We’re getting quite used to the time changes in Morocco now. For the past five years, we’ve had the ‘luxury’ of three or four time changes a year. That’s right! Because as well as the traditional switch to summer time and winter time, we switch back to solar time at the start of Ramadan (on the night of Saturday to Sunday in 2013) and back to summer time at the end of Ramadan (on 10 August 2013).
Despite this, some are lagging behind. Maroc Telecom, for example, had not yet updated the time displayed on mobile phones. If you want to avoid a complicated process, you need to go into your phone’s settings, disable automatic time zone synchronisation via the network, and change the time on your phone yourself.
How many people will have thought of doing that this weekend? And how many, half-asleep on Monday morning, won’t have the slightest idea what time it actually is?
Yet this is not for lack of communication. On all Moroccan television and radio stations, Moroccans are being urged to check timetables – particularly for trains and buses – as these may be subject to change during Ramadan and due to the time change.
What you need to know: Morocco has reverted to solar time in the GMT time zone. There is therefore now a two-hour time difference with Europe, which is two hours ahead. It’s curious that the fifteen kilometres separating Tangier from Algeciras account for the same time difference as that between New York and Phoenix, in Arizona, or between Casablanca and Cairo.
A typo or syntax error? You can select the text and hit Ctrl+Enter to send us a message. Thank you! If this post interested you, maybe you can also leave a comment. We'd love to exchange with you !
