Looking for me
I know. I am lost. But I’ll be back soon.
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Tags: flyer
A wonderful relaxed Sunday in Berlin: after a late waffles breakfast, reading under an umbrellain the rain, cleaning the sticky air, and enjoying a nice concert at night, while the rest of Berlin is at the Karneval der Kulturen.
rainy sunday
Berlin-based Masha Qrella, whose 2002 album Luck and 2005 Unsolved Remained I like very much, presented her new album Speak Low at Prater, one of the temporary Volksbühne Berlin in exile stages. The album is released on Morr Music and re-arranges some Broadway compositions by Frederick Loewe and Kurt Weill. Qrella does so without loosing her very own sound, giving the classic song-structures a smooth and precise beat (I especially enjoyed the amazing drum-solo by drummer Andi Haberl during the concert), and beautiful melodic guitars.
Listen and watch “I talk to the trees”.
Masha Qrella at Prater
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staff benda bilili
Yesterday, I went to one of my favorite Berlin record stores, not usually the place I would look for African music, and while listening to some new records on my list, I came across this wonderful music by the band Staff Benda Bilili from Kinshasa, D.R. Congo. Without having heard anything about the band or the record before, the sound caught my ear with being genuinely original and coming from heart, a great mix of influences and joy of playing music.
Staff Benda Bilili - Très Très Fort
Google for Staff Benda Bilili to read the story. Check out the label Crammed for more.
And here’s a video impression:
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Tags: cd, Congo, Kinshasa
berlin: sinfonie der grosstadt
A grey day in Berlin. One of the manies in March. After sleeping long but without really wanting to go outside I read the programme of the Arsenal and found this little jewel of a silent movie that I have been wanting to see for a long time. Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt is a film by German experimental film director Walter Ruttmann, who employed a range of new visual and editing techniques to portray one day of Berlin. The “movie-track” to Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz in a way.
The film transfers you back in time into a city that does not exist like this anymore, the scene as the train enters the then imposing Anhalter Bahnhof might stand symbolically. Now, people play football on the fields where the rails used to be. Only a piece of wall remains to remind.
But more impressive than the portray of the lively, crowded and vibrating life of the modern Berlin of the 20’s, is the atmosphere and freshness of the film. The rhythm of the images suck you in and make you live the day yourself, get you working, have lunch, cross the street when there is a little space, and dance the nights in Berlin.
Modern times were the times of greasy machine turning and producing. And the metros passing and stopping spitting out people. Machines and traffic made the world. But also entertainment: I loved the hommage to Charlie Chaplin, whose shoes can be seen shortly on the movie screen. Chaplin took up the theme in his movie Modern Times in 1936.
But Ruttmann also showed the other side of the pulsating Berlin, the poor, the beggars, the homeless kids on the streets.
After this wonderful play of light and darkness, of images composed to be felt, I left the cinema to the rainy streets of the Leipziger Platz, surrounded by skyscrapers (built as in Berlin Babylon, 2001). Constructing my own movie of my Berlin.
You can watch the movie here.
Morning in Berlin, 2008
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Tags: Berlin, film, movie
Rabat Airport. Somehow just another airport, a very small one maybe. I am missing the time when you were travelling and arriving slowly, when you had time to prepare yourself while travelling. Now: Some shimmering lights in the dark. I walk from the plane to the immigration building. I arrive in Rabat, Morocco to put my feet on African soil for the first time in my life. (…)
The report on my time in Morocco is online. Read it here. It is difficult to summarize, select experiences and get a grip on my time in Morocco. Here’s my try. And as mentioned in an earlier post, it will evolve with time.
To discuss our CrossCulture Internship in Morocco, I will sit together with Lena, who did the same programme in Rabat, on a panel at the book fair in Leipzig on Saturday, 14 March, 2pm. The panel is called “Germany, Morocco and back” and will be moderated by Judith Schulte-Loh from ZOOM Europa/ARTE .
