questions answered

I guess it’s my turn to add a little something about where we live.

First things first, I’ll try to answer question. Anytime we talk about appearances we tread on dangerous ground and because of this we must say that we can only report what we see and have observed in our limited time here. As in all countries there is intermarriage. In Morocco, marriage between Arabs and Berbers is relatively common and therefore the lines between these two cultures is growing closer. This obviously includes appearance. Nonetheless, the village we live in is considered an Arabic one and the neighboring one only 1 km away that speaks Berber is considered by many here to contain the “darker” skinned people. While, I will admit that a large number of people from that village do in fact have darker skin there is an extremely high number of people in our very own village that also have dark skin, yet speak Arabic as their first language. Some of the discrepancy is due undoubtedly to the fact that for hundreds of years, darker skinned sub-Saharan Africans have come to Morocco, many as slaves, concubines, or as hired armies, and now the descendants of these people live in all parts of Morocco, and consequently identify both as Arabs and Berbers. In the northern portions of the country, Berbers tend to have fairer skin and may even possess blue or green eyes and lighter hair colors such as red. So all of this to say that differences may be observed, but in doing so, one will undoubtedly make incorrect assumptions about the person or group of persons being observed.*

Clothing for men varies quite a bit depending upon what the occasion is. Men who work in towns or at government offices typically wear slacks and buttoned shirts. Men who want to relax may be found wearing track suits or the more traditional foqiya (some version of that dress thing I was wearing) here in the south. In the north track suits or the more famous jellaba is typically worn. There is very little difference between these except that the jellaba has a hood. For men, they are often brown so when the weather is bad and everyone has their hoods up it looks like there are a bunch of ewoks walking around. In the south, there is a “traditional” foqiya that is blue with some gold embroidering. As far as I can tell in our area there is very little difference between what Arab men and Berber men wear. I would say that the greater difference is between north and south due to climate differences.



* Information was taken from Orin Hargraves’ book Culture Shock: Morocco