As my twentieth Ramadan in Morocco draws to a close, I took a trip down memory lane.
It was October 2004 and the first Ramadan of my life. I spent part of it on a tour with a friend, eager to discover my future country (I was just engaged, we got married in December), part of it doing the paperwork for the wedding, and part of it in a small rented flat in Essaouira.
As a friend had wanted to join me, it was my first tourist trip during Ramadan.
In the series of ‘first times’, it was also the first time that my future husband and I had spent a whole week together, in a house and not a hotel, without an intensive sightseeing programme, leaving all the administrative stress behind us. A first time living together as a couple. During Ramadan…. I recommend it to everyone as a “crash test”.
He was as Moroccans often are during Ramadan: irritable, tired, absent because he slept part of the day. In “make or break” mode, it’s over!
The website didn’t exist yet. It wasn’t until 2006 that I started talking about Ramadan on this blog! So in this rather special year of memories and assessments, let me tell you about my first Ramadan in Morocco.
A few days before Ramadan, the start of the tour
Ramadan 2004, or rather Ramadan 1425 in the Hijri calendar, began on the evening of 14 October.
Our tour had started three days earlier, and we had left Marrakesh to go down to ‘our south’, accompanied by one of my husband’s very young nephews, who was obviously very sad that he was getting married and was less available for him…
In this photo, two days before Ramadan, you can still see the teapots in a café!
And we arrived in Tazzarine on the 14th. This photo of a deserted douar is the last one I took “before”.
Tourist routes during Ramadan
We’d done a lot on the first day: a camel ride for the day.
In October it gets very hot in the desert, but Lahcen and Mohammed remained stoic for several hours, well covered with their djellaba and their cheche to protect themselves from the sun.
At the time I didn’t know it, but being ‘well covered’ in multiple light layers actually protects you quite well, especially when it’s windy… which you can see in the photo.
My friend and I were a bit confused. But Lahcen and Bilal kept telling us that it wasn’t a problem, it was their job, they were used to it.
And besides, it was the start of Ramadan, so there was no accumulated fatigue.
Lahcen’s family had very kindly welcomed us and offered us tea, peanuts and pistachios, without taking advantage of them. Just as my mother-in-law was going to force-feed me every time I went to Tazzarine during Ramadan.
Saïd, our young driver ‘in training’, found it hard to keep going all day; we all took long naps, a bit because of the heat, but my husband, who had much more stamina, would sometimes take the wheel again.
At that time, in the south, during the day, there was hardly anything open, just the back rooms of small restaurants or hotels where we gaourias were served overcooked omelettes that we were allowed to accompany with sardine sandwiches in oil. As long as they let me drink…
The locusts
Another first in the month of Ramadan was the encounter with a cloud of locusts. Not so dense as to darken the sky, but still impressive. They were red, so not yet fully developed and, as far as I know, they didn’t do too much damage that year.
The first photo was taken on the last day before Ramadan, when they were flying through the sky. You can always see the sky and the sun, but in the worst cases, everything is dark and obscured.
A few days later, we saw them again, between Dadès and Todra.
When I read Thesiger’s Arabian Sands a few years later, I thought of that bug on our Land Rover windscreen wiper. I’ve never come across crickets again, and I don’t know whether that’s due to better prevention management or climate change. And I’ve never tasted a cricket either, despite the fact that it’s a delicacy prized by the Berbers!
Essaouira
After seeing my friend off on her flight back to Marrakesh, we left to continue Ramadan in Essaouira, in a small rented flat on the edge of the medina.
Was it due to this second contact after a whirlwind visit during the summer? I was disappointed by Essaouira, which I imagined to be a photographer’s paradise, whereas most of the photos are taken within a few hundred metres. And the Ramadan stillness meant that I couldn’t get around the town to take the photos I liked to do.
Used to the long evenings of the south and Marrakesh, where it’s easy to stay out past midnight, especially during Ramadan, Bilal was very surprised that the streets of Essaouira didn’t come alive in the evening after the F’tour. Between his tiredness during the day and the quiet silence in the evening, we didn’t do much….
Nevertheless, the visit to Sidi Kaouki provided us with a fun surprise, right on the beach!
2024, one Ramadan on two schedules
But every year brings me something new for Ramadan. This year, it’s the double working day. Whereas Moroccans generally start work later in the morning, I have to start around 7.30am, because many of my clients are in Europe and the Moroccan time change coupled with daylight saving time in France means that we have a two-hour time difference…
Unfortunately for me, this year I’ve also had a certain number of post-tour work meetings. Because there are also people who work a few hours after breaking their fast, calmer and with a sharper mind than in the late afternoon… which makes for long working days for me, without in any way claiming to be as tired as my Muslim friends, I can’t wait for it to be over!
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