A couple of things not mentioned that I think about:
Atlas Mountains, and the highest point in N. Africa
The latest (or next-to-latest) “Eco-Challenge” series
Trilobites, Trilobites, Trilobites! Almost every nice, large trilobite you see for sale at a rock shop came from Morocco–there are even Trilobite counterfiters!
Other Paleozoic and Mesozoic fossils.
In my youth I frequently confused Morocco with Monaco. and I thought Grace Kelly was the queen, and that casinos were the main industry.
Gozu, have you seen the film Casablanca, the reason so many Americans would think it’s cool you’re from there? While a great film, I’m sure it says absolutely nothing about Morocco or Morrocans.
Recently I started this thread about what I called “The Spanish Moroccan War”. Being bloodless so fas (AFAIK), I find it highly amusing. I wish other nations were so adept at fighting bloodless wars.
I forgot, another famous American film that says Nothing about the people who live there, “Road to Morocco”, one of the Hope/Crosby “Road to…” movies.
Berbers make carpet.
Kidding. Hah…hey, don’t point that thing at me!
The Smithsonian magazine, August 2002, has an excellent article, *Morocco’s Mystique[/]. It is well written and informative. I recommend it to anyone seeking information about Morocco.
For that matter, [magazine plug] I recommend the Smithsonian magazine to all and sundry. [/magazine plug]
Oh sure Louis recommend my favorite really informative magazine that I let the subscription slide and subsequently will not receive this August 2002 issue. Nuts.
Alright, **Gozu ** I’ll be the first to *Ask the Moroccan Guy *:
How did you end up in Florida?
What culture shock did you have from leaving your home country to the USA?
What do you miss most about your home country?
How long have you been here?
Morocco. Its Arabic name is al-Mamlakah al-Maghribîyah (long form), al-Maghrib (short form).
The closest part of the Islamic world to the United States.
One of the first countries ever to establish diplomatic relations with the United States. In 1787. Probably the first of all after France.
The French imperialist Marshal Lyautey said, “In Morocco and Tunisia we were able to build [colonial administration] on solid rock. But in Algeria we found nothing but shifting sands.”
The mystique surrounding the king is that he’s descended from Prophet Muhammad. He serves a religious function in the popular imagination. This was studied in a scholarly book titled Sacred Performances (I’m pretty sure that was the title).
The name Rabat refers to a fortress, once the stronghold of warrior Sufis called murâbits (or “marabouts”) who spread Islam south to sub-Saharan Africa and north to Spain. The institution of the ribât served as both a dervish center and a fortress. The band of marabouts who ruled Spain in the 11th century are known to history as the Almoravids (al-Murâbitûn.
The Rifian Berber dialects spoken in the north are known as Tamazight (spoken by people whose name for themselves is Imazighen), while the Berber dialect group in the south is Tashelhait (spoken by the Shluh). The Berber languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which also includes Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic. So Berber and Arabic are related and share some common Afro-Asiatic roots, and features like the feminine in -t. But a distinctive feature of Berber is the feminine t used as a circumfix, at both ends of the word, as you can see in names like Tamazight, or the words for woman: tamtut, tamghart.
The Moroccan Arabic dialect differs strongly from Arabic dialects spoken in the eastern Arab world. It tends to make the long vowels short, while the short vowels disappear, and you’re left with a lot of consonants. For example, the name Mubârak becomes M’Bark. (The French introduced this strange spelling where the first two consonants are capitalized with an apostrophe in between.)
The High Atlas mountains. Wow!
The Master Musicians of Jujuka. First brought to the attention of the outside world by the late Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Now they have recording contracts and everything; they provided the soundtrack for the film The Cell.
The Berbers have retained some pre-Islamic customs, like the spring fertility festival of Bû J’Lûd (in which an animal is sacrificed, the hide is cut into strips, and a naked man runs around hitting everybody he can find with the strips of hide).
I remember hearing something about a female spirit named ‘Â’ishah Kandisha who lives in a cave. What’s she doing there?
Phil Collins’s jazz fusion band Brand X in 1977 titled their second album Moroccan Roll, and the cover illustration by Hipgnosis showed a Moroccan casbah scene. But the title was just a pun for “more rock ‘n’ roll.”
There is only one r in Morocco. Some people say the name of Morocco is derived from the Arabic name al-Maghrib, but I don’t believe that etymology. I think it’s shortened from the name Marrakesh, because Marrakesh was the capital for centuries.
That’s off the top of my head without looking anything up.
Osakadave: Morocco was ‘divided’ in two during the colonisation. Spain occupied the north and the south (Sahara) while France occupied the bulk of the country. When Morocco obtained it’s independance in 1956, Spain kept occupying the Sahara until 1975 when The former king Hassan II called for a pacific march from every corner of the country into the sahara. The trick worked and made him very popular among his subjects. A separatist group named Polisario was born afterwards which was openly supported by Algeria and maybe Spain. Spain is always pressuring Morocco about a referendum in the area which would be supervised by the U.N. Morocco is always pushing the dates away and complaining about the Moroccan prisoners of war held by the Polisario and the conditions of their incarceration. Moroccans as a whole would never accept a secession of the Sahara and the king knows it so the situation doesn’t look like it is going to get better any soon. But I’m no expert on the subject so you’d better research this yourself if you are interested.
