A Couple Photos of Essaouira
January 30th, 2008, No Comments »
It’s a busy day, so I’m fobbing you off with a couple of photos from our Essaouira photos. Yes, there are quite a few gulls at the port:
Archive: Posts about Morocco
Why Are So Many Italian Men Such Chotches? Is It Evolution?
January 28th, 2008, 38 Comments »
When walking alone through the medina here in Essaouira, Julie occasionally gets unwanted male attention. It’s low-key and harmless, and comes with the territory. It’s not nearly as bad as she’s experienced in Italy, though.
In both Palermo and Rome, she was constantly harassed by Italian men. She couldn’t sit down to have a coffee without some chotch doggedly attempting to join her. She was followed for a block down the street, and solicited by an aging hound dog who was definitely on the wrong side of seventy. These men really wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I got to thinking about why men behave this way, and about this evolutionary psychology book I wrote about (Derek wrote a more thorough review) a while back. There seem to be two possibilities:
- The success rate is greater than zero, and the effort involved is worth the occasional success. If they never succeeded, you’d think that they’d eventually give up.
- The behaviour has nothing to do with earning female affections, and everything to do with lekking. From Wikipedia: “A lek is a gathering of males, of certain animal species, for the purposes of competitive mating display.”
A premise of that book is that our brains stoppped evolving 10,000 years ago, and that our basic goal in life is simple: reproduction. Presumably the psychological goal of option #2 is to intimidate the other males in the lek, and get to the female first.
But why is this practice particularly common in Italy (I’m sure it’s common in other countries–this is just the worst among those that we’ve visited)? It’s probably cultural.
I wanted to use this photo to illustrate this post, but it was all rights reserved.
Stupid Tourists, Or How to Dress Appropriately in Morocco
January 26th, 2008, 20 Comments »
Caution: travel snobbery and tourist judgment ahead.
So we’ve been living in Essaouira for about three weeks now. It’s a tourist-friendly town on the coast, and we’ve already noticed a slight up-tick in the tourist numbers since first arriving. I’m glad we’ll be leaving before the full weight of the spring tourists descends on these cramped streets.
As you probably know, Morocco is a Muslim nation. It’s quite a liberal one (the most liberal, I’m told), but you still hear the haunting call to prayer five times a day, and there are mosques–with very unassuming doors–on every major street.
As such, men and women dress conservatively. For women, the dress varies from cover-every-but-the-eyes djellabas to conservative, professional attire that covers everything from the neck to the ankles. Here in Essaouira, the rate of women who wear a head scarf covering at least their hair is probably about 75%. In larger cities, that rate would be lower.
Style Tips for the Smart Tourist
Here’s part of what my Lonely Planet Morocco has to say about how to dress:
Your choice of attire still may be perceived as a sign of respect for yourself, your family and your hosts (or lack thereof)…So if you want to make your family look good, and don’t want to miss out on some excellent company–especially among older Moroccans–do make a point to dress modestly.
For men and women alike, this means not wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. Even in trendy nightclubs, clingy clothing, short skirts and low-cut and midriff tops could be construed as, ahem, the oldest kind of professional attire.
That advice is reflected in online forums I’ve read. You’re always going to be recognizably a tourist (more on this in an old post), but it’s easy to respect the local dress code.
And in Essaouira, 19 out of 20 tourists do. Unfortunately, the twentieth always manages to embarrass themselves horribly. It’s not such a big deal for men, but they should leave the shorts on the beach (frankly, that advice ought to apply to the whole globe) and they should not, at any time, wear one of the local’s full length, hooded djellaba. I saw one North American doing that the other day, and he was getting all sorts of smirks from the locals.
Women are more restricted in what they should wear. As such, their fashion faux pas are more egregious. Shorts, short skirts, midriff-baring and low-cut tops, sleeveless shirts–it’s all pretty shameful.
A Few Brain Cells and Jedi Robes
It doesn’t take too many brain cells to:
- Read a guidebook or travel forum and follow some basic sartorial advice.
- Look around. See how much skin the locals aren’t showing, and dress accordingly.
Once every couple of days I see a ridiculously-dressed tourist that I just want to smack.
On a related note, the djellaba was almost certainly the inspiration for Jedi robes (and, come to think of it, the Jawa costumes). In fact, I suspect the costumer on the earliest Star Wars movie just bought one off a Berber’s back in Tunisia and threw it on Alec Guinness.
Which .Ma Domain Should I Get?
