CIEE to Morocco

  Chefchaouen, Morocco
Saturday, March 3, 2007

*Red Flag*When you need a police escort*Red Flag*

Just got back from a little excursion to Morocco. Included in my study abroad program fee - I wasn't going to miss it for the world. Unfortunately, because everyone went, we had a huge group that led to be a detriment - but it was still nice to get a brief introduction to this interesting country.

We left Sevilla Wed (Feb 28, 07) for our first destination, Tetouan. After getting our passports stamped, crossing the border, and chilling out by the hotel pool for a bit we left for a cultural visit of the Medina of Tetouan.

The welcome party! These guys rocked!

Relaxing by the Pool outside of Tetouan

Many Moroccan cities have an old quarter, named the Medina, where the antiquated city began before sprawling out to modern dimensions. These neighborhoods today are walled off sections of the inner city chock full of specialty shops, grocery vendors, and junky souvenir dives. Our guide for the trip, jokingly self-named 'Michael Douglas' to avoid of our mistaken mis-pronunciation of his true, arabic name, was an absolute riot and led us through the oldest parts of the city. Like many Europeans, Moroccans tend to buy food every other day or so versus the bulk purchasing of the states. Also, in lieu of supermarkets there are specialty shops for bakers, spice vendors, butchers, & vegetable and fruit stands. It was notable that public sanitation is not as established in the Moroccan cities then those of Europe so the streets were littered with all sorts of random rubbish.

Our out of control guide - Michael Douglas (Ahmed)

City Plaza in Tetouan

Also, the smell of camels, fresh fish and recently butchered chickens was...interesting!

We visited a tannery where the same technique has been used for god knows how long in the preparation of hides and skins. The smell was quite intense, however, it was fascinating to see such a time tested technique in practice. It was also unusual that every taxi we saw was a Mercedez Benz at least 20 years old - apparently most of the vehicles of the country came from tourists 20-30 years ago who brought cars over by ferry then sold them rather then lugging them back home after their vacations.

Thursday we began the day with one of two 'company visits' that we would do on the trip. We saw the manufacturing facility for Burlington, the clothing company. It was pretty interesting to see just how socks are made. The product from the factory was only sold in Europe but I am sure similar manufacturing techniques are used for the states as well. An interesting note was that all raw materials are imported from Germany, assembled in Morocco, then shipped back to Germany for storage.

Hercules Cave-It is Africa flipped horizontally!

Dolly the Camel - Outside Tanger

They must be saving a lot on labor in Morocco to make all that transportation cost worth it. Afterwards, we rode some camels and visited 'Hercules Cave' - which although had a beautiful geographic feature was horribly touristic. Finally we went to Tanger, and I was beginning to grow tired of being herded around with a group of 50 Americans into the various shopping centers of the city - aimed at milking foreigners for their money in exchange for cheesy souvenirs. One nice thing was a fantastic lunch of fried fish and some free time on the beach before heading into the city centre.

Friday we went to my favorite of the three cities we visited, Chefchaouen. Before heading for the city, we visited another company - a shrimp peeling facility for a Dutch multi-national. This was a sobering site,

I loved Chefchaouen

Shrimp Peelers - A tough job..

1200 moroccan woman working 8 hour shifts hand-peeling shrimp. The shrimp are caught in Holland, frozen on the ships, then sent to Morocco to be peeled before returning to Holland for distribution around Europe. To us, it seemed as though this would be a horrible job - but I am sure it is different from the perspective of a Moroccan. The site had day-care facilities for the workers and all employees received health checks to ensure proper sanitation. I couldn't help but think that any of these people would probably kill for a $6.50 an hour job at McDonalds. After the visit we made our way to Chefchaouen by bus. The blue-washed streets of this city wedged into the mountains were so beautiful, it really reminded me of home. We saw a local baker - all the families prepare their own baked goods, but without ovens take their goods to a baker who stokes them in the fires, returning finished product. Also, hand-made moroccan textiles are a major industry and we visited a man working on his loom. The river coming from the mountains was utilized for laundering, and there were buildings by the river built with scrub boards for cleaning of garments.

Sunset in Tetouan

Chefchaouen Baker

Saturday we made a brief visit back to Tetouan for an authentic Moroccan lunch before returning to Sevilla. The visit was very striking - Morocco is well off in comparison to other African countries but even still is struck in poverty. Other trips I have been on on this voyage have left me feeling a need to come back - I did not feel this need with Morocco. If I were to return it would be for humanitarian reasons - not tourism. Another hinderance was the extremely large group we were in - although it is difficult to imagine traveling there any other way without knowing someone to show you around the country.

On the road in northern Africa

To illustrate the point, I would travel to many places in Spain by myself without feeling in danger, but I would never do this in Morocco. Unless you are with an Arabic guide it is dangerous - we even had police escorts with us for the duration of the visit. I was glad to have seen this country - but I don't know if I'll go back.