The Arsenal

There is a large building opposite the Hospital which is always shut. We have often wondered what was in it and how you get in. Amina Elbaz enlightens us as to the former at least:

     It is an outstanding architectural monument of the ancient city. It was built at the beginning of the twenthieth century by Haj Hammad Ben Hida Oummiss (the leader of the region at that time) who used to control the area of Taroudant. In the place of this house, there was an artificial mound of ash collected by the waste industry gunpowder before 1900.The Pacha Ahmed Ben Ali Alkebba was the first to think of building that palace there.

     This palace is composed of many decorated rooms with bathrooms and a big garden.It used to be the place where important political personalities were invited

Eid Mubarack

One of the High School students lists the menu for the day as :-

Mnouzia
Mechoui (Slownroasted shoulder of Lamb with cumin and herbs)
Herby wheat soup with milk
Liver Kebabs Boufal
Heart Kebabs and Lamb Kebabs
Tomato and Roasted Pepper Salad

Aaaargh! The auto pulishing timer thing did not work so this is a day late! Sorry!

This Friday will be Eid. Sunday was the last market before the feast and the centre of town was very quiet whilst everyone went out to the beastmarkets or farms to buy their sheep. However it was only in the last week that things had hotted up whereas Christmas is still two months off but the garden centre was already starting its Christmas display and some shops their Christmas music loops before we left Wales in September.

Imane Oubbih from the High School explains the significance of Eid.

"Aid Uladha is celebrated by Muslims all over the world as a tribute to those who are completing pilgrimage in Mecca on that day. At Aid Aladha, Muslims sacrifice sheep which have been deemed Halal or fit for sacrifice.  They not only eat the meat themselves but also distribute it amongst their neighbours, relatives, the poor and hungry. It is celebrated on the 10th day of the month of Dulhijja of the lunar islamic calendar ; after Hajj,the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.  While Aid El Fitr is considered to be one day, Aid El Adha is supposed to be four days .  In both celebrations, Muslims have to do prayers in the first day.

     During the days of this religious celebration, men, women, boys , girls and especially children wear new clothes to express their joy and happiness.  Also, families exchange visits.

     In the morning of Aid Uladha, women are the first to wake up very early to prepare breakfast for men and boys before going out to pray.  Men wear their new white djellabas (a loose garment), boys and girls wear their new clothes.  Aid Uladha breakfast is simple but not something that you would make everyday."

Thanks for the NHS

We tend to moan about the NHS but Danny Boyle got it right. There is no general  health service in Morocco, you have to take out insurance. Cover starts from as little as 600Dh but it is not compulsory. Most selfemployed people such as the market traders do not have it.
One of our friends is now regretting that as his wife is seriously ill. She has had one operation and needs several doses of chemotherapy and then another operation. She is getting excellent treatment at a clinic in Agadir but it costs thousands of euros a treatment which must be paid upfront.
We have had a number of friends needing similar treatment in Britain and it has been bad enough for them and their families getting through the illness without having to worry about remortgaging your house to pay the bills.
The picture is of the entrance to Taroudant Hospital. Thankfully I have not needed to use it. Many medicines which are prescription only in Britain can be bought over the counter here. I have managed not to test it for insulin but Metformin, hypertensive drugs, asthma inhalers and Beloved's gout medicine have all been bought from time to time. When I come out one of my hand luggage suitcases is just a mobile pharmacy but the drugs in it are free on the NHS. (I do pay all my taxes in Britain).  The drugs here may be relatively cheap but they are not the really cheap generic drugs, always the brand names. For people on a labourers wage of £100 pm they must be beyond dreams.
Given the difficulties in paying for treatment a universal health service seems only civilised altough it is obviously not possible to provide one until there is a reasonably robust tax collection regime. On the other hand it is an inducemennnt to pay taxes if you get something out. Seeing both systems I just can't understand why state health provision is such a contraversial matter in the US election campaign which is of course one of the richest and most developed economies in the world.  Perhaps that's a euro-centric view but I agree with Danny "Hurrah for the NHS"

Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day when you are asked to blog about a woman in science. Last year I blogged Lalla Selma but this year I am going to blog someone nearer to home; Sweetheart.

In a month when it was announced that only 20% of A level physics students are women ,she was one. She then went to University and took 3 degrees in Material Science, an engineering subject, so she is now the family doctor, although not a medical one. She then eschewed academic life for industry and took herself of to the High Peak to make bricks. Not your everyday bricks but very high tech bricks to line kilns and furnaces.
As she manages to combine an interesting and technical job with trips abroad for work, holidays on 5 continents, frequent trips to pop concerts and festivals, and a doomed but enthusiastic support for Aston Villa, together with time just to chill, listen to music and drink cider or cocktails, she is probably exactly the role model needed for young women half her age making their A level choices and wondering if Physics is a choice for girls.

King Mohammed V High School

                                           


Some of my future posts will be in collaboration with the local state High School. Some of the baccalaureate english students have been doing some work writing about Taroudant and its history.
First I will let Abdelwahad Ait Lachguer, a second year Bac Humanities student, tell you about the school:;

"Mohamed V High School was founded by the association of the Souss Oulama, (a group of religious scholars), in 1956 under the supervision of the king Mohamed V.  At that time, lessons started in different mosques in the city such as the Great mosque, the Kasbah mosque, and the Ferk Lahbab mosque.  It was inaugurated by the king in 1959.  It gave lessons in different religious disciplines only (original education).

