Real estate in Fez

Are foreigners still buying houses in Fez? Just a few years ago, medina houses were being snapped up by people coming to Fez, encouraged by the low prices of property and also by the multitude of cheap flights, especially from the UK.

Then the bubble burst, the flights dried up, and buyers started to realise just how much that house was going to cost to restore (roughly about three times the purchase price).

Recently the Wall Street Journal carried an interesting article by Paul Ames:

"On holiday?" asked the young man, toweling down after a steam in the neighborhood hamam. "You should come and live here in Morocco, it's the best place to be, peaceful and the sun always shines."

I hesitated to agree, but then I'd just been prodded, pummeled and scrubbed by a one-eyed, monolingual masseur with an impish grin and long bushy beard who soon made me regret that I hadn't learned the Arabic word for "gently." By the time my tormentor had brought a second glass of sweet mint tea and the therapeutic effects of his robust rub down began to engender a warm, fuzzy glow, my outlook mellowed.

As I strolled back through the feast for the senses that is the Fes medina, watching the fading sun bathe countless minarets in golden light, it was easy to see why a growing number of westerners are setting up home in Morocco's spiritual and cultural capital.

"I was looking for somewhere culturally very different and this place just seemed extraordinary. Fes has this kind of essence about it, it grabs you and holds you," says Mike Richardson, a former London maître d' who moved to Fes four years ago. Mr. Richardson now runs the Café Clock, which has developed as a social hub for the expat community and hip young Fassi, as the city's inhabitants are known. It serves up exhibitions of Arab calligraphy, live Gnawa music and cross-cultural cuisine including the notorious camel burger.

Dating back to the 8th century, the old city of Fes is the Arab world's largest intact medina and is believed to be the biggest car-free urban area on the planet. Clustered around the great Al-Qarawinyn mosque, this tangle of tiny alleys, dark tunnels and exuberant souks was long viewed by Europeans as a remote and exotic destination. Ryanair's opening of direct, low-cost flights a few years ago to over a dozen cities on the other side of the Mediterranean has made Fes accessible. With an abundance of affordable traditional courtyard-houses, Fes suddenly found favor with westerners seeking a place in the sun.

"There was a gold rush," says David Amster, the American director of the Arabic Language Institute in Fes. "It got way out of control. Some people bought houses after only being in the city for three hours," adds Mr. Amster, who has lived in the medina since 1996. "It was like meeting somebody in a discotheque; you talk for a while and then wake up married, a mistake. Fes doesn't suit everybody … if you're interested in partying or fun in the sun, Fes is not the place."

Instead, Fes is a time capsule. Despite the countless satellite dishes clinging to the flat rooftops and the souks selling cell phones, Paul Bowles's description of 1950s Fes as "a medieval city functioning in the 20th century," still holds resonance. Lose yourself in the maze of medina lanes and you pass traders and artisans working in tiny storefronts: carpenters knocking together gaudy bridal thrones around the Nejjarine square; metal workers hammering at copper plates in the Seffarine; dazzling displays of olives, spices and citrus alongside baskets of live snails and the occasional camel's head in the R'cif food market.

Before Morocco won its independence in 1956, Fes was a divided city. Arabs mostly lived in the old medina, Fes el Bali, and its 13th-century offshoot Fes Jdid, which also enclosed the Jewish quarter or mellah. Europeans inhabited the broad avenues of the Ville Nouvelle, built outside the city walls after France took control of the country in 1912. As the French departed, rich and middle-class Moroccans abandoned the medina to move into their spacious apartments and plush colonial villas.

Many of the dars and riads—elegant traditional homes built around patios, fountains and gardens—were divided up among poor families. They could enjoy carved cedar-wood ceilings and walls adorned with intricate mosaics of zellige tiles even though they were squeezed into single, sometimes squalid, rooms. Many such families now aspire to sell their homes to outsiders.

"They dream of selling this place so they can move into modern apartments in the new suburbs," explains Hafid El Amrani, whose restoration company is working on an early 19th-century dar currently inhabited by seven families. "Ideally, they'll find somebody who will buy the whole place for €220,000, perhaps to turn it into a guest house."

The work is being financed by a government fund that is helping poor local families restore historic homes in the medina. Mr. Amster says over 500 of the 9,000 courtyard houses (they are called a riad when the central patio includes a garden, a dar if not) have been restored and taken over by outsiders—either foreigners or Moroccans from outside the medina—to be used as vacation homes, boutique hotels or full-time residences.

Mr. Amster's own website offers advice on how to buy and restore a house, from the bureaucratic requirements for bringing funds into Morocco to tips on negotiating a good price with local craftsmen (www.houseinfez.com).

"When I first came to Fes, there were no other foreigners living in the medina," says Mr. Amster, who has since restored three traditional homes. "I came here to teach, but it was very difficult to find a place to rent in the medina, so I bought a massriya (an independent apartment within a traditional house). It needed some work and lots of patience, but you could see from the beginning that it was stunning."

The upsurge of interest in traditional homes has been a boon for the carpenters, painters, tile makers and other craftsmen of the medina whose skills were in danger of dying out. Although the recession has taken some of the fizz out of the Fes real estate market, locals complain that prices are still up to three times what they were before boom. Bargain hunters can still pick up a small dar ripe for renovation for less than €30,000 or a riad with guest-house potential for €150,000.

Many adopted Fassi look with concern at Marrakech, claiming that the much greater influx of foreign residents and tourists there has changed the nature of the southern city.

"Fes is not a pleasure ground like Marrakech, which is getting hen parties and stag parties. I just don't think Fes is ever going to have that sort of thing going on," says Mr. Richardson, the café owner. "The people coming here are looking for a more intellectual pursuit; they want it to be authentic. Anyway, the medina is big enough to swallow us all."

The View from Fez asked local agent Fred Sola, of Fez Real Estate, what the market is like today.

"We don't see English people any more," reports Fred. "It's mostly the French who are interested. We have regular requests and are involved in a few transactions. So after a couple of years of no action, things are moving a bit."

"Because local owners are not in debt with their houses," continues Fred, "they're happy to wait until the price is right, so prices are stable. But we don't have the lower entry prices that we saw a few years ago. There's nothing under Dh300 000 (around 27 272 Euros) and you don't get much for that. I don't see that prices will go higher in the near future."