It’s great, as while I am sure we will have a good time to reflect our experiences, I also have never been on a book fair. I love reading, especially as it allows me to submerge myself into a different culture. In Morocco, I read one of the national classics by Driss Chraïbi “Le Passé simple” (The Simple Past), published in 1954, and I still owe you a review.
The Leipzig fair will be a great opportunity to find some promising German authors for a change.
Luttons la corruption
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Tags: books, corruption, culture, Morocco, working
one Monday night at club transmediale in Berlin. cables all plugged in, retrieving energy for the week.
with
a listen into el fog and his vibraphone
nq giving a nice ambienty and glitchy uptempo idm set
Keiichiro Shibuya, playing with your head creating white noise
and Pan Sonic (picture) the masters of creating beats and sound.
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Zwitscher-Maschine
Paul Klee - Die Zwitscher-Maschine
The painting shows the Zwitscher-Maschine (Twittering Machine, 1922) by German painter and Bauhaus teacher Paul Klee (1879-1940). As usual, the colours used by the artist can only be acknowledged in seeing the paintings. But I love his combinations of slightly pale, but beautifully mixed colours, with a strong colourful accent now and then. Interestingly, he is said to reach a break-through in the use of colour by traveling to Tunisia in 1914. His hand-drawings and lettering, imperfect but precise, contrast and enrich the work, making it truly unique. And then there is so much more to discover in his paintings.
The great exhibition under the theme Cult of the Artist on Paul Klee at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (and here) sumerges you in his cosmos, giving and explaining the background of his symbols and motives, his universe. I think, I prefer the word cosmos to describe his world, being somewhat more fantastic, and to match the paintings that he crowds with drawings of faces, plants, animals and other forms.
Curiously, I had to think about twitter (here’s my own one), when looking at the painting above, feeling that in a way, this painting receives a new, visionary meaning.
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Tags: art, Berlin, exhibition, painter, twitter
Obama’s inauguration speech
There can much be said about yesterday’s day, but the most important was said by Barack Obama in his inauguration speech, as 44th President of the USA.
Maybe just to highlight two sentences relating to my recent Moroccan work experience:
“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
and
“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history — but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Image created with Wordle and a nice overview of a similar analysis on the New York Times. His speech can be found here (and on youtube).
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Tags: people, politics, usa
new year
Berlin is re-freshingly white, cold and quiet.
Everything here is white, offering clear space for a new year. What do I want to write in the snow? I am back in Berlin, and it feels a little bit like when I just started working for Transparency Maroc two months ago.
One short thought on my time in Morocco. Sometimes I am tempted to say that the most important part of this “internship” is now over, now that I have returned. I could carry on and live and do things just as I did before. But in reality, I have to face that I need to look at all these experiences over the last weeks and look at what the little and the big moments I’ve lived mean for my work and my life. Some comments I’ve made on this blog already, some more may follow while I am caught up back in my day-to-day activities. Some observations may strike me the next time I will be in the region, working or traveling, or the next time I will be discussing issues related to the region with my colleagues or friends – and some will become clear to me only in a couple of years… or maybe never.
Will I change my life now, compared to how I lived it before? Maybe not. Maybe yes. But I am definitely more conscious again of HOW I am living it, and how it could be different, if I wanted it to be, or if I were born under a different star.
Happy new year.
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merry christmas
This year is probably the one where I less feel like Christmas in my life. It is interesting how all the surroundings such as the advent calendars, the decoration, the cold, the days at home with friends and family, looking for presents come into play to create this feeling of celebration. Christmas may be commercialised in many ways, starting with selling Christmas sweets in September may not be necessary, but still, it is also a way of preparing yourself, something I am missing actually.
Also, I just found out today that the building the offices of Transparency Maroc are in and the whole block, was once a cathedral.
But I found this nice graffiti - something that can be found hardly in Morocco - on my trip to Meknes. It doesn’t say Merry Christmas, but there is a candle and something that can be interpreted as a snow flake (with some goodwill).
