 was an entirely different experience.  By that I mean everything was closed and the population went from hundreds, thousands even, to maybe twelve.  This was not a surprise as much as it was impressive how quickly people could clean-up and rush home to break the fast.  Then again no one wants to break the fast by themselves.

Things seemed to exist much more in isolation in Rabat than in Tangier.  I think this may be because we did not have the chance to visit the less urban parts of Rabat and see the more residential areas. However it seems to me at least that Tangier is much more open and community-oriented.  People congregate and converse even in the middle of city and Rabat just didn't portray that same sense of community to me.  Again, I think I need to spend more time in Rabat to get a better feel for it and explore more of the city.

Now for the part everyone has been waiting for, FOOD!  I for whatever reason thought that the food was going to be really spicy.  Maybe it was wishful thinking or cultural naivete but the world will probably never know what I was thinking when I arrived in Casablanca. Jet-lagged and without comfortable sleep for more than 48 hours.  I did a food project on Morocco not too long ago and got an A so one would assume these would be things I would know.  One would be wrong on this particular occasion.

Moving past my digressions, the food is very eclectic (European and in particular Spanish influence in Tangier)  and I cannot find many words to generally describe the flavors I experience.  Especially since when I gave my host family Old bay the mother tasted it and reacted in way that I interpreted as "yeah, I could see myself cooking fish with this" which I then used as a basis for the question "what is the moroccan flavor?"  Well for starters, it's good.  Unfortunately for Ramadan, every dinner is more or less the same consisting of Harira, which is a tomato-based soup sometimes consisting of beef and usually containing noodles or rice.  Hard-boiled eggs are also a staple of any Moroccan iftaar.  I like to take the hard-boiled eggs and place them in the Harira.  Word to the wise if you find yourself at Iftaar in the Maghrib.  Additionally, there are always a helpful serving of dates. My host brother told me a neat story about how at the first iftaar, the first thing that was eaten was a date so he always starts with the tamr.  I now find myself doing the same thing because I enjoyed not only the story but the sentiment as well.  

In addition to all the delicious options I have listed there is always a sea of bread waiting to be devoured.  I could spend honestly an entire blog post just discussing and describing in detail the different kinds of bread I have seen and our eaten and the various iftaars I've attended.  

There's never a dull a moment at our family dinners as we have four  CLS students in a our house unlike most other families.  James and Aaron live in the apartment with the family and Derek and I live in an apartment upstairs  complete with a bathroom, balcony and small kitchen.  In addition to discussing everything from US foreign policy and politics to education systems in Morocco we also usually have a new person at the table just about every night.  The rotating guest is a great way to get different perspectives and advice on Tangier as well as to improve my listening skills.  Listening to different speakers often forces you to become efficient at adapting to different accents and registers.  

I have more topics to discuss but I will save them for the next post.  It has been so long since the events I'm writing took place that I'm on a completely different outing at the current moment.  The next post will discuss my trip to Central Morocco and more interactions which the people of Tangier.  

As always thanks for reading,

Johnny M.