New year greetings

The View from Fez team wishes all its readers all the very best for 2011.

Photographic Workshop in Fez

Following the successful photographic workshop earlier this year, 1000 Words Photography will be holding another event in Fez with acclaimed Swedish photographer Anders Petersen from 27 April to 1 May. They are calling for both professional and amateur photographers to submit entries for this rare and challenging experience.

The importance and achievements of Swedish photographer, Anders Petersen, cannot be overestimated. As a social realist he has had a significant influence on a bitter/sweet attitude that strives towards a `subjective documentary´ approach to photography. Taught by Christer Strömholm in the 1960s, Anders has continued and expanded the necessity for photographers to embark on personal diaries of the life, places and people that they experience. He has published more than 20 photobooks from the highly regarded and classic, Café Lehmitz (1978) to the more recent collaboration with JH Engström with From Back Home (2009). He is represented by Galerie VU in Paris, Marvelli Gallery in New York, Gun Gallery in Stockholm and Rat Hole Gallery in Tokyo.

For details, see the 1000 Words website here.

Artisan weaving in Fez

Sy Hassane Kabil and his wife Isabelle run a hand-weaving atelier in Fez known as Dar al Tiraz - the house of embroidery.

The art of weaving this highly textured and ornamental fabric was one of the arts of Fez, but has long since been lost. The fabric, called lampas, was developed in the Middle East in the 11th century and was much more ornate than previous textiles had been. The art spread from Andalusia across to Fez somewhere in the 13th century.

Datatextil, a trade magazine that features Dar al Tiraz in its latest edition, explains that the lampas technique in Fez was enhanced by immigration to the city after the fall of Granada in 1492. The lampas was used by wealthy women as belts and was made of silk, often embellished with gold or silver thread. The belts were worn folded lengthwise and rolled several times around the waist. They became longer, wider and more colourful over time as fashions changed.

Lampas production is time-consuming and expensive as it is woven on hand-operated drawlooms. The art was kept alive in Fez until about a hundred years ago when it disappeared. Sy Hassane and Isabelle have now reinvented the techniques and are producing exquisite examples of the fabrics.

Sy Hassan is an artist as well as being a trained Jacquard engineer. His father was a prominent master-weaver who specialised in silk brocade; this, and the fact that he loves old fabrics, led Si Hassan to restore the art of lampas weaving. This was no easy task as he had to start from scratch by designing and building the drawlooms. There were no loom craftsmen left who knew how to make them.



Datatextil reports that the date and place of birth of the hand-operated drawloom is not precisely known. But it is clear that this complex handloom was long in use in many countries, from Japan and China in the far East, to Spain and Morocco in the far West. Although all hand-operated drawlooms follow the same fundamental scheme, adjustments were made in the various countries where they were adopted. The Arabo-Andalusian type in use at Dar al Tiraz is typical of Fez and was used in the brocade workshops for which the city is famous.

The contemporary textile industry, of course, is now computerised, so hand-operated looms – and even more so, drawlooms – might appear to some to be completely outdated. In most countries, the hand-operated drawloom was supplanted as early as the 19th century by the Jacquard loom, its direct offshoot. In order to master this old-time weaving technique, one needs not only a comprehensive knowledge of textile engineering, but also a great deal of passion and patience. The result, however, is well worth the effort: the fabrics produced by such looms is almost without equal.

Sy Hassan has been studying the textile arts for more than 25 years. In the course of his extended research and work with the craftsmen of Fez, he gained a large number of skills and became an expert in the textile field. His passion is drawing new patterns, and he enjoys learning about the history of handweaving on a worldwide scale.

Isabelle Riaboff is a doctor of ethnology and specialist of the Tibetan-speaking populations of the Western Himalayas, where she carried out research for more than 15 years. Since 2005, following a valuation which she conducted in Fez for UNESCO, in collaboration with the Ministère de l'Artisanat du Maroc, she has reorientated her research to focus on the Moroccan handweaving of figured fabrics.

What the couple are hoping to do now is prevent this outstanding knowledge from vanishing once again. Sy Hassan and Isabelle are happy to share their experience and knowledge with weavers, be they professional or amateurs, as well as with onlookers and travellers who want to know more about the amazing artisan heritage of the city of Fez. They have three dreams: to open an educational workshop for both visitors and students; to found a school dedicated to training young weavers so that the art will not be lost again; and to write a book about the history of the handweaving of figured fabric in Morocco and the weaving techniques related to drawlooms.

For more information, see www.dar-al-tiraz.com

For technical details of the drawloom, see the Datatextil article in full here.

Morocco and Wikileaks - new material

Any doubts about the Spanish Government's attitude to the ongoing dispute in the Moroccan Sahara region are cleared up by the latest documents provided by Wikileaks. Right from the start the Spanish Government backed a proposal to turn Sahara into an autonomous community within Morocco. The leaked telegrams sent between Embassies in the States, Madrid, Rabat and Paris and uncovered by Wikileaks were published in Spanish newspaper El Pais on Tuesday.

In 2006, the then Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, sent a proposal - on un-headed paper, according to the paper - suggesting that talks cease to be about independence and sovereignty (for the Sahrawis) and instead about backing "regionalization, autonomy and self-government".

"A similar solution to the one offered by Spain to Catalonia," proposed Moratinos, while Spanish civil servants agreed that independence was not a realistic option.

When in 2007 Morocco presented its document proposing autonomy for Sahara, according to the leaked communications Moratinos was unsatisfied with the result and asked for more generosity on the part of the Moroccans. The same telegrams revealed that Spanish Diplomacy considered that the situation was made more difficult by the strength of the French pro-Moroccan stance.

Morocco's policy on recognizing Amazigh Names

2010 will be remembered as a breakthrough year for Moroccan parents wanting to name their children with Amazigh names. And, according to Human Rights Watch, the government directive liberalizing Morocco's policy is having positive results.

Back in April, the Ministry of Interior issued a directive that for the first time defined Amazigh names as meeting the legal prerequisite of being "Moroccan in nature." In the eight months since, there have been fewer complaints from citizens that local bureaus of the Civil Registry have refused to register Amazigh given names, several Amazigh rights activists told Human Rights Watch. However, the general requirement that parents choose names that are deemed "Moroccan in nature" continues to limit parents' choices and create administrative obstacles and should be eased, Human Rights Watch said.

