Rock in the Kasbah

Nuria at her home in Rabat

View of Sale from Terrace

After arriving in Rabat by train, I haggled with some taxi drivers for a while before finally finding one who only overcharged me a little bit to take me to the kasbah gates where I was going to meet Nuría, my hostess for the AirBnB place where I am staying.  When we met, she led me through the labyrinthine streets of the kasbah, which is the old, walled city of Rabat, to her home, which she shares with her boyfriend Tarik.

View from my alcove

It’s a beautiful home with a lovely terrace and a view over the river which runs between Rabat and its twin city, Sale.  I have my own level of the house, with an alcove for my bed and Tarik and Nuría serve me breakfast on the terrace each morning.  It’s pretty awesome.

View of Rabat andMawazine African Music Stage from Terrace

There is a big, annual, international music festival that happens to be going on this week (lucky me!) here in Rabat, called Festival Mawazine – Rhythms of the World.  There are 5 or 6 different stages set up in different areas of the city.  Each stage has a different theme of music, such as International, or African, or World.  Some of the headliners this week are Justin Timberlake, Stromae, Robert Plant, Ricky Martin, and Alicia Keys.  From the terrace at Tarik and Nuria’s, you can see (and hear) two of the stages!  The concerts start at different times, so you can actually hear different music at diffent times of the evening, and it only overlaps for a little while.  However, since I’ll be at some of the shows, the overlapping won’t be an issue.  The concerts are all free, too, btw!

Tarik and the Tangine

Tarik is an excellent chef and the first night I was in town, he taught me how to cook a chicken tangine!  It was a great experience.  Apparently there is a mixture of 99 spices that Moroccans use to flavour their meals.  So clearly, I don’t know what all went into the meal we prepared, but it was delicious!

Although I didn’t actually go to a show last night, I could hear the concerts from the house while we were cooking and eating our delicious tangine.   As the music was shaking the town until well into the night, I realized what The Clash must’ve been referring to.  The Kasbah was definitely Rocking.  Tonight I went to a concert with Tarik and Nuría for some firsthand experience.

Ta-Da!

First, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant and had a traditional Moroccan soup called harira, which is made with chickpeas and lentils.  It was very delicious, and is apparently served every day during Ramadan to break one’s fast.  This year Ramadan starts sometime at the end of June.  I expect I’ll have moved on to another country by then, so I’m glad I got to try some now.  The guys at the restaurant asked Tarik if I spoke any Berber, which is one of the desert tribes in Morocco, assuming I was Moroccan.  (He told them I knew a little – which is to say, I know how to say “Thank You” and we had a good laugh about it when we left the restaurant).

Mawazine Sign

Later, we walked down to the concert.  The band playing was a French-Algerian reggae-ska group called Zebda.  I really liked it.  We ran into a group of Tarik’s friends and his brother who were really lively and fun to hang out with.  You can see them dancing a little in this clip from some of the concert.  I’m definitely going to go to another show tomorrow!