I wish you all une Bonne Année, a Happy New Year. I probably don’t get to post anything, but maybe I’ll have some time during my short travel down the coast to Essaouira and Marrakesh.
24 December - bonne annee
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Tags: Christmas, culture
In Rabat
I arrived in Rabat last week. Many new impressions and very different from what I expected it to be. Somewhat – less radical. I’ll be sharing these with you over the next couple of weeks. For some fast food thoughts on the day-to-day of my life, follow my twitter account at: www.twitter.com/georg_neu.
First of all, I was looking for an image representing my new home.
-
- Hassan tower, Rabat
One is of the main monuments of Rabat, the 44 meter high Hassan tower, a minaret built in 1195 that was never finished. It is just aside the ruins of the sultan Yacoub al Mansour mosque that was destroyed by an earthquake in the 18th century, forming a beautiful plaza, where young Moroccan couples meet to sit on a bank and talk. I took the picture from the viewpoint of the impressive Mausoleum of Mohamed V who is the founder of independent Morocco.
And the other one is the slightly contrasting view from the window of my room.
I also wrote a short piece here about a couple of initial observations on digital activities and the environment civil society groups are working in Morocco on a blog I am running with my colleague Conrad Zellmann at Transparency International on using social media to fight corruption.
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Oudaden
Looking on one of my favorite blogs Awsome Tapes from Africa for Moroccan music, I came across Oudaden, a Moroccan Amazigh (Berber) band that caught my ear with its contemplative and mind-travelling sound. Here’s a short portrait of the band from a festival website where they will be playing in February 2009:
Oudaden, one of Morocco’s mythical groups of the last twenty years, draws its inspiration from traditional Amazigh music. Their music is an innovative mix of typical bendir and nakus sounds; these traditional Amazigh instruments they combine with modern ones including banjo, electric guitar and tam-tam. In their universal lyrics they explore the subtleties of love as well as the economic and social difficulties of their region, bein g the spokespersons of Amazigh culture.
Also look at their quite colorful blog for some videos.
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Tags: amazigh, berber, music
How to drink Moroccan tea
Little things that are helpful to know, lesson number 1: here’s how you have to serve Moroccan tea.
After spilling half of the pot the previous times I had some Moroccan tea, which is lightly sugared green tea with mint leafs, yesterday, I was finally shown how you get all the tea in the glass. Please excuse the slightly blurred picture. It was actually quite difficult to serve with one hand, and take a picture with the other.
Pouring Moroccan tea
The trick is to elevate the teapot and to find the right angle to hold it while pouring so that the tea and mint leafs in the pot do not cover the spout from inside. Once served, the tea will have a head, similar to a beer.
Enjoy your warm tea, especially during cold and rainy November days in Rabat.
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Tags: culture, Morocco, tea
Adieu Mères
There are few movie theatres in Rabat. The Institute Française shows movies in their little theatre on Saturday’s and Sunday’s at 6:30pm. But then there’s the theatre 7ème Art, just in the centre of the city. A quite modern building with a Bauhausian name sign above the entrance, at one side of a plaza next to the city centre’s main avenue Mohamed V.
Since I arrived two weeks ago, they have been showing the same movie, Adieu mères (Goodbye Mothers) by Mohamed Ismail, his fourth film. If you have a look at the poster, you might not necessarily feel very attracted to go see it. But entrance is 15 Dirham (1 Euro 50), it’s part of Moroccan culture, and it deals with a topic, Jewish emigration in the 60’s, that is being discussed recently in Morocco and was on the cover of one of the main weekly magazines, TelQuel, that titled last week: The Jew in Us (story in French). So tonight was the night. Function was on at 9pm, as every night. I went with a friend and we got our ticket from the ticket counter, right next to the entrance that leads directly into the one big hall, with the hallway in the middle (where usually the best seats are). Comfortable, red, slightly run-down and squeaking seats. But it gives you this feeling of a movie theatre. Not a multiplex, but really a place to appreciate a film. Not many were there to appreciate tonight’s function though. It started of with a Moroccan short movie, called Liberé Provisoire that although with some parts in Arabic, had a nice little plot of a man who leaves prison, picks up the money he had hidden, and looses it when he goes into a bar following a woman making him eyes… and a surprising ending.