"By explicitly recognizing Amazigh names as Moroccan, the government has eased a restriction on the right of parents to choose their children's names," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This move shows greater respect and recognition for Morocco's ethnically and culturally diverse population."

Some members of Morocco's Amazigh population have in recent years grown increasingly assertive in demanding official recognition of their culture and Tamazight language. The Moroccan state responded by creating a Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture in 2001 and initiating elementary school instruction and programs on state television in Tamazight.

Was Ibn Battuta a Fake?

Forget people like Marco Polo, as far as the Arab world goes, Ibn Battuta is THE MAN. But this greatly reverred explorer has had his reputation questioned. The man casting doubt on our Battuta is German oriental scholar Ralf Elger, who claims to have discovered that Ibn Battuta faked most of his travel accounts. As one commentator has said "The professor's theory dulls the polished image of one of the most revered figures in Arab cultural history". So, was the great Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta, a genuine contemporary witness or simply an impostor? Our Cultural Editor, Ibn Warraq, investigates.

The book, Ibn Battuta: Die Wunder des Morgenlandes, by orientalist scholar Ralf Elger, will be seen as either a breakthrough work or an attempt to smear the reputation of one of the Arab world's favourite sons. At a time when many Muslims feel that the golden age has been left behind, Abou Abdallah Mohammed Ibn Abdallah Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Youssef Alaouati Attangi - thankfully shortened to Ibn Battuta - has always been seen as someone in whom they can feel justifiable pride. For those people, Ralf Elgar will certainly put a dent in that pride.

For Muslims, Ibn Battuta still commands a great deal of respect because he records in his travel journals the legendary greatness of the Islamic empire. His accounts serve as a confirmation of an Islamic self-image that is still intact – like a mantra, Ibn Battuta accentuates the virtuousness of Islamic life and the misguided nature of the unfaithful.

However, Elgar hints at plagiarism. In the epilogue to his book, Ralf Elger writes that there are numerous indications that Ibn Battuta's travel account is not based on his own observations – for example in the case of descriptions of rulers who verifiably governed before or after Battuta's lifetime; there are also many inconsistencies in the geographical details.

Most notable, Elgar points out, are however the striking resemblances to various writings of his era, primarily to a pilgrimage account written by a certain Ahmad Ibn Jubayr. Pages of this work were either slightly reworked or copied word for word: "Many of Ibn Battuta's accounts do not provide us with his immediate travel impressions at all, but rather confront us with his skill as a plagiariser," says Elger.

Throughout his travels Ibn Battuta records the extraordinary generosity of his hosts. Elgar also comes up with an explanation for all of this. Put simply it is greed. "If you appreciate Ibn Battuta's account as an implicit demand for a sumptuous gift, then it is very easy to explain many of the passages," says Elger. "The reader may well have wondered how it could have been possible for an unknown traveller from Morocco to gain access to the world's leaders and be honoured as such by them. The correct answer is probably that these contacts were invented for this very purpose, to proffer himself to the Sultan of Fez."

The descriptions of his work as qadi can also be interpreted in this light: If I have served as a judge throughout the entire Islamic world, reads the message to the Sultan of Fez, then all the more at your behest in my homeland Morocco.

German academic, Lewis Gropp, writing a review of Elgar's book in the magazine Qantara, also comments on Elgar's claims, but points out that, in part, they are nothing new. "Although Ibn Battuta is still viewed to this day by many Arabs as a great explorer and traveller of the Arab and Islamic world, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of his reports even during his lifetime. The great Arab historian Ibn Chaldun reports for example that there were several people at the court of Fez who did not believe the accounts were genuine."

Elgar also claims that there is no interest in a revision of Ibn Battuta's work in the Arab world today – proof, he says, that Ibn Battuta continues to serve many Arabs and Muslims as a symbol of their former cultural greatness. This faith is of course thrown into question if he is revealed as an impostor. Among other things, this is why early indications of plagiarism in the text were not only brushed aside by large sections of the Arab public, but also by those carrying out academic study of the texts.  "A scandalous occurrence," says Elger "that proves that much has changed for the worse in the Arab world since the 14th century."

Well, while that is true, it is certainly nothing new. In the end, it matters little to those who will continue to read and enjoy the travels of Ibn Battuta. Elgar's work is yet to be translated into English, so, in the meantime, I suggest we set him aside and enjoy Battuta's writing. There have been many translations and scholarly works on the travels; perhaps the best being historian Ross E. Dunn's The Adventures of Ibn Battuta. For those who want something more, by far the most entertaining books about Ibn Battuta are Travels with a Tangerine and The Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith. This writer, based in San'a in Yemen, set out to follow in Battuta's footsteps - the first book deals with the first stage of his journey from Tangier to Constantinople; the second deals with his voyage through India.

For more on Ibn Battuta - go here.

The Fez Sacred Music Festival 2011 - Guest Contribution

Music lovers are already making plans for the 17th Fes Festival of World Sacred Music next year:
3-11 June 2011. For those who would like a taste of the festival, we are very pleased to be able to give you a sneak preview of a very fine article by Rolling Stone writer, Mark Kemp. Below is just one section of a much longer piece that will be published in the new year. Full details and a link will be provided then. In the meantime... over to Mark Kemp

AT DUSK on Saturday, the first full day of music, no one pressed against the barrier separating the stage from the crowd at Bab Boujloud Square was complaining about musical styles or the ratio of Moroccan musicians to those of other cultures. The people in the largely local audience – some 5,000 strong – were too busy furiously waving bandanas around so fast they looked like the flapping wings of hovering hummingbirds.

Abdellah Yaakoubi 

Dressed in a long, flowing djellaba with brown stripes and a plain white kufi skull-cap, thirty-five-year-old Moroccan star Abdellah Yaakoubi – a member of the Issawi brotherhood of Sufis – had the crowd in a frenzy. A mass of young people in their teens and twenties – eyes ablaze, jumping up and down, fists pumping in the air – nearly fell over each other thrusting themselves toward the stage. But Yaakoubi barely moved. He just walked back and forth, singing snaky, curlicue-like melodies into his microphone as percussionists seated behind him pounded away. During the most intense climaxes of his songs, Yaakoubi’s voice sounded as though it was penetrating some invisible barrier between earth and heaven.

