I am writing this on Christmas day. As it is Friday, dinner will be couscous as usual. There were no signs of Christmas when we went shopping for food in Tétouan 2 days ago, though it would probably have been different in Rabat where there are more foreigners. Today will be just another day here in Amsa. This suits me as I don’t usually celebrate Christmas much anyway.

As I write, I can hear the nasal chanting of the recitation of the Koran on the Koran TV channel. This is a usual background sound most mornings in this household, especially on Fridays. No-one is actually in the room with the TV, so the volume is very loud, so that it can be heard virtually everywhere in the house.

Tétouan Province, where I am staying, would be in Tier 1 if it were in England. Most of the country would be Tier 1, with the cities and several large towns in Tier 2, and a few hot spots that would justify Tier 3. Because of this, the authorities around here seem to have become more relaxed about enforcing the rules (which are still in force).

The schools had a half term three weeks ago, and we were ‘invaded’ by 3 adults and the 2 boys from Rabat for 12 days. One morning I was asked if I wanted to go to Chefchouaen for a night or two. This was at breakfast and 4 of us left about 11.30 am. This sort of short notice is usual with this family.

In 2019 two of Assia’s sisters, Wafaa and Havsa decided to buy a new apartment at Chefchouaen for about £22,000 with the intention of letting it out to tourists. It is not yet fully furnished, so our trip was to take a few bits and pieces, including an old table. With Hafsa’s husband Yassin at the wheel, we drove for nearly 2 hours into the lower parts of the Rif Mountains, which run parallel to the Mediterranean coast through Morocco and Algeria. It should have been quicker, but a long stretch is being upgraded, so there were a lot of roadworks.

This is a view from the bottom of the town towards the hills above it. Chefchouaen is known as the Blue Town, as many many walls have their whitewash coloured blue. Its only real reason for existence nowadays is tourism. Pre Covid, many tourists stayed for a night or two during a tour of Morocco, and many others just visited by coach for the day.

The main part of the town rises steeply up from about 2,500 feet and there are two hills above.

This is the bulk of the older part of the town. You can see the quantity of blue paint used!

This is near the source of the river at the top of the old town. On the left is a ‘wash house’, with a pillar of the corresponding one on the right hand side of the river forming the extreme right of the photo. It looks as thought the town started round here and gradually expanded down the hillside, where presumably there were once small fields.

Some local women still wash here, but I suspect that nowadays this is chiefly so that tourists can pay to take their photos in local costume.

By the time we had arrived, unpacked and visited a restaurant for dinner before starting the sightseeing it was getting quite late, so this is a dusk view of the upper river. The town is to the right of the river.

As the apartment is at least 500 feet below the lowest part of the main part of the town, we had driven to the top. Any tourists renting it would need a car, or would have to use taxis to get to the interesting parts, unless they were very fit.

With Wafaa, I then walked down to the main square through the old town. Normally the narrow streets would be crowded with tourists, but I did not see another foreigner, and very very few Moroccan tourists. Many of the hotels were closed. Most of the shops were open, but severely lacking customers. There have apparently been quite a lot of recent suicides amongst the traders who no longer had viable businesses.

This is the main square in the more modern part of the town. Even in December, this would normally be packed with tourists at dusk.

Originally we were going to stay for 2 nights, but the next day it was raining, so we returned to Amsa directly after breakfast, arriving in time for the midday meal.

The route home again was through some forested areas and past 3 large reservoirs. For the first 15 miles or so, there were people, mainly children, standing at intervals along the road holding out small buckets of small red fruit. On the way back, we stopped and bought a bucket full, which was tipped unceremoniously into an old poly bag.

This is the last few which I only thought to take a photo of at the last moment! They are the fruit of arbutus unedo. It is not very legible, but the plate they are on is from Café Carrion, a very old coffee chain of Spanish origin ubiquitous in this part of Morocco. Clearly they do not get many English speakers as ‘carrion’ is haram , i.e. banned for consumption by Muslims. Even the English speakers in this family, did not realise what it meant in English.

