Non-French TidbitsTetuan Morocco

By Jim and Emmy Humberd

A few miles past the border between Spain and Morocco (Cueta is still Spain, though we are on the Continent of Africa), our tour-bus just happened to stop at a place where there were large camels to ride and small ones to pet, and Emmy enjoyed doing both.

We passed a Club Med, then stopped at a hotel resort for lunch, and met Paul and Brigitte from Nice, France. Paul was born in Algiers and said he really knows good cous-cous when he tastes it - his mother fixed it better than this restaurant.

In Tetuan we walked in and out of dark dank narrow walkways, with only foot traffic and an occasional donkey carrying freight. There were crowded food stalls, piles of olives, baked goods, and a variety of markets and stores. We saw mosques where we heard the Moslem chant over a PA system, and then watched them at their prayer time.

While walking through a crowded market area in Tetuan, we heard a chanting murmur and saw a crowd of people coming down the stairway street. (Many "streets" were stair steps.) When Jim started to take a picture, he was "told" in no uncertain terms to forget the picture. But he took one picture without aiming the camera, he just pointed his stomach and pressed the button. (Not the belly-button, the one on the camera.) We then saw a wooden coffin being carried down the stairs in Tetuan, on the shoulders of several men.

In 1986, at the World's Fair in Vancouver, Canada, a man at the Moroccan Exhibit told us it must have been a funeral of a woman. The body was in a box so no one could see her shape, a man would just have been wrapped in a cloth.

Soon we came upon a snake charmer who just happened to be where the tourists were passing by. Brigitte (our beautiful new friend from Nice, France) let the charmer put a snake around her neck, ugh! That "ugh" is for the snake, certainly not for lovely Brigitte.

Back to the bus for the long slow bumpy ride to Tanger. We found the right front tire on the bus had a huge bulge, but they had no spare. Thank goodness they drove very slowly from Tetuan to Tanger, and we made it all the way.

Books by Jim and Emmy Humberd:
Invitation to France
Invitation to Germany
Invitation to Italy

French Video Immersion