To many fans of Sufi music, that penetration is real. “Sufism is something transcendent, from the inside to the outer space where God’s mercy is. It’s coming from the soul, from the bottom of the heart,” said Marouane Hajji, a twenty-three-year-old Sufi-singing prodigy who performed another night at the nearby Dar Tazi. He was speaking in Arabic, through an intepreter. “People are in love and in touch with with the Sufis, because they know that this is the line between them and spirituality and flying into the space.”

Like gospel singers in the U.S., a Sufi singer’s sole reason for being is to reach God through music, says Blain Auer, a Western Michigan University professor of comparative religions who lives part-time in the Fez medina and the rest in Kalamazoo. Betto and I visited him one day for a walk to some of the medina’s more notable sites: the Moulay Idriss Mausoleum; the Attarine Madrasa, a Fourteenth Century Islamic school; the tomb of Ahmad Tijani, founder of the Tijani Sufi order. We ended the afternoon over tea and conversation on the rooftop of the Nejjarine Museum, a converted inn and warehouses where merchants in prior centuries would display their goods. “The idea (in Sufism) is that there are many ways to God and each individual needs to find his own unique way,” said Auer, a lanky, thirty-one-year-old academic whose pale skin, khakis and button-down shirt make him stand out in the medina like a Jack Russell terrier in a pack of Atlas shepherds. “For some people, music is a very powerful avenue, for some people it’s poetry, and for some people it’s prayer.”

The night before, at another Sufi performance, a scruffy-haired young singer had admitted to Betto that for him, music is a more important avenue than prayer. The statement probably wouldn’t go over well among fundamentalist Christians in the part of the South where I live. Auer said it wouldn’t go over well among some Muslims, either. “There are many Muslims who would say that this is not appropriate behavior, that there is no substitute for prayer and that prayer is an obligation,” he said. But Sufism is a very different kind of Islam from the fundamentalist branches most Americans read about or see on television and in movies. Like the Christian mysticism that inspired Catholic writer Thomas Merton, Sufism is the branch of Islam in which essential questions are raised: What does it mean to be a Muslim? What does it mean to be spiritual? What does it mean to be religious? “Sufism is the space where questions of tolerance in the religious tradition are raised,” said Auer. “Like, how much orthodoxy should we adhere to and where are the boundaries that we can stretch and expand upon?”

When I talked to Ricky McKinnie of the Blind Boys of Alabama on the afternoon of the group’s final-night performance, he sounded a lot like a Sufi. Dressed in a well-pressed sky-blue suit, McKinnie said he and his band keep coming back to Fez because they don’t see themselves as any more or less enlightened than any other person or culture seeking a spiritual connection. “See, communication is the main thing,” he told me. “We need to learn to sit down and to understand that your way doesn’t necessarily have to be the right way.”

The author with his Moroccan tour guides Mohammed Barqine and Maurat Charef

MY MOROCCAN tour guide, Maurat, is laughing at me. We are driving past bountiful groves of cherry and apple trees, to the farm of one of his family members outside the village of Imouzzer-Kandar. I’m trying to ask him what his brother, whom we had just met outside an Imouzzer-Kandar cafe, does for a living. The only thing his friend Mohammed, the better English-speaker of the two, will tell me is that Maurat comes from a wealthy family. Maurat was trying to tell me something, too, but I have no idea what. And now he’s laughing. Betto, who knows just enough French to get himself in trouble, tries to help me out. “I think he’s saying ‘finance.’”

During our day-long excursion through the Moroccan countryside, Betto and I have played all kinds of communication games with our hosts. And we’ve shared our music. A panoply of songs has played through the tinny speakers of the car’s stereo system – everything from random radio songs by artists from my neck of the world (Dolly Parton and Louis Armstrong) to the Euro dance-pop of Italian diva Elisa to Maurat’s endlessly looping CD of Fez singer Said Sanhaji. Betto even brought along one his own CDs, which also got stuck on an endless loop: Ernesto Anaya’s Huapangueando, an eclectic compilation of traditional Mexican songs with modern arrangements released last year.

It is perhaps ironic that the pursuit of cultural empathy sometimes leads to cultural misunderstanding of comic proportions. Betto and I have been eager to hear Maurat and Mohammed play the traditional Moroccan music we’ve heard around Fez and to tell us what it means to them. But Mohammed, who has blended powdered hashish into his cigarettes and smoked the concoction throughout our trip, at one point turns to face Betto and me in back seat, his eyes red and wide grin revealing yellowing teeth: “I like Pink Floyd. I like Eric Clapton,” he says. “I like, um… Jim Morrison.”

Photo exhibition in Fez

Fez photographer Paul Biehn's exhibition Medina Science Fiction opens on Monday 20 December.

The exhibition will be held from 18h30 on 20 December at Fez Real Estate Gallery on Tala'a Seghira (just down from the Banque Populaire).

This innovative young photographer explains that his exhibition shows his vision of the medina by night.

Tangier to Casablanca in Two Hours by Train

Morocco's high speed rail ambitions have moved a step closer with the signing of agreements. In the ceremony, which was held in Tangier and attended by His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco, two loan and fund guarantee agreements, both estimated at around Dh367.3 million (about US$ 100 million), were signed.

The loan agreement was signed by Mr. Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Acting Director General of ADFD, and Mr. Mohammed Rabie' AL Khalie', Director General of the National Railway Bureau in Morocco. Meanwhile, Mr. Al Suwaidi and Salaheddine Mezouar, the Moroccan Minister of Economy and Finance, signed the guarantee agreement.

Commenting on the event, Al Suwaidi said that the high speed railway project would make a huge qualitative stride in the transport field in Morocco by providing a highly competitive means of transportation in terms of safety, quality and speed. "The project will meet the expected increase in demand on this type of transportation after the operation of Tangier Mediterranean port, which was financed with Dh 734.6 million contribution from ADFD and which is expected to witness excessive activities in 2012", he said.