Adieu Mères is telling the story of a Jewish community in Morocco, filmed on the background of Jewish emigration to Israel in the 60s, where a thousand year long history of Jewish population exists. Today only about 2,000 remain, while in 1950 there were nearly 250,000 on 10 million Moroccans. The story turns around the impossible love between a young Jewish girl and the Muslim boy, and a father, who feels he has to leave family and his best friend behind for a better living.
The film is tragic, very tragic and touches on the deepest feelings of human nature, home (what we call in German “Heimat”), friendship, love, sorrow, and family. It is different in a sense that it doesn’t use the acting, cutting and story telling in a way we are used, and the score is somewhere between Once upon a time and Titanic, but the feelings can be understood anywhere. So I’ll be back for more, whenever the programme may change.
By the way, the movie is nominated for best foreign movie for next year’s Oscars celebration and talking about Hollywood, for Hollywood movies go to the Medina, where the latest can be found for just 10 Dirham (about 1 Euro). One might think sometimes even before they are out in the USA.
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Tags: film, history, Jews, Morocco, movie
advent calendar day 1
I have decided to prepare a little advent calendar picturing day-to-day life and mixing German Christmas culture with my days here in Rabat. Things that I do here, things that Moroccans do, and things that you may be doing at home as well. Today, and as a little follow-up to yesterday’s post, I have chosen to show you the movie theatre tickets.
1 December - Going to the movies
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Tags: advent calendar, cinema, movie, things, ticket
Working in Rabat
As I have been telling you all the other things that I am doing here so far, let me tell you a little bit on what I am working on these days in Rabat and what is something like my day-to-day. Both equally important bits to understanding as you might well imagine.
Here I am working for Transparency International’s national chapter Transparency Maroc. The chapter also runs the Observatoire de la Corruption, a project that, in short, monitors national news stories on corruption to identify key areas where the national integrity system fails, and makes recommendations on how corruption in different sectors can be tackled. My main tasks until now have been mostly related to the Observatoire, but also included preparations for the upcoming launch of the national Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre, a centre “providing assistance to witnesses and victims of corruption and provide valuable information about corruption hotspots to drive the advocacy efforts of the anti-corruption movement”. See more detailed information here. For the launch, I am working on the communications strategy.
I don’t really have daily tasks and do mostly individual projects, as well as learn how different a national chapter of Transparency International is structured and works. While there is a surprising amount of awareness and understanding for the need and benefits of professional communications, there are still some issues that remain to be done. So I am engaged in rather conceptual work, as well as a couple of little things where I can help out, for example with preparing an interactive cd-rom presentation for journalists.
my desk and view
So, a normal day starts with getting up at 8am and getting to the office at 9am, pretty much as I do in Berlin too. Only the way to work is shorter, about 2-3 minutes walking, about two blocks and I am there. When the sun is shining, I stand a couple of minutes standing in the sun before crossing the street. Lately, this moment of my day has turned out to be a little difficult, as it’s been cloudy, cold and rainy. Lunch is around 1pm (as everyone else does), but we don’t have lunch together, so either I go to one of the many places close by to have some French fries and a sandwich, a tajine (to be explained in a later post on the culinary delights), or couscous, on Fridays, or sometimes I pass by the flat to have lunch with Saâd, my room-mate and volunteer for Transparency Maroc. And back home around 6pm or a little later, but usually not as late as in Berlin.
To finish this little post, here’s my working space, an empty table, in a white room. A lot of space for re-thinking approaches.
That’s because the offices have just been moved into and will host the ALAC starting in January, as well as the Observatoire.
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Tags: corruption, working
advent calendar day 2
Things you do in Rabat: going shopping in the Medina (Arabic for “city” and refers usually to the old part of an Moroccan city). It is mostly walled with a inmense labyrinth of alleys inside. In the main arteries are all the shopping booths selling cloths, shoes, cd’s, food, spices, cel phones, leather products, cloth, meat, turtles, well, in short: everything. It gets really busy in the afternoon.
