Maryland Ftour

Ramadan : Moroccan Associations organise ftour ceremonies in USA :: moroccoTimes.com

Washington Moroccan Club� and Houston Moroccan Alliance organised on Sunday the first "Iftar" ceremonies in Silver Spring (Maryland) and Houston (Texas) respectively.

Twenty " Iftar"� ceremonies, organised in the Moroccan way, are expected in many other American cities, on the honour of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish guests.

I had hoped to be able to attend the ceremony in Silver Spring, but with two young children at home, it did not seem very practical this year. Inshallah, this is a tradition that will continue.

Hiloa (Sweets)

A French Accent

In Sweet Surrender's kitchen, co-owner and co-pastry chef Riyad Bouizar smoothes mocha butter cream on a chocolate cake before sliding it into the display case out front. There it joins a host of colorful French cakes and pastries offered by the small, five-month-old bakery and pastry shop in Arlington's Pentagon Row.

Two Moroccan cousins run a patisserie in the Washington suburbs.

The Fascination of What's Difficult

The Bellingham Herald | news | | Risking their lives: Lalami explores the plight of Moroccan refugees

A short interview with Laila Lalami about her new book Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits. She discusses the risks people take to make it across the Straits of Gibraltar in search of a better life, and the effect on Morocco of large scale migration from countries farther South. In the second part of the interview, Lalami discusses how she became an immigrant in the United States, and the discipline that her writing requires.

The Horror

MoorishGirl writes about how horrified she was to discover that the devastation in Louisiana far exceeded anything she had imagined in her novel, which opens with a flood in Casablanca.

About Kif

Smoking Hashish in Morocco

About.com actually has an article about smoking "kif" in Morocco. Aside from the fact that kif is widely smoked by Moroccan men, the article points out that the penalty for possession is potentially ten years in a Moroccan jail, and that many dealers are also informers. At the same time, enforcement is often erratic, since kif represents a significant source of revenue.

Learning Moroccan Arabic

The Peace Corps' Moroccan Arabic textbook is partially on-line at Friends of Morocco. This textbook teaches the spoken dialect of Arabic peculiar to Morocco, as opposed to Modern Standard Arabic, which is uniformly used in reading, writing, and official communications throughout the Arab world.

Good Eats

I pulled Paul Wolfert's cookbook off the shelf, and, for the first time in years, I prepared a Tangier-style couscous with chicken, onions, and raisins. It was decidedly worth the effort, although the four-hour preparation time means that it may be a while before I do it again.

The Music Scene

In the Arab World, Pop Stardom Can Be A Touchy Subject

Most Arab countries are far more culturally liberal than Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Arab world's pop industry superficially resembles our own, with the Arab Top 20 playing on the radio and in discotheques throughout the Middle East. A dozen or so major record labels dominate the scene, mostly based in Egypt and Lebanon. Arab television boasts more than half a dozen music channels, as well as several talent search programs propelled by viewer phone-in voting -- "Star Academy" is just one such program; another is "Superstar," from the same production company that created "American Idol."

Apart from Egypt and a brief mention of Rai, the Post's article gives North Africa short shrift. I do not know enough about either music or Arab music to confirm the details, but the article appears to address its topic in broad strokes. It is worth reading, I think, particularly for its background on the structural differences between Arab and European music, but also for its description of the Egyptian and Lebanese dominated world of popular music.

New Moroccan Art

Marja-Leena Rathje has written a review of Lalla Essaydi's photographs of women in henna dyed clothing. Rathje was immediately attracted to Lalla Essaydi's work owing to its similarity to some of her own.

Speaking in Tongues

Joshua Haynes is working on preparing an Amazigh text book for the Tashelheet dialect spoken in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Meanwhile, I have just received the text of a Peace Corps textbook on Moroccan Arabic that I hope to prepare for viewing on the web.

In Prospect

Laila Lalami of MoorishGirl has completed revisions to her forthcoming novel, The Things That Death Will Buy, due in bookstores by October. Like Yto Barrada's photographic exhibit, the novel apparently focuses on the hardships of Moroccan immigrants trying to make their way to Europe. Morocco has always been located at the interstice between Europe and North Africa, but the current desperate efforts of Moroccans seeking a better life in Europe mark a new chapter in an old story.

Gay Tourism in Morocco

Out Traveler magazine has a provocative but somewhat superficial piece on gay tourism in Morocco. Framed by Paul Bowles' experience, the article describes a level of cultural tolerance that is rarely associated with Arab and Muslim cultures. At the same time, it perhaps overemphasizes the divide between Berber and Arab culture in Morocco.