Al Suwaidi noted that the high speed railway could cut travel times between the main cities of Casablanca and Tangier from 5 hours to just two, positively reflecting on the economic development pace by doubling number of containers and raising number of passengers from 6 to 10 million starting from 2015 every year.

The high speed railway project includes the construction of the first phase 200 km high speed track (320km/h) between Tangier and Kenitra and connecting it to the existing railway network. It also involves civil works, equipment supply for the existing accesses and facilities in Tangier and Kenitra stations, purchase of self-propelled coaches for high speed trains and construction of train maintenance station in Tangier.


France has finalised a 400-million-euro deal to supply Morocco with the high-speed TGV trains. The French group Alstom is to provide the north African country with 14 high speed train sets that will enter service in December 2015 on the Tangiers-Casablanca route.

“It’s a great contract to start off with,” says Philippe Mellier, head of Alstom Transport, adding that other contracts were possible in the future

“This contract is symbolic because it shows Morocco’s capacity to acquire very high tech equipment,” says Mellier, “Morocco is the first African country to embrace high speed rail transport.”

With the new trains in service, it should take passengers two hours and ten minutes to travel from Tangiers to Casablanca instead of the current four hours.

The signing of the contract follows an earlier agreement reached between France and Morocco during a visit from French President Nicolas Sarkozy in October 2007.

Moroccan Writers Make Shortlist

In August last year, The View from Fez reported that the Egyptian Writers' Union awarded the 2009 Naguib Mahfouz prize to the Moroccan writer and intellectual Bensalem Himmich for his contribution to literature. Now, we can report thathe is one of the six authors nominated for the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.



Morocco's Bensalem Himmich imagines an innocent man's experience of extraordinary rendition in "My Tormentor," and Sudan's Amir Taj al-Sir's "The Hunter of the Chrysalises" tells of a former intelligence agent who comes under police scrutiny.

Also on the list is Moroccan poet Mohammed Achaari, nominated for "The Arch and the Butterfly," in which a father receives a letter from al Qaeda informing him that his son, who he believed was studying in Paris, had died fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.

Saudi novelist Raja Alem, shortlisted for "The Dove's Necklace," explores the "sordid underbelly" of life in the holy city of Mecca, said the organisers of the annual award, funded by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy.

It is also supported by the Booker Prize Foundation, the charity behind the Man Booker Prize for English language fiction, and by the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

Two Egyptian authors write about Arabs who go to live abroad -- Khalid al-Bari's "An Oriental Dance" follows a young Egyptian man who marries an older British woman and moves with her to England, while U.S.-based Miral al-Tahawy's "Brooklyn Heights" describes the experiences of Arab immigrants in New York.

The shortlisted writers each receive $10,000 (6,300 pounds) and the winner, announced in Abu Dhabi on March 14, 2011, wins another $50,000 and a likely boost in sales in Arab countries and internationally.

The winning book is also translated into English.

The previous three winners of the award are "Sunset Oasis" by Bahaa Taher (Egypt), "Azazel" by Youssef Ziedan (Egypt) and "Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles" by Abdo Khal (Saudi Arabia).

Fez festivities

For those spending time in Fez over Christmas and New Year, here's a round-up of the celebrations planned for your entertainment.

25 DECEMBER: CAFE CLOCK

Max and the Clock Kitchen team have teamed up this year with Robert Johnstone, chef extraordinaire from London’s famed Wolseley and Ivy Restaurants, and have created a sumptuous holiday menu to help make Christmas in Fes a memorable occasion. On the menu are:

Entrees: Pumpkin Bissara Soup, Turkey Liver Pate with Fig and Date chutney, or Fried Squid with Tomato Chili relish.
Main Courses: Stuffed Turkey Breast with Apricots & Prunes, or Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Pistachios and Ras-el-hanoot. A vegetarian gratin will also be served.
Desserts: Sticky Date Pudding, Pomegranate Meringues, or Lemon Tart.
Cheese: Cheese board from the acclaimed Fromagerie d’Immouzer.
Tea/Coffee/Chocolates

Price: Dh300

Booking advised: 0535 637 855

The regular menu will also be available for those who can't get enough of the camel burgers!

And for new year's eve, the following options are up for grabs.

31 DECEMBER: PALAIS AMANI

Dinner at Palais Amani will be a swish affair with a delicious-sounding menu, music and dancing, and booking is essential: 0535 633 209.

31 DECEMBER: F LOUNGE



Alejandro at F Lounge promises a wild night ... and morning. Booking is advised at the email address above.

31 DECEMBER: MAISON BLANCHE

Maison Blanche has planned a night of glamour and haute cuisine. There will be a live pop-rock band during dinner, and then dancing to 80s music with a DJ from midnight to dawn. The evening costs Dh1400 and the menu comprises:

Noix de Coquille St Jacques poêlée
beurre Noisette à l’Huile de Truffe

Ravioli de Fois Gras
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Spanish police disperse demonstration over Spanish occupation of Melillia

The Spanish occupied Moroccan cities of Sebta and Melillia continue to fester with resentment. On Tuesday a group of young Moroccans waving Moroccan flags demonstrated before the local government's headquarters in the Moroccan (Spanish-occupied) city of Melillia (northern Morocco), demanding an end to the Spanish occupation.

The protesters, who come from Melillia, Bni Ansar and Nador, took to the so-called "Plaça Espanya", carrying a banner that read "Sebta and Melillia are Moroccan".

During the demonstration, the group distributed leaflets that read "Spanish occupation out" and "Melillia is a Moroccan city".

The Spanish police dispersed the young protesters.

For more background, check out these stories - Sebta and Melillia

Recipe for Moroccan Swordfish

Swordfish is a very popular fish in Morocco and fillets are frequently available in major cities. In the Fez Medina swordfish is to be found in the souq at R'cif.

Photograph by Ian Wallace

Ingredients for four people

1 tsp saffron threads
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced
1 red capsicum, roasted, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced
1 yellow capsicum, roasted, peeled, seeded, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 small red chilli, seeded, thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
150ml extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to brush
20ml (1 tbs) lemon juice
4 (about 150g each) swordfish fillets
1 tbs chopped fresh mint
1 tbs chopped fresh coriander

Method

1. Place saffron threads in a bowl with two tablespoons of warm water and set aside for five minutes.

2. Place tomato, capsicum, coriander, cumin, chilli, garlic, oil, lemon juice and saffron and its soaking liquid in a pan. Heat gently through.