January 24th, 2008, 12 Comments »
It occurred to me that I could probably get a .ma domain or two if I wanted, given that I know a local contact in country. I read that that’s a requirement, though this site claims differently. I’m not sure how difficult it is to get one, because I’ve never actually seen a .ma website (though according to Wikipedia, there are 137,187 of them).
Some of the obvious really short domains (dra.ma, trau.ma and so forth) are gone, but I checked a few off this list of words that end in ‘ma’. Those available include:
melodra.ma
ene.ma
nor.ma
sche.ma
You can check other possible domains here.
Of course, they cost about CAN $125 a year, so that’s a bit pricey for a whim. Still, something to think about while I’m here.
Denominations of the Dirham: I’m a Fan
January 23rd, 2008, No Comments »
At the moment, CAN $1 = MAD 7.53. In my experience, very few things are less than one dirham (about 12 Canadian cents). In coins, I’ve seen a half-dirham (it literally has a 1/2 symbol on it), one dirham, five dirham and ten dirham denominations. In bills, there’s a 20, 50, 100, 200 and so forth.
Practically speaking, there are no cents or centimes or santimat. Unlike most other countries I’ve visited, there are no ones and hundreds–it’s just hundreds. On the other hand, you’re not working in absurdly large quantities, as in, say, Zimbabwe or Italy before the Euro. The worst conversion experience I’ve had is Hungary, where one Canadian dollar equaled 175 forints. Try making that calculation on the fly.
Transactions are easy in Morocco. It’s just one number, and it’s almost always below 500. This is a real boon to my incredibly crap French, handy when you have to negotiate the price of many purchases over, say, 10 bucks Canadian.
The Foreignness Index: A Tool For Figuring Out Where You Want to Live
January 20th, 2008, 9 Comments »
In a comment on a recent post, Mark asked about how we choose where to live:
How do you go about choosing locations, and what other locations you have on the list? I imagine you look for cheaper places that still have decent internet, along with easy access to lots of culture and sights. Are there any sites you use to find out about the net or apartments?
Any thoughts on Buenos Aires, Cinque Terre (Italy), or Cyprus?
I described my rationale for choosing Malta a year ago, but I figured I’d revisit my philosophy and try to extend it to a generalized, goofy theory of choosing foreign homes. I call it the Foreignness Index.
The Foreignness Index is a value of 1 to 100 which describes how foreign a new home is to you. Using the Index is personal–the value you ascribe a place is particular to you, today. For me, living in an apartment in Vancouver might be a 1, while living in a cave in Afghanistan might be a 100. Obviously those numbers would be very different for, say, an Afghan.
What factors contribute to rating a place? Here’s what I can think of, in vague order from more important to less important. When I use ‘new home’ in this list, I mean to refer to a variety of scales–the destination country, city, neighbourhood and your actual dwelling:
- Do locals speak the same language as you? If not, how much of your language are locals able to speak?
- How safe–in terms of crime, war, disease, and so forth–is your potential new home?
- What religion are most of the locals?
- How open and welcoming is the culture? This speaks to how important is it that you meet and befriend locals.
- How different will the weather be?
- How different will your actual dwelling be from what you’re used to. If you’ve always lived in modern apartments, how weird will it be to live in a mud hut?
- How different are the environs from what you’re used to? Are you an urbanite moving to the countryside, or vice versa? Will your new home’s population density differ from what you’re accustomed to?
- How difficult will it be to obtain the products and services that are really important to you. For me it’s reliable web access and Coca Cola. For you it might be Neiman Marcus and caramel lattes.
- Is the locals’ relationship to time different? Are shop hours more fluid? Is timeliness important?
- How different is the food? This one’s a bit tricky to objectively measure, but you can, both figuratively and literally, just trust your gut.
- Does the alphabet use the same character set as yours?
The list could be much longer, and each person will have different criteria, but that’s a good start.
The Foreignness Index in Action
Now, let’s apply that list and arrive at some values for places I’ve lived, and might go.
- Dublin, Ireland - 20 - Same language, similar social structures, similar weather, lived in somewhat different environs.
- Gharb, Malta - 35 - Plenty of English spoken, North African and Arabic influences, radically different location and environment, significantly different weather, limited access to usual products and services.
- Essaouira, Morocco - 55 - French is a second language here, radically different culture and religion, different weather (I walked on the beach wearing only a t-shirt yesterday) easier access to stuff than on Gozo, but not as good as the West.
Let’s put those and a few other values on a map (you’ll want to click for the big version):
A Dearth of Data on Living Abroad
To answer Mark’s specific questions: I like to find a couple of country-specific forums, particularly those frequented by ex-pats, to ask dumb questions. Here’s one I used in Malta.