In the last couple of months we have had 2 visits on Sunday afternoons by a couple from Tétouan, with their 3 children (girl, boy, girl; ages 15, 12 and nearly 6). After their most recent visit we were invited for ‘lunch’ at their ‘summer’ house on the edge of Tétouan, so one very damp morning 4 women and 2 boys crammed into the car. En route we stopped twice to gather together an appropriate gift of fruit, pastries and chocolates. As the family is wealthy, and we seem obliged to show we are not poor, this cost upwards of £70.

The family are Abdenoor, Fedoua, Selma, Sami and Semeh. Abdenoor left school aged 15 and worked as a trader / facilitator of imports via Spain and its enclave of Ceuta until about 3 years ago. Then the Spanish Government decided that anyone who was not a resident of Fnideq (the town on the other side of the frontier) would need a visa to visit Ceuta, and they are not issuing visas to the likes of Abdenoor at the moment. Since then he has not worked, though he owns 3 houses that are let out.

Sami and Abderrahmen on the terrace

The ‘summer house’ is a new one bedroom bungalow on a tiny plot of land on the edge of Tétouan, a couple of miles from their main house. We left our car near their main house, and crammed into Abdenoor’s large 4×4 as the route is a dirt track, with some very steep parts. Much of the land around is still being farmed by very small farmers, but you can see a large modern house in the distance, and the town will probably engulf the area in the next few decades.

Here are Abdenoor and Semeh in about half of the living area. They are dressed in typical modern Moroccan winter casual fashion – tracksuits for the males and fleece pyjamas for most of the females (though the adult women will normally also wear a fleece ‘dressing gown’). The observant among you will note that Frozen has arrived in Morocco. Semeh is one of the lucky few girls to be wearing the real thing, rather than a Moroccan ‘rip-off’ of the trade mark.The TV remained on all the time we were there, no on-one watched it at all.

They laid on a good spread for lunch. The salad was preceded by a fish soup, and followed by some large fish. Somehow 11 of us crowded round the small table.

Moroccans are nothing if not generous with food, so about an hour later it was tea time.

Fedoua is just arriving from the minute kitchen with the main teapot (the small one is for me – without sugar). The grey thing on the tale is an electric heater, which they were using to dry the boys’ jackets, as they had insisted on playing outside in the rain, not that there was much room for them in the house.

As it grew dark we returned to Tétouan for a tour of their main house (also very new). It is right on the edge of a new development, still with partly dirt roads, and it has no garden around it at all. It is on 3 main floors and is enormous.

The family seem to live mainly on the ground floor, where there were a couple of western style bedrooms, a small dining room, a kitchen, a living room and a well equipped shower room.

Main kitchen

Everyday living room – with the first armchairs I have seen since January!

Dining room

This is obviously where the family spend most of their time, and was very much ‘lived in’.

There is, apparently some form of central heating (presumably underfloor as I did not see any radiators), but no lift. The only access to the upper floors is via quite a steep tiled staircase.

The next floor is used for entertaining visitors, and there is ample space for a great many.

This is a well loved photo of Selma, maybe 3 years ago, wearing full traditional Tétouan festal costume.

Everyone was very keen that I take a photo of this mirror, also in the upstairs foyer, so I imagine it is a prized possession. To its right is an archway through to the main reception room.

This room is enormous

This shower room on the same floor was the only room not decorated in white, brown, gold and black in the entire house.

TV room

On the top floor was a very large outdoor terrace, another kitchen, another shower room and another sitting / sleeping room.

The open air space to the left is as large as the covered area on the right. At the back is a brick barbecue, and all the necessary accoutrements to sacrifice a ram at Eid al Fatha. Presumably the ram has to climb the staircase.

Steps lead up to the roof, used for drying washing and with a wonderful view across the town.

It was very interesting to see how the other half lived. Not to my personal taste at all, but all of very high quality, and carefully thought out.

To those of you who were expecting my next post to be about the plant life of Amsa, I hope to do that one next time, but I did not want to forget the details of Chefchouaen and Tétouan, so chose to write about them this time.

A happy 2021 to one and all – it must be an improvement on 2020!