3. Preheat a chargrill or non-stick frying pan to high. Season the fish, brush with oil and fry for 1-2 minutes (the centre should remain rare).

4. Place on serving plates, add the herbs to the sauce and divide the sauce between the plates.

Youc an find our complete list of recipes in one place! - Moroccan Recipes

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Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2011: Tangier hits the mark

Lonely Planet's new publication, Best in Travel 2011, features Tangier as one of its top ten cities to visit next year.
'A stylish new Tangier is being created with a dynamic arts community, renovated buildings, great shopping and chic new restaurants', says The View from Fez writer Helen Ranger and author of the piece.

Other cities recommended are New York, ten years after 9/11, Tel Aviv, Wellington, Valencia, Iquitos, Ghent, Delhi, Chang Mai and Newcastle (the one in Australia, that is).

The book has some exciting suggestions including Lonely Planet's list of the top 10 countries to explore (from Albania to Vanuatu), top 10 regions (think anywhere between Patagonia, the Shetland Isles and the Sinai), and the top travel experiences. In this category, you'll find where to find the world's greatest bookshops, the best vampire-spotting locales, the most super-luxe travel, and plenty of other ideas. Of the top 10 places to learn the local cuisine, Lahcen Beqqi of Fez is right up there along with Vietnamese, Mexican, Turkish and more.

For some armchair travelling and inspiration for your next holiday, this is a great book to have. Iceland, anyone?

English language bookshop opens in Fez

It was with great anticipation that we visited the brand new American Language Center bookshop in the Ville Nouvelle. It has been almost impossible to buy books in English in Fez until now.

The shop, situated at the Center at 2 Ave Ahmed Hiba, is run by former librarian Mary Conway. It's early days yet, and stock is limited. The shop will have text books for the students at the Arabic Language Institute, and carries a range of dictionaries and some books for the Moroccan students learning English that are graded according to their level.

There are some handsome photographic books on Moroccan architecture and design, and a couple of cookbooks (but the Clock Book is missing). The shop focuses on books about Morocco such as Edith Wharton's In Morocco, Fatima Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass, Peter Mayne's A Year in Marrakech, Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky and some of his short stories, and has some non-fiction by writers such as Fatima Sadiqi. Books written in English by Arab writers are also represented.

There is a large number of Penguin classics at only Dh20 each, but no modern fiction yet.

Sadly, the bookshop's policy of having only one copy of each book is simply bad retailing.
"We had a copy of Tahir Shah's The Caliph's House", said Mary, "but it's been sold". Likewise, there's one copy of Suzanna Clarke's popular A House in Fez, one copy of Lonely Planet's Marrakech Encounter, and so on.

The shop will accept second-hand books if they're in good condition.

The opening hours are 10am-1pm and 2-4.30pm Mondays to Fridays.

Morocco and Wikileaks -"a dignified silence"

OPINION

The impact of Wikileaks can not be underestimated, and yet there are some (so far) notable exceptions to the governments mentioned. So far one of the strangest missing ingredients is the lack of cables on Israel. Ibn Warraq reports on the leaks to date.

While the Israelis seem absent from Wikileaks cables, the French are not so lucky. One cable describes reaction to the French President during his recent visit to Morocco:
"While Sarkozy was generally well received, there was much gossip in Moroccan salons about a "too relaxed" President slouching comfortably in his chair as he and the King presided over an October 22 signing ceremony at the Royal Palace in Marrakech. In one image, Sarkozy was seen crossing his legs and pointing the sole of his shoe at the King - a taboo gesture in the Islamic world. Sarkozy was accompanied throughout the visit, including at a banquet with the royal family by his Justice Minister (of Moroccan heritage) Rachida Dati"

Morocco is mentioned in several cables. One, written by Former US Ambassador to Morocco 
Thomas T. Riley, it was classified “SECRET”, and was sent August 4th 2008, titled : 
" MOROCCO'S MILITARY: ADEQUATE, MODERNIZING, BUT 
FACING BIG CHALLENGES". "The Moroccan Royal Armed Forces (FAR) are modernizing but remain weighed down by long-standing problems. King Mohammed VI, who in 1999 inherited a military in need of professionalization, has implemented some needed reforms, but much remains to be done. Civilian control, if ascribed to the person of the King, is complete, but there is no real Defense Ministry. Outside the FAR, there is only a small administration."

Royal involvement in business is a hot topic in Morocco but public discussion of it is sensitive. So there were understandable shock waves when the US embassy in Rabat reported to Washington in a number of cables that "corruption is prevalent at all levels of Moroccan society". Yet, this is hardly fresh news and King Mohammed VI has set himself the task of stamping out corruption at all levels. As a report in The Guardian puts it: Moroccan King Mohammed VI has worked to weed out corruption in the royal family but through their interests they retain a powerful grip on big business in the country,

On the street, Moroccans are generally supportive of Wikileaks because of the insight the cables have given into the behind the scenes attitude of American diplomats. Most revelations caused little surprise to Moroccans here in Rabat, especially the WikiLeaks cables that portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists and in another cable that claims al-Jazeera changed coverage to suit Qatari foreign policy.

For their part, the Americans are in damage control mode and not reacted in the most sensible way. Calls for attacks on Wikileaks and its founders are beginning to backfire. Foaming at the mouth, calling for the killing of Mr Assange and choking his bank account have proved internationally unpopular. Shooting the messenger is not the best response. Insteasd, the Americans should look to their own cyber security. Their blustering attacks have turned Wikileaks and its founder Mr Assange into a modern folk hero. Thankfully, the public response from Morocco has been dignified silence.

More Turbulence for Travellers to Morocco

Regular View from Fez readers will remember the story a month ago when more than 100 furious passengers refused to leave a Ryanair flight that was re-routed to Belgium. The jet carrying mainly French travellers from Fez in Morocco was supposed to have landed at Beauvais airport near Paris but was delayed by weather. But because it took off three hours late, by the time it reached Beauvais, the airport had closed. When it landed at the southern Belgian city of Liege, the militant travellers staged a four-hour sit-in, demanding to be taken back to France. Passengers claimed on that occasion, Ryanair cabin crew locked the toilets, turned off the lights and left them on the tarmac for four hours.

