More on the Moroccan desert

What ideas did you have about Morocco before you started reading my blog? If you imagined deserts, sand, camels, and nomads and their tents, you weren't alone.

As I hope my blog has illustrated for you, though, Morocco is a geographically diverse country. I didn't see any camels until I had been here for a few months, and my recent trip to the desert was the first time I saw a landscape that I thought might be described as "stereotypically" Moroccan or North African.

The transition to a desert landscape really begins south of Midelt. The mountains are always close by, but the land slowly becomes dustier, and the vegetation becomes more sparse and scrubby.

There was an unexpected number of hotels along our route from Midelt to Merzouga. Some of them were shockingly (and, we all agreed, too optimistically) grand. As we drove by these hotels, we saw that the vast majority had virtually empty parking lots.

We had originally made reservations at such a hotel (although not nearly as new as the one pictured to the left) in Erfoud. It was such a depressingly outdated and empty place, though, that we quickly ditched it for a smaller and grubbier – yet less deserted and more comfortable  – hotel.

The way people look changes, too, as one approaches the desert. Skin gets darker, and by the time we got to Erfoud, we hardly saw the faces of any women, most of whom were covered from head to toe with abaya-like black garments, some with brightly colored embroidered patterns on them. The Rough Guide to Morocco says that Erfoud gives one "a first, powerful sense of proximity to the desert, with frequent sandblasts ripping through the streets." We arrived in this normally dusty town during a time of unusually strong winds, and the coating of grit that quickly accumulated on my body, along with a  constant sense of impending danger to my eyes, made me immediately understand the benefit of full body coverage.

In a nutshell...

...a tiny, oversimplified nutshell.

Souk boutique

Ifrane's souk is the place to go for the best prices on the greatest variety of fruits and vegetables. I don't go there every week, but I try to go at least once a month to stock up on produce.

Weird shirt with cranes on it + bad ass denim jacket = app. $4

A lot of people I know go there to get clothes, too. For at least the first year that I lived in Morocco, I was utterly overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to buy clothing at the souk. Imagine the piles of clothes at the biggest garage sale you've ever attended, and then multiply that by, say, 10. Spending hours digging through huge piles of (sometimes smelly) largely uncategorized clothing items never appealed to me. But lately, my friends Sarah and Sara have helped me to enjoy this simple and cheap weekend entertainment. On a nice, sunny day, it can be fun to stand across from a friend, going from one end of a table to the other, excavating and discussing an interesting array of clothing. Some of the clothing items are very worn, others are bizarre, but every once in a while, we find something nice or interesting enough to take home. The clothes are cheap enough that you don't have to worry about trying them on before purchasing them. If something doesn't fit, you can pass it on to someone else, use it for a craft project, or even just use it for rags.

Like I said, cheap and simple. That's my kind of fun.

How people dress

When T and I first decided to move here and started telling people of our plans, we got a lot of the same questions over and over again. Many of the questions were related to dress. "Will you have to wear a burqa?" or "Will you have to veil?" were common questions I heard. Fair enough. My experience has been that your average American (including me) doesn't know a lot about Morocco (nor about Islam, which has a great influence here because 99% of the population is Muslim). Several people confessed to me that--completely automatically--they conjured up images of sandy deserts, people living in tents, and camels. Even after a great deal of research, I still had trouble imagining what it would be like here. And part of "what it's like" is related to how people dress, which is, of course, inextricably linked to culture, religion, and gender and social roles.

So I think when people asked whether I would have to veil, what they were really asking about was what life would be like for me as a woman here. Most people I talked to knew that Morocco is in Africa and that it is a Muslim country. Well, how are Africa and Islam represented in the U.S.? Africa is a place of desolation, AIDS, and starving children, right? And Islam! It seems that in the U.S. there are very few images of Islam that don't come from places of great extremism, like Saudi Arabia, or that are not related to terrorism and oppression of women.

Morocco is clearly nothing like that, and the way people dress provides some of the evidence.

Yes, many women here wear a hijab. I suspect that, the more rural the area, the more traditional the dress will be. I have seen many women with hair, arms, and legs covered with traditional-looking garb (still need to learn the names for all the variations). But many of the young women are putting an interesting spin on things, wearing a hijab with a tight-fitting long-sleeved top, leggings, and heels. On campus and in the marché, I have seen young women in what I would call very American-style tank tops, with bra straps showing. I saw quite a bit of cleavage on one young woman today. I have seen short sleeves, low tops, short skirts, tight pants. I have seen these clothes on students and University employees. I saw no inappropriate staring from men, nor have I heard cat calls or lewd comments. There are women of all ages wearing hijabs, and there are women not wearing them. The point is that it is a choice here, just as it is in most places. And I have seen no indication that Moroccan women who choose to dress modestly and/or wear a hijab have any expectation that others should do it.

Okay, guys, maybe you are wondering what you could wear here. I must confess that I have paid more attention to what women wear because that is more relevant to me. But with men, too, I have noticed a wide range of dress. I saw a man downtown wearing shorts and a t-shirt and have seen many men in jeans and t-shirts. It does seem, though, that a lot of men dress nicely, in suits or collared shirts with dress pants. Some men wear traditional Moroccan garb. Again, as with women, there is a great deal of variation.

We will go to Fes/Fez on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how dress is different in the big city from in our little resort town.