There’s actually a real dearth of centralized information about living in foreign countries. I guess that it’s a hard data set to assemble, but the only book we found was Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America. It wasn’t bad, but it was US-centric, and focussed on permanent relocations instead of temporary time abroad.
Buenos Aires was actually on our short list, along with Malta and Panama. To select a country, I printed out the Wikipedia list of all the nations in the world. Julie and I then went for burgers and milkshakes and eliminated all the countries we definitely wouldn’t consider. That got us down to about 40, and we winnowed it down from there.
Argentina felt a little too foreign for our first time moving the business, and it’s a long way from Canada. Plus, we knew that if things went south business-wise while living in Malta, we could always scare up local business or make a quick trip to Europe. I didn’t fancy trying to make a solid living earning Argentinian pesos.
Italy is my dopplenation–it’s beautiful, but I’ve never cared for it. Cyprus might have been nice, but it seems like it wouldn’t have been that different from Malta.
Presumably the next time we live abroad we’ll choose somewhere more adventurous–a higher number on the Foreignness Index. Or maybe not. Who knows?
What about you, dear reader? What nation would you rate at, say, 50?
Getting Uncomfortable
January 17th, 2008, 6 Comments »
Last week, tNb from Atomic Dogma linked to my site, and wrote this about traveling and living abroad:
I always feel most alive when I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone. For example, two years ago I was invited to join a motorcycle trip from Rome to the Sahara desert in Tunisia. For weeks we were cold, hungry and uncomfortable but I loved every single minute of it. I felt alive!
I may have written about this before, but ‘getting uncomfortable’ is central to my choice to live abroad. I have a natural inclination toward stasis and the path of least resistance. Choosing to live in somewhat unlikely places is kind of an attack on that habit.
Do Something Every Day That Scares You
The first few days in a new place are always stressful. Add language issues and cultural differences and they can be really unpleasant. Not to sound too twee, but I think adversity builds character, and one way to make yourself a better person is to try things that make you uncomfortable.
My mother used to say “do something every day that scares you”. That didn’t happen back home in Vancouver, but it does here in Morocco. Not terrifying things, obviously, but when your French is as crap as mine, even asking for directions is a little scary.
My most recent triumph of pidgin French was locating dish detergent, or liquide à vaisselle (I find it difficult to remember not to pronounce the ‘qew’ sound). I had to ask at about four shops, but I eventually tracked it down.
Obviously discomfort is in the eye of the beholder. For a seasoned global traveler, what we’re doing in Morocco would be totally ordinary. But I also have friends who have never left North America, so for them what we’re doing seems pretty radical.
One reason we’re only spending three months in Essaouira is because I feared the discomfort level might be too high. That is, I’m not sure how my boundaries would readjust. Happily, they’re adjusting nicely. I could do with better French, a faster Internet connection and a better office chair, but we’ve already got the basic stuff–food, heat, hot water–sorted out. The rest, I’ve learned, is easy enough to figure out.
On a related note, I also still believe that living abroad makes you a better human.
Grocery Shopping in Morocco
January 14th, 2008, 3 Comments »
I just got back from Essaouira’s souk, where the locals shop. I bought:
- 6 eggs.
- A whole chicken breast (meaning, uh, all the white meat on the bird). The butcher pulled it from his refrigeration unit–a box of water.
- A mango, 6 plums and 4 apples.
- Some carrots, an onion and a green pepper.
- Some couscous.
- A couple baguettes.
All for 75 dirhams, or just under CAN $10. A little cheaper than Urban Fare, methinks.
Broccoli is My Personal Jihad
January 11th, 2008, 2 Comments »
Norlinda links to this wonderfully cheesy yet kind of affecting video. It has particular relevance these days, as I’m living in a predominantly Muslim country:
There’s a terrific cognitive dissonance in seeing people happy women in head scarves while listening to the most American of country music. There shouldn’t be a dissonance, actually, and that’s the point of the video.
Photos of Our New Home
January 8th, 2008, 8 Comments »
We’re finally settled in our temporary home here in Essaouira. All has gone well, though I’m struggling with a bit of gastroenteritis-related unpleasantness. It’s to be expected when visiting the developing world and hopefully will, uh, pass, in the next couple of days.
We’re very happy with our little riad. Technically speaking it has five levels–three floors around a central courtyard and two terraces. The wifi works like a charm, and we’re going to go see ‘the wood man’ later in the week. He’s going to make us a very simple wooden desk where we’ll work for the next two months.
Things should get back to normal around this site in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here are some photos of our riad. I was also fond of this odd tin of ‘email synthetique’. We could all use some of that, occasionally. But how do I apply it?