Now we learn that more than 100 plane passengers staged a mutiny when the captain announced some unscheduled stops. The Moroccan budget airline Jet4You flight had been due to make a 90-minute journey from Toulouse to Casablanca. Unfortunately, when the captain told the 137 passengers the plane would be stopping at Bordeaux and Lyon en route - adding four hours to the journey - the travellers refused to sit and buckle their seatbelts, leaving the plane stuck on the runway all night.

A report published by The Mail Online says And rather than reason with the paying customers, the captain simply turned off the lights and heating in the jet and left the passengers inside. According to Majette Ouri, who was travelling with her two children,'It was a total disgrace. We bought tickets for a direct flight taking less than two hours. But once they had us on board, they said we'd be making two unscheduled stops and taking six hours to get to Casablanca.'

According to Toulouse airport officials, 52 of the 137 passengers asked to get off the plane during the night while 85 were still on the aircraft on Sunday morning. Jet4You said it would transport the passengers to Casablanca on a direct flight at 6pm on Sunday, and had found another means of collecting people stranded elsewhere in France.

Fez, the holy city

Our British correspondent Chrysalis, a frequent visitor to Fez, sent us his musings on the spiritual essence of Fez.

Origins, and myths about origins, shape the reality we experience. The ancient Romans believed their city was founded by Romulus and Remus as the basis for a nation and an empire, and that story, true or not, shapes the Rome we visit today.

Fes, a city grown around a shrine, a place of pilgrimage, has a sacred foundation and remains true to this spirit in ways the casual tourist may not see but nevertheless shape their experience.
In the Islamic tradition, shrines of the saints – which do not commemorate the dead but celebrate the saint’s ongoing life as a facet of the divine radiance - usually stand alone. They are rarely in cities, rarely surrounded by elaborate buildings or streets. More often they are in what used to be wilderness, remote from cities and beyond the control of their rulers. To visit these shrines is to separate yourself from the daily reality of the city, to step back and away to contemplate the divine and to entrust to the saint and to God those difficulties for which you hope for a cure.

Fes, then, is a contradictory city, holding as it does the tomb of the saint Moulay Idriss at its heart.

This contradictoriness infests the medina, whose streets remain like the paths that used to approach the saint’s shrine across the hillside - they follow the contours of the land, with no attempt to shape them. The medina is a hillside covered with buildings, an opposite of the conventional ideal of the city as conceived by Muslims, Jews, Christians or Hindus.

The holiness of Fes and its primacy of spiritual values meant its rulers could never live within the old city. Their temporal rules and values would always be at odds with the imperative issuing from Moulay Idriss: Return! Everything other than God is an illusion or a distraction.
Today’s ville nouvelle, with its armies of bureaucrats and administrators who take all the important decisions about the medina, continues this 1000-year tradition of external governance, and perpetuates too the never-to-be-resolved conflict between the spiritual reality embodied at Moulay Idriss and the mercenary grandeur of luxury hotels that peer over the walls at a reality they exploit but can never inhabit.

the shrine of Moulay Idriss

The medina’s turbulent flow, so notable to visitors, up and down its main streets and through its maze of bazaars and workshops, is the most extreme example in the world of a vibrant, lively, systematic form of commerce occurring in a form of streets and buildings so ill adapted to its needs as to create almost insuperable obstacles overcome daily by heroic combinations of will and faith.

Ibn al Arabi, the great philosopher-mystic, who had one of his most important visions in Fes, cited a verse from the Koran: ”Every day He is in a business”, to which al Arabi added: ”But there is no day, and there is no business!” I know of no other place in the world where the veil of commerce and activity, like a phantasm of the Arabian Nights, so readily parts to reveal glimpses of the underlying reality.

Groups of tourists pass through the streets and markets of the Fes medina like bubbles of air in a stream of water. You can often hear and see the ‘Pop!’ as, in a frozen moment of dislocation, the bubbles are penetrated by the spiritual energy of the place.

As Jellaludin Rumi says: “This intricate, astonishing world is proof of God’s presence even as it conceals the beauty”. The empty-hearted clean-machine world of the European city is no place for such a vision. But Fes, with its screeching arrow-flights of alpine swifts jinking through the alleys, its filth and stink, its tribes of feral cats, its racket and hustle, its purposeful chaos of trade and its unending human dramas enacted daily on its streets… yes, the sacred city of Fes is a place where you can be astonished into awareness of presence.

Of Gods & Men filmed at Toumliline, Morocco

The movie, Of Gods and Men, that has won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and is now the French Oscar entry, was filmed last year at Toumliline near Azrou in the Middle Atlas mountains.

Xavier Beauvois' movie tells the true story of nine Cistercian monks working at a monastery in Tibhirine in the Atlas mountains of northern Algeria. In 1996, seven of them were abducted by the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) and held as hostages. The captors claimed to have executed them, but more recently it has been suggested that they were accidentally killed by the Algerian army during a botched rescue attempt.

The movie begins by establishing the routine of the monks as they go about their prayer, work and service in the austere monastery. The next to oldest, Luc (Michael Lonsdale), is a kindly, experienced doctor, who holds daily clinics for the villagers with the assistance of the eldest brother, the ancient Amédée. Others work in the garden, assist a labourer to build a wall, help an old lady to apply for a passport to visit her son in France, and bottle honey from their open hives to sell in the nearby market as "Miel de l'Atlas". Their elected leader, Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson), aged around 50, is the intellectual of the group, seen at his desk, writing, surrounded by books.

Scene from Of Gods and Men

They mix easily with the Arab population, and we see them attend a Christian service conducted in Maghrebi. This quiet, undemonstrative existence of contemplation and useful activity of the community is disrupted by an escalating series of events that put the monks' lives in danger and forces them to examine the nature of their vocations, turning the film into a kind of thriller.

From then on, until their inevitable abduction, the monks' resolve is steadily strengthened as they stand trapped between an oppressive Algerian government and increasingly threatening insurgents. As an army helicopter hovers menacingly above their chapel, they chant prayers and cling to each other for solidarity. When, towards the end, they're joined by a ninth brother who's been absent in France, they celebrate communion, followed by what feels like a re-enactment of the last supper as they drink wine together and listen to a cassette of Swan Lake, laughing and smiling together for the last time.