2 December - In the Medina
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Tags: Medina, shopping
advent calendar day 3
Things you do in the morning: visiting Morocco’s main news portal www.menara.ma in Arabic and French, your starting point for all information on what’s happening in Morocco, including the exact times for the prayers in all main cities, news, weather forecast, train departures, radio, jobs, and partners. The portal is run by Morocco’s largest telecommunication company Maroc Telecom.
3 December - portal Menara
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Tags: news
advent calender day 4
Things you do in Rabat: One of the weekends I went to take a little walk towards the sea and have a cup of tea watching over the river Bou Regreg from the Kasbah of the Udayas with its buildings beautifully painted in blue and white. The river separates Rabat from its little brother Salé on the other side of the river. On the shore, I saw this man washing a vegetables box. I liked the picture and wanted to share it with you.
4 December - man on the shore
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Tags: Kasbah, river, tea
Nous habitons ici!
I just came back from a little, but very inspiring and lively exhibition of the project of my ifa-programme colleague Lena Seik, who has been working here in Rabat for the last two months. Kids in a kindergarden in Salé, the city just next to Rabat, worked with her to show how they are living. Inspired by contemporanean Moroccan artists such as Amina Benbouchtam, member of the contemporanean artist group Collectif212, the kids worked on little kleenex-boxes and shoe cartons displaying their homes. The little box on the image below shows one of the houses. At the same time, kindergarden kids in Leipzig, Germany did a similar project, and exchanged with the Moroccan kids their impressions via letters. Look at the blog RABAT LEIPZIG where you can meet the kids and see many pictures.
la chambre d'un enfant
It really felt like a little exchange crossing languages, countries, generations, artists and, maybe, who knows, soon-to-be artists. Oh, and not to forget that the catering at the vernissage was great. A lot of candy and soda. Just right for the kids… and me.
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Tags: artist, exhibition, kids
advent calendar day 5
Things I like to do in Rabat: especially in the city centre there are newspaper stands about every 50 meters. Although “stands” doesn’t describe it well, as the papers are laid-out all over the floor. National dailies, some international newspapers, weekly magazines and some religious books can be purchased just at the normal price all day long. I liked this corner stand on the picture, close to the train station. It seems so quiet, after the busy daytime.
5 December - Newspaper stand
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Tags: news
advent calendar day 6
Especially for St Nicholas in Gemrany, things I love buying after lunch or on my way home: have a mix of different nuts and seeds - almonds, peanuts, pistachios, chick peas, sunflower seeds, cashews. 200 grams are up to 10 Dirham (1 Euro). The ones that I prefer are the sweet ones, sugar roasted, prepared in an open pan in front of the kiosk. You can see that every nut or seed has its own box. And of course, you can get all other kinds of cookies and candies.
6 December - candy stand
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Tags: food sweets
With a bicycle in Tanger
I have been travelling a little bit this weekend, wandering Chefchouans beautiful medina and breathing the air of the Rif mountains chain at the ruins of an old Spanish built mosque. Today I arrived at Tanger, the border tozn in the north, new economic centre. Baptised the Interzone in the 50’s, where everything was allowed. I like the word; expressing so much more, describing the feeling of transit, of beeing between the worlds. Although Tanger actually appears more Arab. Curiously, the Instituto Cervantes will be opening an exhibition of the Mexican-American border, advertised with a picture of the border fence in Tijuana; this other famous border town on the American continent; Tijuana, welcome, where… Standing at a viewpoint in the Casbah, looking over the straight of Gibraltar, thinking of all the hopes, the dreams these places bear.