     Mohamed V High is the biggest school in Taroudant. Our school is so special because its education ranges from primary to high school.  Today, particularly in 2008, it receives students from other disciplines like sciences, arts, and humanities (modern education).

This year 2011-2012, Mohamed V High School has a number of 1349 students divided between the three kinds of education : 61 in primary school (13 of them are girls), 233 in the middle school (89 girls), and 1055 in high school ( 514 are girls).There are 89 teachers (7 teachers of English).

     There are 45 rooms , a laboratory, two big libraries, a multi-media room, a mosque, a boarding house and many playgrounds for sport."

    

The school day is from 8am-12noon and 2-6pm. Students will not have 8 hours of lessons but will come and go according to their timetable. Teaching staff teach classes for 4 hours each day either in the morning or afternoon depending on their timetable and need not attend at the school for the other half day.

AYear On at the Sculpture Park

You may recall that last year Taroudant hosted an International Symposium which left us with a sculpture park. We went to see how it had progressed.
Well most strikingly given the white of the limestone there was no graffitti. Yellowism hasn't arrived here yet. The planting was looking more established, the trees particularly. The hedging was doing well but had been ruthlessly cut back to make it denser. My hedge could do with the same treatment, I'm too timid, and now it's pruned it has gaps where it was let to go too much. I feel a hard prune coming on in December.
The barriers around the fountain had been removed but the best improvement was the addition of a number  of rather comfortable benches offering seating other than on the statues even though the children seemed to prefer them. The nearby concourse has seating all round of course and that was beginning to look good with hedging growing all round the back. Of course somewhere somebody has had pictures of the final plans since the start,but we only see them realised gradually.

The Doors to Bab Taghout

The arabic "bab" appears to apply to any portal so we had an interesting discussion with friends as to why the town walls as well as castles and fields don't have doors but that their gates may have doors in them.
Bab Taghout's renovations are now finished and their huge old doors viewable again after months behind corrugated iron. There are two sets of doors, one closing the central gateway and one closing the access to the gatehouse from the side. They appear very old; I don't know if they've ever been replaced but they look like the original Saadian gates.They are made of wood and one has lost its covering so you can clearly see the making. The others retain there covering ,which appears to be strips of leather held in place by iron bolts but could possibly be  sheets of metal; The material is blackened by age and I didn't want to scrape at it to find out.
You can cleary see the massive posts around which they are hinged.
The gatehouse has an area which is covered with what could be bench like seating for sentries and where before the renovation people sat to sell bunches of mint and herbs. They haven't  returned presumably because of the clampdown on hawkers which evicted them from their temporary site to the side.

Banana Muffins

                                        

Usually this part of Morocco being so close to Aourir has a plentiful supply of their small sweet bananas but we seem to have hit an off season. Our greengrocer had none when we arrived and Marjane had only some sourced in "Equator". Consequently I overbought and had a lot of over-ripe bananas on my hands. As we were expecting visitors I experimented with Banana Muffins. I was pleased with the results so here's the recipe.


                                       


250g/10oz plain flour
1teasp        baking powder
1teasp        bicarbinate of soda
1/4teasp     salt
110g/4oz    sugar
3or4             ripe bananas mashed to a pulp
90ml/3floz   milk/buttermilk/water
90ml/3floz   oil or cooled meted butter
1                   egg
optional ingredients
vanilla essence
cinnamon
nutmeg
90g chopped walnuts
90g choc chips

Sift the flour salt and raising agents into a bowl. In another bowl mixtgether the other wet ingredients, pour into the flour and mix.
Put into 12 muffin tins and bake in a preheated oven at 190C or gas mark 5 for about 20-25 mins.

Very good when warm but will keep 3 days in an airtight container. I've frozen some but not yet tried any defrosted.

We brought the rain with us

We have been back just over a week and brought the rain with us. Morocco doesn't do drizzle so we spent quite a while hunkering inside, although we were lucky that last Tuesday was dry with small friendly clouds so we could get our essential european supplies in Agadir without getting wet. We travelled via Charleroi again because it's so much cheaper even when you pay twice for bags, and as the flight goes to Agadir, 24 hours car hire, which costs the same as a taxi from Agadir, fetches us home for dinner time and then allows a trip shopping to Agadir the next day and then Beloved returns the car and comes home by taxi. We thought we had learned no Arabic over the summer but Beloved was able to read the signs at the taxi rank to get the right destination, although of course the Taroudant taxi didn't go from the signed rank but the next along. Any way the stopover en route means I have a nice evil little stock of Belgian chocolate.
The hibiscus hedge has grown completely out of hand and is over Beloved's head height which is about 3' higher than it should be so he has some work to do. One of the plumbago plants is thriving happily now it is moved to the patio; the one in the pot next to it has died. The second draecena has died and the fan palm is unhappy although the weed  in it's pot is turning into a really good tree. The cacti have had babies and the pelargoniums have disappeared.
We have bought some yuccas to replace the draecena as an experiment because I am still quite jealous of the Artist's in her garden in Spain, and some succulents to replace the pelargoniums. If they don't survive the summer on the terrace we will have to resort to more cacti.



Yuccas waiting to be planted





Succulents waiting to be planted





The weed in the fan palm has strange fruit