A Decade of Change

Beloved pointed out that it is exactly 10 years since we bought the house so I thought I'd reflect on the changes we have noticed in that time.

Phones
When we moved here people still made a living having a booth with a number of payphone land lines. Now everybody has mobiles with internet, mostly on contract. The technology jumped households having individual lines and the use of recharge cards for mobiles is rapidly disappearing. Dongles are consigned to the past.

Metalled roads
There are more and more roads getting metalled. This is causing a decrease in the use of donkeys, a growth in car usage and motorbikes/dockers, an increase in bus and taxi routes and generally more traffic leading to traffic lights and one way systems east of Agadir.

Language usage
More and more people speak English. It was introduced to a wider school curriculum after the current King came to the throne in 2000 and the beneficiaries are now filling  jobs in shops and government departments making our life easier although it is harder to evade police speeding fines by feigning non-comprehension as some bright young officer will be summoned to translate. Probably more importantly much signage is now tri-lingual reflecting the introduction of Amazigh languages into the school curriculum from kindergarten up after the Arab Spring.

Electricity is more widespread
As coverage expands so does the sale of fridge freezers (particularly just before Eid) and H
huge screen televisions and satellite dishes.

There is less snow on the Atlas
This is obviously a somewhat subjective assessment of a feature that varies from year to year but there is an accepted consensus that over time the snow (and rain) is decreasing.

Another entirely subjective assessment of my own would be that people seem to be slightly better off and there is a trend towards not working on Friday and perhaps closing for longer at lunch. This could be people becoming more devout but I think it is more likely because they can afford some leisure time rather than having to work  all day every day.

Almost Blue Skies

Despite my pessimism the hedge has grown back quite well and the roses are in bud.

 It is a little cooler today 24C and very pleasant for lunch at the Jnane Soussia but we are in no way prepared for our return home tomorrow to unimaginable cold of 7C. Even worse, we go to Buxton on Friday with a predicted maximum of 2C.
So pictures of our terrace plants and blue skies for the Model-maker.

The Orange Festival

About 3 weeks ago it was announced that Taroudant would hold an Orange Festival last weekend. Fair enough, Taliouine has its saffron Festival and Tafroute an Almond Festival and Taroudant is famous for its oranges so we went along. It was very popular with a square of stalls erected on Place 26 Octobre.

 What was missing were oranges. Outside the festival proper were lots of stalls selling snacks, popcorn, crisps, tea, sweets and chocolate bars, inside the stalls were principally government endorsed cooperative

 although there were some completely commercial stalls. There were many Argan Co-operatives selling cosmetics, oil and amalou 

 but also stalls selling various grains and herbs. A rose product co-operative came all the way from Gnouna and saffron from Taliouine. The date stall was popular and the stalls selling Ghandara and the sari-like lengths of cloth the Berber women wear. There were also babouches from Tafroute

 and jewellery  although not of great quality.

Reindeer Sales

750 Dh may buy a new-born baby in Taroudant but in Agadir it buys a rather sad 4ft artificial Xmas tree, the old fashioned sort with branches that fold out flat and have about 9" between them. As a muslim country Morocco does not celebrate Xmas but increasingly the cities celebrate "Bonne Annee"  complete with Santa Claus. 
Marjane with its large ex-pat clientele had decided to capitalise and whilst some of the shops in the complex had not finished their "Black Sale" the supermarket was not only selling Xmas trees and tinsel but had expanded its offering of chilled whole turkeys and  huge boxes of expensive foreign chocolates. When we got to the till the cashier was wearing a headband of a pair of bright, sparkly, red antlers. And it was still November!!
Thankfully none of this has permeated to Taroudant.

Echo's of a past life

Reading the news feed for Taroudant and it's much too much what I retired here to escape. On Tuesday a local Iman or Fiqu decided to celebrate the Moulud (the birthday of the Prophet) by raping a 9 year old girl sent to him for religious instruction. Even worse for a graduate of the internet twins saga a couple were arrested last week for purchasing a newborn baby for 750 Dh (less than £60).

At least here the culprits are arrested rather than there being a religious cover-up; and full marks to the Registrar who spotted the false birth story.

Meanwhile different websites give weather forecasts for next week as consistently under 20C ranging down to 15C or consistently over 20C ranging up to 25c. I'll choose the latter please.

From the Walls

The Cellist and the Doctor had evening flights home so we spent the day around town, looking round the Kasbah and letting them do some shopping . They were very restrained, the Cellist buying only some jewellery  for her Grand-daughters' Xmas and the Doctor just some coffee, dates and apricots; quite a contrast to the Quaker. We went up on the walls by the Kasbah gate. Sadly the derelict palace where the storks used to nest has been demolished so there were none but we manage to get some good views of the town and  snow on the Atlas.

The Doctor's Sketches

We had been wondering about the Doctor as we had never met him before although we'd met his mother several times. He turned out to be a most congenial, if somewhat energetic, guest. One of his hobbies is painting and although he hadn't brought his watercolours he had brought the basics to make pen and ink sketches. He had fallen in love with Bab Taghout at the end of our road immediately but found an equal interest in the other gates on his evening run round the walls. (5miles. I'd told him 5km but what's a unit between friends?)
So, the next day off he went on Beloved's bike and made some more quick 20min/1/2hour sketches. Sadly he makes them in a sort of annual diary so I wasn't able to blag one.

Claudio Bravo: The Paintings

Bravo's early work was as a portraitist but the a relatively few portraits at the Palais, several copies of his drawings of Hassan II and Mohammed VI, an oil painting of his friend Charles Forbes, a drawing of Paul Bowles

 and a group portrait of Bashir's football team in Tangier.

He took the daughter of the estate carpenter as his model and it is in these posed pictures we see his pre-occupation with colour.

He made some recurring themes exploring colour, draped material,

 shanks of wool,

 still lives,

 babouches.

Latterly his most sought after paintings were of packages and there are many examples of these.

Claudio Bravo; The Collections

Claudio collected various pieces of art. Some are placed around the house and gardens such as the classical statuary,

 Bronze figures

 and Mexican figures,

instruments anddinosaur skulls,often paired with his drawings of them

 and Malian masks,

and stepladder

 but he built a Kouba-like  showroom specifically to display his collection of early Moroccan ceramics. On his death the kouba affiliations seemed appropriate so he is buried there with a plain Moroccan-style gravestone.