But here again I found a nice and very central movie theatre, inviting to watch the 7pm function of the Moroccan movie “Le Velo”, first full time feature by Hamid Faridi (see an interview in French with him here). The theatre was, again, empty, but I enjoyed the movie:
The movie is set-up with a basic plot of telling the story of a father and its two daughters, of which one is handicapped who are faced with their evil uncle and the superintdendent of the local police, who want to get hold of the house the family lives in and owns. When the father’s health is getting worse through a heart attack, things turn into worse as the daughters face loosing the house to the uncle, only male in the family. There seems to be no way out until the handicapped daugther disappears with the sick father and the bicycle.
The second part of the movie is the stronger part of the story, turning into a dramatic-comic road movie with the whole police force, the daughter and her best friends chasing behind the missing. Le Velo criticises machism in Moroccan society, believing women to be helpless without a men and displaying everyday machism and the constraints society places upon them. The movie portrays strong women, fighting for their place and right. An atmospheric soundtrack flickers to the takes, catching the landscape and the faces of the characters (not always well focussed). A brave little movie that deserves definitely more audience.
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Tags: border, machism, migration, movie, religion
advent calendar day 7
Things yoou do in Morocco once a year: get yourself a sheep or goat to celebrate the Aid El Kebir, honor Abraham’s sacrifice. This year it’s on 9 December. But be warned, there will be many, many other families buying one, too. Estimates expect 5 million animals to be sold for the celebration. The picture shows the market in Tetouan, prolonging my bus ride from Chefchouan 2 hours, stuck in the traffic, between sheep, cars and people.
7 December - sheep market
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Tags: religion
advent calendar day 8
How to best move yourself around in Morocco: travel by train. this is a wonderful and relaxed way to see the vast and beautiful country. I admit this is not a particularly attractive photo of the train. It shows the train station of Sidi Kacem, on my way from Tanger to Rabat, and it is the somewhat standard look of the train stations that I have seen so far. But as it was raining, I just jumped out of the train, took the picture and went back in again. Traveling by train is also incredibly cheap, compared to Germany in any case, but also relative to the income level, 91 Dirham (little more than 8 Euros) for around 5 hours.
8 December - train station
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Tags: train, travel
advent calendar Aïd el-Kebir
Today, 9 December, is Aïd el-Kebir in Morocco, the “grande fête”, the celebration of Abraham’s sacrifice by Muslims all around the world. The Aïd is one of the main celebrations of Islam commemoration the willingness of prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael. It is a social fest, with families and friends getting together for the days of the celebration. This year, the 9 and 10 of December were given as holidays.
One of the main rituals, and probably the most visible one, of the celebration is the sacrifice of the animal, mainly sheep and mutton, but also goats, by cutting their throats. Walking through the streets of the rather tiny town of Chefchouan prior to the day where the food for the animals being sold in the narrow streets, I could observe the people letting their knifes being sharpened, hear the sheep being held in the houses baaing. People dress up for the day, and in Chefchouan they also re-freshed the blue painting of the houses.
9 December - re-freshing the colour of your house
The official estimates talk about 5 million animals being sold and sacrificed, which makes on a population of just over 30 million basically one animal per family. In previous years, nearly all Moroccan families celebrated the sacrifice. An astonishing number, especially when looking at an average price of 40-50 Dirham (3-4 Euro) per kilo of the living animal, making up to 2500 Dirham for the animal, more than the average monthly salary of low-income families. So no wonder that small credits to purchase your yearly mutton were announced well ahead. Some of the newspapers and magazines also highlighted the social constraints, rather than the religious necessity, the cost of the animal and the sacrifice entails.
I was invited to join the family of one of the members of Transparency Maroc, staying over in a hotel next to a lake, about an hour drive from Rabat. A very nice experience.
More information on the Aïd on wikipedia. Does anyone have any other good sources on this to share? I would be interested to know. If you google, the main resources coming up are sacrifices filmed and put on youtube.
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Tags: aid el kebir, celebration, religion
Anti-corruption day
9 December is also international Anti-corruption Day. Transparency International’s national chapters have organised a multitude of events to commemorate, raise the awareness for the need to tackle corruption, and invite everyone to join events such as cartoon exhibitions in Bangladesh and awarding anti-corruption fighters in Sri Lanka. More information on 9 December and events by chapters can be found here.
