Progress

Well we have the answer - it's up to the first floor. Well cracked on in 5 weeks.

The Builders and the Water Bill

We got our water bill. Clearly nextdoor had got one too. The mother who is never seen was downstairs screaming. The builders foreman was in the road looking embarassed and shouting back. The fat boy was looking even more embarassed and shouting for his Dad. the argument got even more bitter and hysterical. The mother stomped off upstairs and a water bill shot through the window into the street.
This explained a lot. You will recall that the builders had obtained their water from a hosepipe connected to next door and strung across the street. It was now obvious that whilst next door had fully cooperated no agreement had been reached about payment for the water used and the arrival of the water bill had concentrated minds on the problem.
That said our water bill if scaled up for the period we were using it to 12 months would be about one third of our water rates in Wales and as Wales is known for its rainfall and southern Morocco for its lack of it it can be inferred there is probably more work and infrastructure required to supply it in Taroudant. Certainly they never have a hosepipe ban although pressure will fall at times of high demand and may easily stop just when everyone wants to shower before Eid.
The building progressed rapidly with lots of hand mixed concrete and shuttered beams. They had by then connected themselves to a water source on site. Peace had broken out by the weekend when son could be seen driving round on the foreman's morobike, casually driving up to groups of other young teenagers roaring the throttle and riding off. I wonder how far they will have got when we get back at the weekend.

ALI BABA AND THE 40....

We met up with Ali Baba and the Knitter the other day to go and see Tinariwen at the Liverpool Phil. They had continued their spending spree after they left us so  at the rate they were paying they probably found their 40 thieves , though maybe not for all their purchases. They had bought babouches and more wooden spoons and books on the Marjorelle and moroccan doors and the bags and jewellery below.

Tinariwen were on form. They were concerned that the world was deserting the Toureg and asking us to buy CDs to further their cause. It's all a bit more complicated than that but thankfully seems to be affecting Mali more than Southern Morocco.
Both Mali and Southern Morocco were tribal areas before colonial intrusions. They had not really belonged to any major state since the demise of the Songhai empire. The europeans states in late 19th and early 20th centuries started competing to add to their empires. If R Cunningham-Greene had reached Taroudant doubtless it would have come under British control but France won out in both Morocco and Mali and Spain made a late grab in the Western Sahara. Being a fascist state it managed to hold on until the mid-seveties when the old King reclaimed the Western Sahara in the Green March. This was somewhat of a disappointment for the Saharwis who had been expecting a self-determined own state. A war has been progressing on and off there ever since with Algeria throwing in assistance to the "rebels" whenever it suits them. The Tuareg country is inland from the Saharwi spanning southern Morocco and Algeria and northern Mali and they too have self-determination ambitions. The problem to any resolution is that the Western Sahara has 90% of the world's phosphate deposits and everybody wants a cut, preferably a large one. The Tuareg have been relatively minor players until this year.
When Gadafi was trying to keep himself in power he recruited the Tuareg as mercenaries. They got fairly large amounts of cash and considerably better arms than previously. This has encouraged their ambitions and they have managed to seize a number of towns in northern Mali including Timbuctoo and are seeking to establish an islamic state. This in turn provoked the mutiny and military coup in Mali and the intervention of the international community. Meanwhile the local people do not see any development investment, the principal benificaries are the are the multi-national mining companies  (according to the Daily Mail represented by Mrs Nick Clegg to add some British interest) and the European Union takes no responsibility for the mess made by its colonial past; children are raised from infancy to maturity in refugee camps. Algeria and Morocco despite some rapprochement remain sufficiently at odds to prevent their border re-opening thus preventing the development of a pan-Mahgrabi market which would benefit both ,and encouraging the smuggler routes through Mauretania. All in all, a bit of a mess.

Tifnit Again

We went to Tifnit on a weekend. It was a lovely balmy spring day. There were camel and horse rides on the beach. The building that was going up last time we were there was finished. It isn't anything to do with fish processing or a hotel but seems to be some sort of army barracks. The new metalled road goes as far as the barracks but not to the village. 

The Shipbuilders

Fishing boats are still being built in Essaouira using traditional skills. You could see them being planked out and the stored templates for cutting the framework.

Sweetheart's carpets

Sweetheart has two moroccan carpets,  or should I say kilims. The first she bought herself in December and has in the spare room. The carpet seller went to great lengths to explain that this was a wedding carpet of the sort that would be sent by a bride to her putative husband's family before the wedding. In those days the bride and groom would not meet until the wedding and the carpet was a way of communicating. The square in the centre represents a house which has two entrances with the families entering through the opposite doors.
She must have liked it when she got it home because she got me to buy the red one for her living room and I must say I think it goes there spectacularly well. I was worried about matching the colour but Ali Baba pointed out that whilst two reds may clash, several will blend and he was obviouly right. The sharper-eyed of you will notice other moroccan purchases , the brass bellows and leather tea light holder and also one of my needlepoint cushions. This one was described as the sort of carpet a woman would send to her mother after her marriage to tell her what was happening.

The fisherman

It was interesting to watch the Essaouira fishermen bringing in the catch. It was largely sardines. I think they had been caught in nets which people were mending on the quay but there were also lines of lines with hooks like mackerel lines being untangled and folded; like any Cornish village in the 50s. The method of getting the sardines from the bottom of the boat onto the quay to be sold was interesting. As with most things in Morocco it was entirely manual, labour intensive and backbreakingly hard work.
One man stood in the bottom of the boat, another partway up the steps and one on the quay. A small plastic basket of the sort one buys at the pound shop to tidy up bathroom ephemera was used to scoop up about a kilo of sardines, perhaps less. This was thrown to the second guy who passed it to the one on the quay who emptied it into a box of ice and threw it back down. The process was repeated ad infinitem. Other people scurried about bringing fresh ice and removing full boxes and selling the fish to punters.