Weekend in Casa

9/6/10

Yes, I now refer to Casablanca just as Casa, and yes It does make me feel cool! This past weekend was the first time that I have travelled outside of Rabat and it made me more appreciative of many aspects of Rabat that I have taken for granted so far such as the proximity of everything in this city and the quiet familiarity that it carries. The trip was just over 24 hours but it was long enough so that when we stepped off the train the next day in Rabat we all thought “home sweet home!”
The train ride was a surprisingly pleasant experience. The train station had this European feel to it and it was incredibly clean and well kept. A first class round trip ticket to Casa only costs 70 dirhams or about 8 dollars. Yep, my first time in first class! It was Shabneez, Gabby, Alissa, Nadine, and me on this trip and the main purpose of it was to visit Hassan II mosque, which is one of the largest in the world, second only to the one in Mekka. Upon first arriving we took cabs straight to the mosque trying to catch the 2 pm tour, but when we got there they said that because it is Ramadan the last tour was actually at 11 am. Non-muslims can only go into the mosque by paying something 100 dirhams for a guided tour but we were quite disappointed because our trip was short and this was the main purpose. While regrouping to discuss a game plan the guy comes up to me and asks if we are Muslims, and I said that Shabneez and I are. He goes, so are your friends Muslim? And a light bulb goes off in my head and I am like, yes….
So we all cover up and go in. I figured it wasn’t that horrible of a thing since the mosque is open to everyone, our timing was just off. So we go in to do Wudu and it was hilarious watching the other girls trying to act Muslim and copying everything we did. They were keeping up pretty well through wudu, until it came to the hair, ears, neck step that I usually perform really quickly. So we all performed wudu and are covered and heading up to the mosque and we see the guy again. He asks If we just want to pray or if we want a tour. Now, to the five of us a tour means a guided tour where he explains the history, so we thought why not! So he asks for 200 dirhams for the five of us, which isn’t that bad for a tour. After we finally figure out the money and each pay 40 dirhams, the guy disappears and we are left dumbfounded. It is a little frustrating to think that you got ripped off when visiting a mosque, but I think there was this lack of communication somewhere in between.
I was secretly a little happy that this was the first time that I felt ripped off in Morocco. Getting off the train station I came pretty close when the cab driver asked for 20 dirhams to take us to the Mosque and even though I didn’t know how far it was asked that he just use the meter. He said that the meter didn’t work and then offered 15 dirhams. When I said no to that too and began to walk away, the meter decided to magically work and apparently it is like a 5 dirham trip from the train station to the mosque!
But yep, so no tour… However the mosque was gorgeous! The women’s section is on the upper level with tiles and carvings and gold and chandeliers and all the gorgeous decorations you can think of. At first, afraid that we were still supposed to be undercover everyone was afraid to take out their cameras, but then realized that everyone was in their own element. There were people sleeping there with bags or stuff that I was confused about, but we will come back to that later! While the mosque was beautiful and it was great praying there, there is something a little unsettling about how flamboyant it is.

I am very happy we visited the mosque in the afternoon though because it carries very different beauty in the night and day. One of my friends from Philadelphia is actually spending time with his family in Casablanca so we met up with him and his sister afterwards. His name is Othmane and his family also invited us all over for fatoor which was really nice of them. But it was incredibly bizarre that Gabby, Othmane and I were all spending time together in Casa! It just goes to show how small the world is and how random life can be at times. First we toured the city which is HUGE compared to Rabat and has so many different parts, but because it is still Ramadan the streets were relatively quiet and most stores were closed. Afterwards we checked into our hotel which cost $10 per person and on a scale of 1-10 for sketchiness, 10 being the highest, it was probably a 7, but I am writing this safe and sound back in Rabat 
Afterwards we went to visit the king’s palace then headed over for fatoor. On the drive over to their house we drove by the beach where I possibly saw the most incredible sunset of my lifetime that looked like an angel’s wing. We arrived a little after fatoor due to the traffic but Othmane’s mom went all out for the fatoor and there was fresh orange juice, delicious dates, homemade shabakiya, homemade bread (ragheef), the pancake bread, hareera soup… and this was just the first course. While eating I wished so hard that I had more room in my stomach and it required strategy to not get full too quickly. Then we had a whole grilled stuffed fish (picture below) with an olive and grape stuffing along the side. Also we were eating in the outdoor patio and it was a gorgeous night. This has to have been my favorite fatoor in Morocco!
After fatoor some of us went back to the mosque for the Taraweeh prayer, thinking that we were leaving early to get a good spot. Little did we know… In front of the mosque there was so much traffic so we got down to walk while Othman’s dad parked the car. Never in my life have I seen that many people. The next day in the paper we read that there were 250,000 people there that night that not only filled the mosque and the terrace, but also the entire surrounding area out to the street. As massive as the sound system is, half the people could barely hear the imam reciting the prayer! Shabneez and I first tried to pray along the outskirts but really couldn’t hear anything, and thanks to her braveness, the two of us ventured closer to the mosque. Better crowd control really could have allowed more people to get closer to the mosque because there was some extra room for people to squeeze in. After about 20 minutes of steering past people praying and climbing up and down these waist-high steps we reached a place where we could here, and were lucky enough to have the ocean right behind us. The salty air, starry sky, crowdedness of people and sight of a 300 meter minaret in front were all topped off by it actually being the night that they completed reading the Quran in the prayer, so there was a beautiful invocation at the end. Now I understand however why those people were sleeping in the mosque earlier that day, its just like staking out a spot for a concert!
And trying to leave with all the traffic was also like a concert! It took us over an hour to get to the hotel that’s about 10 minutes away. We called it a night early and then left to the train station first thing in the morning. Happy to have visited Casa and surprised by the sense of belonging we all felt upon arriving in Rabat!