Transparency International also launched the 2008 Bribe Payers Index today, exposing the degree to which companies of the leading exporting nations are likely to engage in bribery when doing business abroad.
Also, 
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has initiated the campaign: “Your No Counts”. I post the campaign slogan in Arabic, as I am in Morocco currently.
And here’s the video to the campaign. Have a look:
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Tags: corruption, Transparency International
advent calendar morning coffee
Things I love to do in Morocco, and that I did every morning the first couple of days after arriving and always when I have some time to sit in the sun: having a cup, or I should rather say glass of coffee in the morning. It is just the best way to start the day. I get myself a nice piece of sweet bread, maybe with an almond filling, find a nice coffee place that has a table in the sun, there are tea and coffee places on every corner, and get a coffee. I still haven’t figured out which coffee to get exactly when I want it just with a little bit of milk – café au lait, café cassé – as the black coffee is quite strong and usually drunk with sugar. But for sure, the good coffee comes in a glass.
This picture of a coffee place at the entrance to the Medina is somewhat unusual, as normally there are exclusively men sitting at the tables watching the people passing by.
10 December - morning coffee
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Tags: coffee
advent calendar washing
Things you have to do in Morocco, but also in all the other parts of the world. The one’s following my tweets may remember the search. I had to walk all the streets of the area here in Agdal, to finally find what I needed two days later. A place to wash my cloth. It’s always the stock of socks and the short that indicate the moment I have to go. This week it was difficult because of the holidays. I had to wash at home to get over the days. But then it’s quick. I bring it in during lunch break around 1pm, and I can pick it up after work. All washed, dried and folded. One machine, 5 Euro. I really like the polar bear (Knut?) watching over my cloth. It gives the place Laverie Libre Service a friendly and home-like face.
11 December - washing
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Tags: cloth, washing
Moroccan dub
When I arrived in Rabat, I started to look around for blogs where I might find some information on places to go out, Moroccan musicians and artists. I was lucky that I found Culture Maroc. Unfortunately the blog was discontinued in early summer, but I stumbled upon a little pearl of a Moroccan electronic music producer and musician presented in one of the posts.
Dubosmium, living in Casablanca, produces an atmospheric Dub that he mixes with elements of traditional Arab and Moroccan music without becoming too folkloric. And when he backs out his bass, it’s getting really nice. He just published his second album this year called Green Elements with eight haunting tracks, three tracks are new material and five are remixes, on the the French netlabel Fresh Poulp Records. Both of his albums, the other one being the maxi Horionzontal Plane Polar Dub, a little rougher than Green Elements, are available for download for free. Listen to his music at myspace. This perfect landscape music has since been in the earphones at work, in the train, right now. Hopefully he’ll be making it to Berlin sometime next year, as I don’t see any shows coming up in Rabat.
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Tags: dub, music
advent calendar couscous
It’s Friday. What do you have for lunch? It’s couscous day. In the land of couscous, traditionally you’ll get your couscous only on Friday. Of course, there are places where you might get the dish on other days, too, mainly places frequented by tourists, though. Why is that? I had the same question but I haven’t received one matching answer yet. It doesn’t really matter: as long as it tastes great.
12 December - couscous dish
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Tags: couscous, food
advent calendar bakery
Things I love to do in the mornings (although I must admit that the image has been taken night-time) in Rabat is passing by the bakery to get myself some sweet bread. Wonderful stuff. I very much like the fillings with almonds, but there is much more. Not to talk about the pastery, amazing. Yesterday, at a seminar organised by Transparency Maroc and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the pastery for coffee break was great. At press conferences, such as yesterday’s by Transparency Maroc, or the one presenting the installation of the Moroccan anti-corruption agency, you usually have tea, coffee and pastery for the journalists. I’d love to be a journalist here for that (for other reason’s I wouldn’t).
