{"id":45,"date":"2013-07-30T21:50:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T21:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=45"},"modified":"2024-04-19T19:24:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T19:24:16","slug":"down-the-mountain-to-azrou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/?p=45","title":{"rendered":"Down the mountain to Azrou"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the midst of house-hunting, our friend Said took us on a drive to the nearby city of Azrou for some shopping. \u00a0The drive itself was an amazing tour of the local cedar forests and the Middle Atlas mountains. \u00a0Descending into Azrou, you really see the mountains; up high in Ifrane, they’re less noticeable somehow. \u00a0Not that I managed to take any photos on that winding road…
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\nIn Azrou, Said tried to orient us to the shopping resources of the town: where to get fuel, where to get prickly pears (good for the digestion during Ramadan), where to find the best bakery. Then he took us on a high-speed tour of the permanent market (as opposed to the famous Tuesday suq or souk).
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\nLots of delicious smells of parsley, cilantro, mint. \u00a0Also chickens and ducks sitting on blankets surrounded by eggs. \u00a0“Are they there to lay eggs?” asks Jeremy. \u00a0“No: I think they’re there to be bought and eaten.” \u00a0“Why don’t they fly away?” \u00a0“Probably their legs are tied.” Then there are the butchers’ shops with the lamb’s heads still attached to their skinned bodies. \u00a0We passed some men with long lines stretched down the narrow alley. \u00a0One of the men held a motor in his hand. \u00a0It made me think of flying a kite. \u00a0“What are they doing?” I asked. \u00a0“They are helping make a djellaba,” replied Said. \u00a0The motor twists the strings together to make a braid for trimming the edges of a traditional overall covering or djellaba.<\/p>\n

On the way home, we noticed a vacation center and mosque built by developers from the United Arab Emirates. \u00a0Morocco is evidently becoming a vacation destination for other parts of the Muslim world….
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So here’s another postcolonial ecology note: Opuntia (prickly pear, native to the western hemisphere, probably Mexico) was introduced into North Africa by the French as a means of feeding cochineal, insects whose shells and eggs produce a red color used to dye food and clothing. \u00a0Opuntia quickly naturalized and in other places became invasive. \u00a0In Morocco, it seems to exist in balance with other plants, providing fruits especially appreciated during Ramadan. \u00a0 Who would have anticipated this?
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In the midst of house-hunting, our friend Said took us on a drive to the nearby city of Azrou for some shopping. \u00a0The drive itself was an amazing tour of the local cedar forests and the Middle Atlas mountains. \u00a0Descending into Azrou, you really see the mountains; up high in Ifrane, they’re less noticeable somehow. … Continue reading Down the mountain to Azrou<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8,4,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4JDdJ-J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}