The Blue City

Chefchaoeun, MOROCCO

But oh the endless streets and houses painted blue. Not quite blue but tchelet - the sky blue of the flag of Israel - and whitewash, and sand coloured exposed brick, and deeply terracotta roof tiles. Several things add to the beauty of Chefchaoeun: the narrow cobblestone streets, the absence of cars and motorbikes within the city walls, the excessive use of vowels, the Rif Mountain panorama, the spice markets, the gentle October sun.

Three more days until the conclusion of Ramadan. The energy here during this time is quite unique, I imagine. The fasts ends each evening at six, and the hour before that a tremendous rush and vibrancy and urgency sweeps the city, people running at full speed to get their cous cous on. You being to smell the onions simmering, bread baking, eggs boiling, harira stewing - people on the streets filling their bags with Ramadan sweets; baklava, shebekiah, date cookies, dusted with sesame seeds and drenched in Berber honey. Until six, until the call of the muezzin reverberates and silences the city, no one eats or drinks. All is subdued; men sit in cafés.

People continue to serve food to the travelers although we don't feel comfortable with this. So we secret away to the roof for private breakfasts of the that we managed to gather the night before - roasted pistachios and noisettes, fresh chevre, marinated olives, figs and Medjool dates that taste like honey, Moroccan brown bread, pomegranates and bananas.

Moroccan culture I find sensuous, rich, gentle; warm. People are kind. More than once we have been stopped in the street when the muezzin wails the six o'clock break fast as people usher us into their homes to eat fried fish and milk and shebekiah. We had such an invitation the other evening in Chaoeun. Anwar, who runs the Pension Castellana, invited us to eat cous cous with him. A few days ago, we offered him some shebekiah, a Ramadan sweet like Indian djellabi, and he jumped out of his seat and ran off, returning with cornbread and an apple banana milkshake to offer in return. We sat and ate together. The next night, he came onto the roof and asked us if we wanted to drink mint tea. We went down into the courtyard, and he poured hot water over fresh mint leaves and offered us a sugar mixture of cocoa and crushed nuts. Next morning as we left for walk, he timidly asked if we would like to join him for cous cous for dinner. His sister makes it, he added.

The cous cous arrived, a huge plate of it which four of us ate off of communally, as in Moroccan homes. The cous cous is handmade, and it is served with a piece of slow cooked meat in the center, usually lamb or chicken; and it is surrounded by vegetables - carrots, potatoes, green beans. On top are chickpeas and raisins covered in heaps of sweet onions, sauteed in sugar and cinnamon and saffron.

We sat together speaking in French, the lingua franca of Morocco. It is nice not always to default to English. Adam doesn't speak French, so I did my best to translate between the two. We began to ask questions the history of Jews in Morocco, present here for at least ten centuries until they were all expelled in 1967 after the Six Day War. We asked about the old Jewish quarter, the mellah, in Chaoeun; about the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews. Anwar explained that he had no feelings of animosity toward the Jewish people.

"We are all brothers. With the Jews, I have no problem. We honor all of the prophets," Anwar said. "But the Spanish, now they are really a bunch of fuckers."