13 December bakery
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Tags: corruption, food, pastery
advent calendar football
People all around the world watch footballs. So do Moroccans, although the Spanish, and also the French league are followed maybe more than the national one (the Groupement National de Football). And Moroccans really create a great atmosphere when gathering in the tea houses to watch the great matches, such as yesterday’s classic FC Barcelona against Real Madrid. The place was packed and the two goals in the last 10 minutes of the game for Barça made the majority of the fans happy. But the Casillas shouts when he held the penalty showed that there is support for both teams. Here’s a pic of the crowd.
14 December - football
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Tags: football
advent calendar – mosaic
Here’s something I love about Moroccan decor. The tiles that can be found everywhere, from the walls of the restaurants, the houses, the door frames, the washing facilities of the mosques. One example that I took in the restaurant in the Medina in Rabat:
15 December - mosaic
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Tags: architecture, decor
advent calendar waste
I know, it may be something totally trivial, but when I saw, it just struck me as something very fascinating. It may not be very advent like and the image is quite raw, but I hope you get the idea. To dispose the waste, you just through it in this little waste elevator in one direction (down), just outside of your door in the hallway, and you’ll never see it again. I’ve been told that is not typically Moroccan, and that it exists in the US as well, but coming from would-like to be green and recycling Germany – in practice this is frighteningly not happening – it seems to be worth a calendar entry.
14 December - waste
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Tags: Germany, recycling, waste
advent calendar casablanca
I somehow have the impression that there aren’t as many installations (usually do not serve anything but filling the space and, sometimes, look good) on Morrocans public spaces, plazas and crossings, than in Europe.
But yesterday I left to Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, and the biggest city with nearly 4 million people, just 55 minutes from Rabat, to go to the official headquarters of Transparency Maroc. Well, headquarter sounds maybe a little exagerated, but it is the main administrative office, a tiny, but very nice two-room flat with a great view on the backyard from the bathroom.
There are many impressions of the city that I hope to be able to share with you in a later post, but for now, I wanted to add this picture of the United Nations square, and the clock tower of the Medina in the background. I like this half globe in the middle of the crossing, picking up the earthy colors of the murals of the Medinas, and contrasting modernity with tradition, a contrast that is in developpment all over the country.
17 December Casablanca
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Tags: architecture, Casablanca
advent calendar haircutting
The one’s who know me in person, know about my sometimes rebellish hair. It was about time that I addressed this, as about every half a year or so, and so I went to a hair dresser that Saâd, my roommate, recommended. I actually like the word coiffeur, it sounds so classy, so haute couture. I arrived at half past eight and there were still two other clients waiting, watching one of the main Moroccan TV channels, so I took out my magasin until it was my turn. The place is a one-man show, run by a very nice man who did a great job in cutting my hair, quick and effective, the sound of the fast, nearly rhythmic scissors in my ear. The only surprise, or let me say, I somewhat expected it, came at the end, when he dried my hair finalising it that it looked a little bit like the picture. Seems to be his trade mark. Fortunately, my curls were all back into place the next day…
18 December - coiffeur
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advent calendar sea
I couldn’t believe that I’ve been here, right next to the sea, for over a month and I haven’t even gotten close to the water. Looking from the Casbah, I’ve only seen the beach from above, watching the young Moroccans surf and play football. There’s quite a tradition to go surfing and a couple of surfing clubs here in Rabat, and yesterday’s wonderful waves gave a nice taste why. While the really nice beaches and fish restaurants can rather be found a couple of kilometers outside of Rabat, the city beach gives you the possibility to breath some fresh sea air and sit on the stones of the pier enjoying the sun.
As I really wanted to finally touch the water yesterday, I went really close to the water to put my hand into the water… you might already imagine what happened, as yes, as I’ve been telling you, there were waves, one of them caught me just when I put my hand into the water to feel the temperature and the amount of salt of that part of the Atlantic sea. Of course, I had to walk around the whole day with wet shoes that, despite the sun, did not dry. Now, writing this on this blog, I have to have my cleenex next to me…
21 December - the sea
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