Shirley Ujest:
1- I was studying in Spain, met a swedish-american girl and fell in love with her. One of us had to move so we could be together so I came here.
2- No culture shock whatsoever. I studied in a french Highschool in Morocco and my views on most things are far more european than moroccan. That is why I left for Spain in the first place. I was quite surprised by the U.S.A when I first came. I find the americans to be a bit like children. Naive, enthousiastic, a bit self centered. Quite different from europeans.
3- My family, moroccan food, the warmth of the people in this order.
4- I have been here for 7 months now.
Jomo mojo: Amazing…you’ve got it all right. ‘Â’ishah Kandisha is used to scare little children. She’s supposed to have been a murderer of some sort. One of the versions says you can see her at night if you are alone in a Hammam. bewaaaaare…hehehe
Correction… I looked this up after posting. I hadn’t remembered quite right. Bû Julûd (the father of the skins) isn’t naked, he wears the animal skins. He doesn’t strike with hide, but with a green branch. His strike is supposed to make women pregnant. He has something to do with Aishah Kandishah, and this is connected with the ceremonies of the drumming and piping of the Master Magicians of Jajuka? Which is how I first found out about it.
Many times I got up in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom, but I’ve never seen Aishah Kandishah or anyone else. Only my own face in the mirror, which is scary enough.
I never heard of Bu Julud (I am not berber myself).
When I said Hammam, I meant the public ones (god I miss them…) not the bathroom in your house. Although my uncle once scared my little brother to death loking him for a few minutes in our bathroom and telling him boo’ooo (i don’t know how to spell it…) was coming to get him.
My Arabic professor told our class that people in touristy areas all over the Middle East, not just Morocco, find this to be a hysterical joke. Probably because tourists so often fall for it.
You’ve got to love middle eastern irony 
I have absolutley no business responding to this thread, but since I’m going to do so, I would request that someone kindly give me a good virtual whack on my virtual bottom and tell me to get back to work.
Well, when I think of Morocco, I think of lots of things, some of which I’m sure I’m confusing with some other African countries, but there it is. Africa; dark-skinned–some nappy-headed, some not so nappy-headed–fellas wearing beautiful clothes, or not very many clothes at all ;); patriarchy :(; Islam; Sufism; minarets; mosaics; a dry, hot climate; desert in some places, good farmland in others; folks sitting and drinking tea and talking about the latest events in their lives, or sitting and people-watching; shoppers haggling with merchants; market places filled with spices, herbs, fruits, vegetables, meat, the smell of food cooking, lemons preserved in salt–or is it sugar?–in a jar; the sound of noisy cars zipping through the streets; harems; silenced women wearing veils and such like; French colonialism; native Moroccan resentment of French colonialism; post-colonialism; Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, a book I’d love to teach sometime, though I don’t know when I can sneak her into the classroom [giggle]. Okay, Gozu. How did I do on your little quiz, hon?
You did good. here is a lollypop
Gosh, I just love lollypops, Gozu. Thank you, dear.
This is my honest opinion:
I think of Morocco as probably offering the best of the Islamic/Arab world – and I certainly do not know enough to draw a distinction between Arab and Berber. (Yeah, I cheated and read the whole thread – so sue me.) My extremely nebulous and baseless impression of the country is that it is very exotic (in the best sense of the world, and speaking as an American with limited travel experience). You know – tile walls and sunny marketplaces and hookahs and people in robes and camels and the song The Year of The Cat (“On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time, he goes strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime . . . .”)
Indefensible generalizations follow: I think many Americans think of the Arab and/or Islamic world as oppressive, warlike, and hostile to Americans. And many Americans think of Africa as being very poor and backward – famines and civil wars. As a result, I think a lot of Americans, including me, would say they are not that interested in visiting either Africa or the Arab/Islamic world as they understand it.
But I would love to visit Morocco. I don’t apply to it the negative impressions I unfortunately – and, I admit, out of ignorance – have about the Arab world and Africa. Instead, I have a very romantic idea of Morocco.
But I do think that the average American’s impression of Morocco can be summed up in one word: Casablanca.
And I can sympathize if you are surprised or dismayed to find that opinions of your entire country are formed based on one romantic and rather silly movie. In the mid-'80s I spent time with a Brazilian exchange student who told me that, in his small village, literally all they knew about the U.S. was what they saw on Dallas. To them, Southfork = America.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Every Mole wears a Fez, and speaks like Peter Lorre.
What can I say? I watched Secret Squirrel before I ever saw Casablanca.
I did read a few posts before responding, but I don’t think it’ll influence me too much.
I spent 5 days there while on a vacation to Spain two years ago. Marrakech has the best orange juice I’ve ever had, and some decent sheep brain- I only had a bite, though. There is some wonderful geology east of Marrakech, but the fossil makers need a little practice- the fakes are good, but still obvious. The people are very friendly- everyone in the souk was ‘my brother’ or ‘my friend’. They are remarkably good at guessing country of origin, too. There is beautiful woodwork in Essouira, where the castles made of sand that inspired Jimi are. It’s worth gettting a sleeper cabin for the overnight train from Marrakech to Tangier.
Crap, I forgot the tea that tastes like Wrigley’s. Good stuff. And the Berber rug I got.