Ramadan has ended and yesterday was the first day of Eid.

Jamel dressed for Eid

He is quite religious and has made the pilgrimage to Mecca four times already

Eid is the festival that celebrates the end of Ramadan. It lasts 3 days (2 religious holidays and a government holiday) and is somewhat similar to Christmas for Moslems, in that it is a time for family, eating and dressing in one’s best clothes. Normally Assia and Jamel would have about ten members of his family to stay, but this year there were just three of us. Jamel dressed in his best robe, but Assia and I slummed it as usual.

There is a special breakfast for Eid, which consists entirely of sweet things.

That was just for three of us, and as usual it was far too much.

During Ramadan it is customary to be even more charitable than usual. Assia has made far too much of every evening meal for just three of us. Afterwards, Jamel is sent a short distance to the house of Khadija with what we have left. Khadija is very poor as her sole occupation is guarding the women’s clothes in the Hammam (public bath house), for which each person gives her, say 2 Dirham (less than 20p). The Hammams are all closed, and it is difficult to see how they can reopen until ‘social distancing’ is a thing of the past. Her sole income will now be the Government handout of 800 Dirham a month.

Against the rules, we had a couple of visitors during the morning. Janette and her father (one of Assia’s brothers)  walked the 5 minutes from where they are staying, properly dressed for Eid.

They didn’t stay long, and were amongst those living with us until Ramadan started. They saw no-one on their walk, so everyone else was respecting the lockdown, because they walked through the Medina, which is densely populated.

It is the custom to contact every family member and friend on the first day of Eid, so the phones were in use all morning. Even Jamel, who normally doesn’t phone anyone, was talking on the phone most of the time when he wasn’t praying. This was accompanied by the TV which had a very, very long session of ‘Andalusian’ music. This is a choir (men with occasionally a couple of women soloists) sitting singing accompanied by various musicians, some on western instruments such as cellos and violins, and some on instruments I do not recognise. The violinists place the round bit of their instrument on their knee, and saw the bow across it horizontally, They go seamlessly from one song to the next, all with the same rhythm. Very pleasant for 10 minutes, but after 2 hours it becomes very wearing. So a very noisy morning.

I was going to make this post yesterday, but I couldn’t hear myself think, and there is nowhere quiet in the house (apart from the roof) as all the floors and walls are tiled and amplify every sound. The temperature has been steadily increasing all week, and was about 33C (91F) so sitting on the roof with no shade was out of the question.

The design of the house makes most of the ground floor rooms much cooler.

Not to scale

To get an idea of the size, my bedroom (at the bottom) is approximately 6.5 ft wide by 20 ft long by 13 ft high; the big space in the middle (which has a very high glass roof) is about 15 ft x 24 ft and probably about 30 ft high. All the internal windows on this floor open into their rooms and are 3 ft 6 in high; each window is divided into 2, each 1 ft wide with 3 glass panels, alternating between green and orange glass. The doors are all wooden and about 5 ft 5 in high including a 4 in step up to the room – I have to remember to duck – (with another rounded bit above that can be opened (but on my room normally isn’t) to give a height of 8 ft. Again they are divided in two, each side being 1 ft 6 in wide and opening into the main area.

The kitchen has 2 very small grilles high up on the wall for air; I assume this wall is onto a street. There is also another small grill on the stairs overlooking the street the front door opens onto. Apart from those, there are no ‘windows’ to the outside of the house at all. There is no ventilation for the toilet.

There are 2 more rooms upstairs, one over my room and one over the room opposite. They each have a smallish window with a grille onto the main living area for air. There is a very small shower / toilet under the stairs to the roof above with no ventilation at all except for its sliding door. There is also a large store cupboard under the stairs on the ground floor by the front door.

My room has not yet got above 26C (79F). At night I have the doors and windows closed, but during the day they are open. There are large windows in the sides of the glass roof that are also open all day. The temperature in my room doesn’t vary between day and night, but due to the air movement it feels very much cooler during the day. All due to good design.

I am writing this sitting on the ottoman at the table (very bad for my back, but the only real alternative is lying on my bed), and it is only bearable because of the parasol.  It is 32C (91F) at the table at the moment. By the afternoon the sun will leave this room, and it will be possible to sit anywhere in it. My room is to the left. The phoning has stopped today, the TV is off and all I can hear is the clock ticking and Jamel reciting his prayers in the room opposite mine. He is being quite quiet about it today, but the main prayers during Ramadan were intoned in a very loud voice.

The rise in temperature means that I can only exercise either early in the morning or early in the evening. During Ramadan I could not do the former as I had returned to bed after the exceptionally early breakfast. I have not decided whether to return to mornings, but I probably will. Exercising after 15 or so hours without food or drink was a little challenging, but it is no longer a problem now that we are eating normal meals again.

There is not much to see from the roof in the early evening. There are two flocks of pigeons that circle around (about 15 to 20 in each flock); they are the same ones each day as I am starting to recognise the colouring of some individual birds! Very disconcerting when they fly close when I am balancing on one leg. A few swifts seem to be resident for the summer. I don’t know exactly which type, as I can’t inspect them with my monocular whilst doing my exercises. There are a couple of local cats that visit and sit and watch me. One is a very pretty tabby. About three streets away (there is just one house width between the streets) someone keeps hens on the roof. Occasionally he lets them out and a couple appear on the low wall. There must also be a cockerel as I can hear it crowing as I write this, and during Ramadan it started as soon as someone turned a light on.

I haven’t done so yet, but I have realised that I will be able to read on my Kindle in the dark on the roof, so will probably give that a try. I would like more fresh air, and there is often a breeze on the roof.

The TV in the evenings is mostly pretty dire. There is a comedy set in a small rural village with a cafe and a women’s workers co-operative that appears to be hilarious, but the comedy is mainly verbal, so I struggle with it. However, it always seems to be the women showing the men up for useless. The actors are not very professional as each episode is followed by the ‘outtakes’ from that episode. It must take ages to film a single episode.

There is also a short program where the same man visits a different Moroccan town each day, where he borrows a taxi and drives around collecting passengers. They are each subjected to 6 questions (mostly about their own town apparently). The first passenger to answer 3 questions correctly gets a prize of a smart phone. Some days it is not won. Being a Moroccan he drives waving both hands off the steering wheel, even in the dark. Most Moroccan taxi drivers have a very cavalier attitude to road safety, and he is no exception. However the taxi is always immaculate; he must borrow the newest one in town.

Apart from the news, which is government controlled and never mentions much except for Covid19, there are Turkish serials. These always have the same basic plot. Boy meets girl and they fall in love. Parents try to stop it. Eventually it turns out that the parents know they are really brother and sister, though brought up in different families. Yesterday’s was because family A already had 4 daughters when the wife became pregnant again. Next door was also pregnant and when she had a boy (already having several), they swapped babies! The serials are always set amongst the wealthy, and they are a sort of Turkish ‘Dynasty’. I retreat to my room and listen to BBC radio on my laptop.

Lockdown was extended by 3 weeks from 20 May, so, hopefully, I may be able to get outside for exercise after that. There were only 47 new cases of Covid19 in Morocco yesterday, none in Rabat. The numbers have been dropping steadily for several weeks now. Most of the remaining ones are in Casablanca. However I don’t think they will change the rules selectively for different regions. The message is kept very simple here.

Keep safe