My First Night in Morocco

I’ve been in Morocco for a little over a week now. We arrived last Thursday night around sundown and saw our apartment for the first time. It’s an enormous two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment on the 8^th floor of a 9-story building. Each bedroom has its own balcony from which we have an unobstructed view of the Medina (old city) across the river. Right across the street is city hall and the Plaza de l’Independence, a large plaza with fountains, grass and trees. We have a huge kitchen with granite countertops, however there is no dishwasher, oven or microwave. Because it is uncommon to find gas lines in Moroccan buildings, two small propane tanks fuel our water heater and stove. We also have a little TV with cable, however only a few channels are in English or French. The living room is huge; about 500 sq ft. The apartment floor is tile throughout. I have photos of the apartment on Flickr that you can check out. We also have a Moroccan lady who comes 6 days a week to cook and clean. She arrives around 10 or 11 am and cooks until about 4 pm every day except Sunday. We have home-cooked lunch and dinner nearly every day. On top of all that we have access to the roof, which has a beautiful 360 degree view, with the Medina visible on one side, and the Ville Nouvelle (new city) on the other side. We’re one of the tallest buildings around so we have a fairly unobstructed view of everything. I doubt there’s another building in all of Meknes with as amazing of a view as the one we have.

 

We arrived right in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, during which every good Muslim must fast from sunrise to sundown. (However exceptions are made for pregnant women and those who are traveling.) Muslims don’t even drink water despite the beating sun and 95 degree heat. Non-Muslims are not expected to fast, but restaurants and cafes are closed throughout the day and eating or drinking in public is extremely rude. That first night, after looking around our apartment in awe, we ate the home-cooked meal awaiting us on the table. It was a Moroccan stew of beef and green beans with a salad of lettuce, cucumbers and bell peppers on the side. A few minutes after we sat down, we heard an enormous explosion. We rushed to the window and saw a pillar of smoke rising from what looked like a drab green military truck on the other side of the plaza, a few hundred yards away from our building. The first idea that flew to my head was a car bomb. Any American who had just arrived in an Arab country would be finicky and jump to the conclusion of terrorism. We later found out that because it was the holy month of Ramadan, the city fired a cannon at sundown (around 6:45pm) when it was okay to eat, and again at 2 am, to announce that there were only 2 hours left to eat before fasting must start again. It’s been going off twice a day for a week now and it still makes me jump every time I hear it.