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Archive for the ‘Snippets’ Category
Take A Tree To Work Day
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Dar 91 in Sawdays Guide to Morocco
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010We are delighted to report that we are now featured in the Alastair Sawday Guide to Morocco. Read our online entry here or buy the book through Amazon here (we’re in the 2010 edition, due out 1 March). If you don’t already know the Sawday guides, they’re well worth a look…full of lovely houses run by great people (even if we do say so ourselves!).
Antique Berber door
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
This set of doors, a beautiful example of Berber design, was found in the hills outside Taroudant in the south of Morocco.
The Berbers’ design vocabulary includes magic numbers, magic squares, verses from the Koran, Arabic script, geometric shapes (triangles, squares, crosses, eight-pointed stars, six-pointed stars, spirals, circles and diamonds), as well as motifs representing plants, flowers, humans, eyes and hands. Berber designs are often valued for the ‘baraka’ (spiritual power) they contain…and we reckon these have bucketloads of the stuff
Honey makes the world go round
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
A couple of months ago a friend of ours in Ounagha (a village about 25km inland from Essaouira) bought 30 beehives, and we bought one too!!! As you can see, beehives in Morocco are not the same as back home – the bees build their nests in long cylinders made of reeds – these are then packed in clay or whatever else you can lay your hands on, and the ends blocked (then carefully removed for harvesting).
We’ve just collected our first batch (or rather, our friend did…see above!) and it’s the most delicious, heavy honey we’ve ever tasted…with a dark colour and a bitter ‘finish’ arising from the bees’ proximity to an olive grove.
Check out these honeycombs (and by the way, lying in a hot field sucking honey straight from the comb is the definition of luxury)…
Cute kid
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Next time you describe a human child as a ‘cute kid’, remember what the real thing looks like…
…a big future climbing argan trees awaits this baby
Funky tiles
Sunday, May 10th, 2009We found these great little tiles in a shop in Essaouira, run by a really talented French Algerian guy called Brahim. We liked them so much we’ve started putting them on all our banisters
The Pilgrims’ Progress
Monday, April 13th, 2009If you’re ever in the Essaouira region in late March/early April you might just happen upon the Regraga Festival.
The Regraga originate from the Chiadma region to the north of Essaouira, and their ancestors are said to have made the Hajj to Mecca, received the blessing of the Prophet and introduced the Quran to Morocco.
Every year they and a host of pilgrims go on a marathon 38-day tour of shrines across the region, erecting holy tents and bestowing ‘baraka’ on the crowds who follow them. The Essaouira ‘leg’ of the tour, which normally takes place on a Thursday in early April, is renowned for being the most hospitable, with Gnaoua musicians accompanying the cortege and all manner of spiritual rapture to be witnessed.
Look out especially for the ‘laaroussa’ – a man dressed in white and riding a white mare, to represent spiritual purity. And if you want a blessing, have a little gift or a few dirhams ready…
Essaouira’s Easter Chick Parade
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
You know spring is well and truly sprung when Essaouira’s fluorescent chicks make an appearance…
For more photos of this year’s latest in poultry fashion – and some beautiful shots of the Moroccan countryside – see our newly updated Flickr pages at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/essaouiraphotos/.
Please note: no chicks were harmed during this photo shoot; they are all now living happily in the countryside. Happy Easter!
Vintage mintage
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Morocco regularly appears in the world’s top 10 tea-drinking chart, and tea is as much a part of the culture as it is back home. Moroccans started using the stuff in the mid-19th century, after British tea merchants started exporting it via Essaouira (then Mogador) and Tangier.
Moroccan tea is made from Chinese gunpowder green tea, along with vast quantities of sugar, mint leaves and, depending on the season, location and personal preference, all manner of additional ingredients – like lemon verbena, orange blossom, cinnamon or even wormwood. Here’s a recipe for the basic version, should you wish to experiment before or after your visit:
Rinse your teapot with boiling water, add 2 teaspoons of Chinese gunpowder green tea and a little boiling water. Swirl it briefly then drain the water to remove any tea dust. Half fill the pot with boiling water. Crush sprigs of spearmint in your hand and add to the pot until it’s nearly three-quarters full. Add 2 tablespoons of white sugar and fill the pot with boiling water. Let brew for 3 minutes. Pour out a glass of tea and pour it back into the pot. Repeat this twice, to mix the tea and dissolve the sugar. Then pour from a height, to aerate the tea.
Enjoy!
Essaouira a century ago
Monday, February 16th, 2009
‘Called by the Moors “Es Soueira” (The Little Picture), I could never understand why, until on a certain day in June some years ago, I had been staying at a Moor’s house a little way up country and was returning to the city. I reached the heights which overlook the sand dunes soon after sunrise, and I saw “The Picture”…
‘The sky was a brilliant and cloudless blue, and so was the sea. And the two blended into one with the aid of the morning mist; whilst the soft yellow of the sands faded into the blue in such a way that I seemed to be gazing upon a fairy palace, a picturesque commingling of dazzling white roofs and turrets suspended in the air. It was a picture indeed and more: a dream picture, too good to be true…
‘The town is clean and healthy, excellent fishing may be had, and an abundance of fowl-shooting. There are plenty of little excursions to be made in the neighbourhood, and it is an easy matter to organise boar hunts in the Argan forest, whilst the hard sands are ideal for a morning gallop…
‘Altogether Mogador should appeal to the English tourist who wants something a little less hackneyed than are most European watering places.’
Taken from Ward, H (1907) Mysterious Morocco And How To Appreciate It, published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co (London).