Pee breaks and Tagine and Photo Frustration

Saturday March 14 -- some general comments


I should talk about bathroom breaks. At most places we stop, there is a woman at the door collecting dirhams for 3 squares of rough toilet paper, and permission to wash hands after, but not to dry them, it seems, since there are no paper towels, and the few electric hand dryers we’ve seen don’t work. I think we’re supposed to save a square of toilet paper for the purpose, but we mostly opt to drip dry. It has taken us this long to realize that the going price is 2 dirhams (about 30 cents Canadian), and not knowing this has gotten us in trouble. We toss in a 5-dirham coin, thinking it was good for the 5 of us, only to be faced with hostility. Coins are hard to come by here, so we have rarely enough to pay properly. The WC ladies don’t carry change for a 200 dirham note, I don’t think. So it’s a problem. That said, these women keep the bathrooms spotless, and we’re grateful for that. And it must be said that Wild Women Excursions has done a stellar job in sussing out the best places in the country to pee. 

I should also talk about tagine. For those not in the know, a tagine is a particular kind of cooking pot consisting of a flat-bottomed base and a conical lid. The ones sold in Canadian kitchen shops, when you can find them, are usually very decorative, though I have a pair of red enamel ones I bought at Costco some years ago. The tagines that have come to our tables in Morocco are of simple red clay, and they are huge, maybe 35 cm (14”) across or more. Tagine is also the word used to describe what’s cooked inside a tagine pot. The tagines I’ve made, I now know, are not at all like true Moroccan tagines. I thought they had to consist of couscous topped by veggies and a sauce and a protein such as chicken or shrimp or lamb. I know now that a tagine can be anything, as long as it’s cooked in that pot. Sometimes, it’s just a pieces of meat or a whole chicken, with the juices it makes while roasting plus some spices and maybe some preserved lemon. Sometimes it’s just vegetables, if that’s what you want. Sometimes it’s eggs in a tomato sauce (Berber omelet). Oh, and couscous is another thing entirely.

A beautiful tagine, with Moroccan salad and bread

Another thing to mention is the lack of photo ops on this tour. Well, obviously, there are plenty, but our itinerary is so packed, there isn’t time to linger beyond the tourist must-sees. (And who decides what those are, anyhow?) I had debated bringing my good camera, and I’m glad now that I didn’t, because I would have been even more frustrated at not having the opportunity to shoot, say, the magnificent walls of Fes, or the desolate sight of nomad camps in a barren landscape, or the mud walls of a rural village. We have been shown to monuments and famous gateways, where we line up, along with the tour bus crowd, to have a group shot. This is not really Morocco to me. I hope to be able to catch more of the gritty stuff.

 

Obligatory group shot in front of the royal palace gate, Fes, before someone asked us to move so they could get their own shot

 

Update, March 19: When I wrote that last paragraph, we had just left Fes and what I can now call the urban part of our tour. Since then, we have had the great honour of getting close to the people in a variety of circumstances. While the cities were magnificent, the countryside -- deserts, oases, mountains -- is where it's at