A Bus to Casablanca

There was a 5:30 a.m. taxi ride to the bus which was parked outside of the  bus driver's house.  As his first customers, the family and I had our pick of seats and sat right up front.  It turns out the driver is a friend of the brother-in-law of a daughter-in-law of the family.  Isn't it always not what you know, but who you know?

After 30 minutes and 2 more customers, we left.  For the downtown bus terminal.  Another 45 minutes passed as we waited for the bus to fill.  And those prime front seats we had?  We were told apologetically to move back 4 rows.  The impenetrable Arabic explanation left the reason why a mystery to me.  In any case, the bus to Casablanca finally got underway.

In the Morrocan Arabic dialect, there are at least a couple of words for bus.  The please-get-me-to-work-on-time bus is called a toe-bis (not making this up).  The city-to-city variety is called a car (still not making this up).  I guess it's the same in America, where the lowly form of  bus transportation tries to elevate itself by use of the word "coach".

If you travel by style in a car, make sure you take a look to see if there are windows all around the back of it.  Know what that means?  No bathroom. Very common. On the 3 hour trip to Casablanca, it's a good time to heed mom's advice, "You should of gone before you went".

A Wedding in Casablanca, Part 2

A groom in a Moroccan wedding

The band played the whole time except for a couple of  breaks when they put on tapes--some of which, surprisingly, included soft jazz.

The groom by the way. had just 3 outfits- a dark pinstripe suit and tie, a off-white thobe, and a pakistani style long shirt and pants. He had a beige pair of Moroccan slippers and and a pair of black dress shoes. He wore the suit twice and beige pakistani outfit twice. So he changed 5 times too.

They also had what I call the wedding ladies who posed them for photos, making sure the dress flowed properly, that their hands were up or down,  whatever made for the best pictures.

There was no clergy or license signing--that was done beforehand. They'd actually been married about 8 months, but waited to have the ceremony until they could afford it. Not unusual in Morocco. The delay dimished none of the joy of the occasion.

There were about 150-200 people there. It was very crowded. The tent was about 20' x 60'. I was told that was a small tent and and the budget was very modest. There was a 4 piece band and 2 male singers. There were 5 or 6 waiters in black shirts and jeans. A photographer. A dvd recorder guy. The two wedding ladies. The bride and groom sat on a small white and silver couch, raised like a throne in the middle of the side wall of the tent--mostly just the two of them, but family came up and sat or stood on either side for pictures. About 500 pictures, easily, A modest budget, indeed.

A Wedding in Casablanca, Part 1

A Moroccan bride carried by attendants

I went to a wedding in Casablanca. The wedding was 5 hrs long, and the bride had 5 dress changes. Welcome to a Moroccan wedding.

In the first phase, the bride is carried on a small silver boat on poles carried by 4 men in white with white capes. Her first outfit is a white dress and veil with zirconium, dangling earings and a belt with a zirconium oval-shaped belt buckle about 6 inches across. Dazzling. Then there was the red dress with matching jewelry, followed by the emerald green one followed by this very heavy red, white and gold horizontal stripped brocade with a headdress that flared out and down from the top of her head like a sphinx. It's a traditonal outfit. Finally there was the white American-style wedding dress. She had her hair restyled and had matching jewelry each time.

Each dress change signalled a different phase of the wedding. First the photo-op in the white dress with family and close friends, then in the red dress came a display of the gifts the groom given were brought by him and his family in huge trays with cone-shaped lids that were removed for viewing. There were clothes, shoes, purses, a box of dates that must have weighed 10 or15 lbs.The groom also brought a floral arrangement about 3' tall.

The gifts were removed for the next change and phase and the green dress, when we were served dinner. They bride and groom ate some at the dinner, but had to leave to change clothes again.

At dinner, each guest had a chance to wash their hands first as the waiters carried water and towels to each table. Then each guest had a small round indiviual loaf or bread. In the center of the table we had a platter with 4 whole roasted chickens. We were supposed to break the bread, and use the bread to tear off the chicken. After that course, we had a huge mound of a fine, short strand spaghetti topped not with sauce, but with finely gound nuts and a small bowl of powdered sugar to sprinkle on the spagetti as we ate. I know that sounds weird, but think of powdered doughnuts--it was delicious.

Next, while the bride wore the spinx-type outfit, it was the groom's turn to be carried in the silver boat. When they carried the groom, he stood in the boat and did his happy dance to the music that lasted about 4 or 5 minutes. It was happy, funny, joyous. Even the guys carrying him were laughing. It was wonderful.

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Last was the American-style dress, a few more pictures, and they were done.

Casablanca Ocean

On a hot spring day I was in Casablanca.  I walked near the side of a bay overlooking the ocean. There was no sandy beach and no safe place for swimming. The water was deep, deep ocean. To my left, the bay jutted out into the water and I couldn't see beyond it. As I stood on the road that ran parallel to the  shore, I could see gravelly beach and rocky sandbars directly below me. If I had been so inclined and a whole lot braver, I could have carefully made my way down.  There were a few fishermen, covered in ocean spray, standing on the rocks.

A man alone was out on the ocean fishing in a round, black rubber raft. I didn't see a motor or oars.  As far as I could see, his only way back to the shore the was the motion of the waves pushing the raft back toward the beach.  

For about a mile or more as I looked to the right, the shore was lined with boulders shaped exactly like dominoes that had been stacked and then tipped at an angle by some giant hand.

I walked with my family along the road at night, and it was a quiet time. Enormous, white-crested waves crashed in water so deep it sounded terrifying, It was a sound of great power, as if thunder were rumbling constantly under the sea.