"It is a very current film," comments film producer Etienne Comar. "It's interesting to look at this atrocity as it happened before 9/11 - all the signs of what was to come were there.

"When I re-read again the last testimony of the monks' leader, Brother Christian, he was very aware of the co-habitation of Muslim and Christian neighbours. He seemed to have a sense that it was going to become a talking point.

"Now it is an important issue wherever in the world you live - the USA, France, the UK, the Middle East. I want this film to ask, 'what is the next step?' How can we live in peace with each other? What dialogue should we have?"

Of Gods and Men was filmed last year at Toumliline in the mountains above Azrou, close to Fez. Toumliline was the location of a similar monastery of Benedictine monks. This particular group of monks was well received by locals and visited by King Hassan II and his family. They stayed in Morocco for around 11 years, before leaving in the 1960s.

Boujemaa Boudaouad, whose family lives in the monastery now and has taken care of it since the Benedictines left, is a registered guide for Morocco with a particular love of the Middle Atlas. Currently in London, Boujemaa reports that he's seen the movie and found it very sad, though he enjoyed it.

One other person who's seen the film is one of the surviving monks from the Algerian monastery. Brother Jean-Pierre, now 87 and living in Midelt, was sent a DVD of the film. "It brought me peace", he said.

Of Gods and Men is being shown at the Marrakech Film Festival this week.

Mullah Nasruddin in Marrakech?

English Writer Mansoor Shah has struck a chord with his adaptation of the humorous folklore character Mullah Nasruddin to the modern day. Mansoor has teleported the Mullah from the Middle Ages into the hustle and bustle of modern-day Marrakech.

People tell his stories and antics with great affection and endearment across Asia including Arabs, Persians, Uzbeks, and the Turkic Xinjiang in China. Some of his stories are linked with Sufi traditions and philosophical approaches – and they almost always come with a sting in the tail.

Mansoor’s book takes Mullah Nasruddin on a comic journey to meet the residents of Marrakech, listen to their problems and give them his own special brand of advice. Accompanied by pictures of the inhabitants and tourists of Marrakech, the book of mini adventures is a modern-day Don Quixote.

Mansoor, 57, of Radcliffe, Manchester said: "I have long been intrigued by the story of Mullah Nasruddin. Marrakech is steeped in the history and traditions of Sufism and it seemed to me the perfect place to drop this 12th century character and see how his wisdom and blunt advice is received by people in the 21st century!"

The book is already being well received, with Rochdale Library ordering 12 advance copies after Mansoor gave a reading there recently.

Mansoor, an academic and management consultant, is a published author with two books of Sufi poetry to his name. His last collection, A Sheesha in Radcliffe, garnered widespread publicity after the King of Morocco requested a copy. He has also published A Window in Radcliffe, another book of Sufi verse.

Mansoor is planning a series of Mullah Nasruddin publications taking the Mullah character to cities such as London, Paris, Istanbul and Dubai.


For readers of The View from Fez who have not come across Mullah Nasruddin, here is a typical story...

Mullah Nasruddin, a small-town judge, was arbitrating over a case before him in his judicial court in which the prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand.

He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Alishah, do you know me?'

She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Br Jallaludin. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than an insignificant paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Alishah, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Br. Kamruddin since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drug problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire town. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney was aghast.

Judge Mullah Nasruddin asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, 'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll have you both hung, drawn and quartered!'

Morocco's Tourism Booming

According to the Moroccan Minister of Tourism, the tourism blueprint, Vision 2010, has provided the solid foundation for future growth and sustainable development and management of the environment.

The aim of Vision 2020 was to make Morocco one of the 10 best destinations in the world doubling the size of the tourism sector and trebling the number of national tourists and 140 billion dirhams in tourism revenue. The tourism GDP would rise by 2% and the competitiveness of the sector would ensure that the tourism sector would remain an essential vector for the social and economic development of Morocco. Tourism is also a formidable instrument for international promotion of a Morocco with a rich patrimony and a welcoming and tolerant people.

On Tuesday His Majesty King Mohammed VI presided over the Assises du Tourisme in Marrakech with an audience of some 3,000 Moroccan and International Tourism professionals. Yassir Znagui Minister of Tourism and Artisans presented Vision 2020 and ten major accords which will finance it were signed.

Since the beginning of the decade, under the guidance of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Morocco has engaged in a profound and accelerated transformation across all domains, notably political,economic, social and cultural. This has been done with the ambition to create a modern and democratic country close to Europe and open to the world. This accelerated tourism development was placed at the heart of the nation's ambitions. The development of tourism has had a positive effect on all other sectors of the economy and collective prosperity in the Kingdom.

Vision 2020 would concentrate on decentralisation and an innovative approach adding value to for niche tourism and different sectors. It will adopt a strategy which is analytical, exhaustive and rigourous. It is inspired by the wish to take a regional structural approach to employment and the competivity of Moroccan tourism.

Vision 2020 will concentrate on the development of 8 new tourism locations in the North with Cap Nord the Mediterraean coast, Cenral Atlantic,Central Morocco, Marrakech Atlantic, Atlas and the valleys,Sous Sahara Atlantic and the Grand South Atlanticwith locations such as Dakhla, The Plan Azur projects will be completed including Lixus and Plage Blanche in Goummeline. The emphasis will be on quality tourism and staff training.A further 200,000 beds will be created.

Twenty-Six Dead in Moroccan Bus Accident

Acording to Moroccan civil defense officials at least 26 people died on Tuesday when a bus skidded into a river during a heavy rain storm.

The crash occurred near Bouznika, south of the capital of Rabat, the official news agency Maghreb Arab Presse reported. The bus was traveling between Mohammedia and Bouznika when it fell into the Cheguig River.

The casualties included three people who died of injuries after being pulled from the bus and one whose body was swept downstream and later recovered.

King Mohammed VI announced he would pay the funeral expenses of those who died in the crash and cover hospital expenses for the survivors.

Morocco has been hit unusually heavy rain. In Casablanca, more than 7 inches fell in 24 hours.