Catching Rabat's Raree-Show. By Uncle Monty.

Catching Rabat's Raree-Show.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty.

***

Just before Contessa Maria and me headed out for our 8-day
Safari to West Africa’s former Upper Volta, I spent a day
or so "Catching Rabat’s Raree-Show."
***
And, what a wonderful raree-show it was indeed that coincided
with the start of Morocoo’s two-day national commemoration of
"Fete de la Jeunesse." I’d never before seen Moroccans at play like
I did at the beaches and medinas of the their capital city of Rabat.
They seemed to let loose and show themselves at their friendliest best.

***
Photographically, I was in for a feast of images that I captured with all
due respect and at sometimes wonder and awe for I had not expected
Rabat to be a place of such at all. I first had thoughts of the mundane,
not the merriment of the people of the ancient Almohad empire that
has evolved from the 12th century into what is today’s Rabat royal
city of King Hassan II with his well-guarded royal palace to prove it.
***

Photoview of one of the world's largest Islamic cememteries.

Stumbling first on one of the world’s largest Islamic cemeteries

(seen above) right next to Rabat’s downtown holiday beaches

at where thousands had gathered to splash and surf with their

families and friends, I was stunned by the sheer contrast of the

living and the dead. While over 10.000 people lay dead still at

the beachside cemetery, just yards away I saw thousands

of the living enjoying their care-free holiday.

I couldn’t help but think that one day many of them would
also be dead and buried at the very same spot at where
they now played and were basking in what was almost

100-degree heat. So, let the living yet live

and let the dead be dead …
***

Four of Rabat's Menswear Photomodels.

For those sex-starved American and English women, I might

suggest they, too, gad off quickly to the Rabat beaches to find

such male fashion hunks tanned to their full masculine manliness

that would make them droll and throb on the spot with utter
ecstasy and envy.

***

They happened upon me did the menswear photomodels
has I was taking photoshots of the rock formation just yards

away from the Islamic cemetery. As soon as they saw me, the

guyz zoomed on me and wanted to know if I was a European

fashion photographer. Pity, no. Within minutes, they began pos-

ing on the same rocks for their photoagency and I was told I was
free to photograph the ongoing print advert they were making.

And so I did. Usually, most photoagencies strictly exclude

others from freely photographing their fashion models when

they’re on location or doing photosets. Maybe they just liked
my pretty face and fancy cameras to let me photograph them

and to somehow help promote them outside of their North

African homeland. Or simply because everybody was in a

jolly holiday mood and so they just let me photograph for

the hell of it. They were a wonderful set of Moroccan guyz
to me and who spoke and joked in fluent English while

most local folkz I met spoke only Arabic, French and/or

Berber with perhaps a little pidgin English of their

own thrown in for good measure.

***

I found that catching Rabat’s raree-show was like

opening many Xmas gifts to find out what was inside

each of the wrapped boxes. Each box contained a

new delight for me at opening my eyes to Morocoo’s

real royal city and her pretty friendly people that I

otherwise was not aware of until I ventured wherever my

feet and my eyes took me without any precondition or

fear. I felt utterly safe and free to go here and there at

Rabat as if I was indeed a local resident of the city.
***
Islam's Friday Prayer Day at Rabat.

Friday Prayer Day was still Friday Prayer Day despite the two-day
relaxing national holiday as the Muslim faithful attended their local
Rabat mosques in droves. With the prolong heat of the late summer,
most of the mosques had opened their doors wide open to counter the
sweaty heat. So by chance barred Christian folkz like me could see
right inside the mosque for a change. Thus, a golden opportunity was
there for a curious shutterbug like me to snap a few images of the on-
going prayer ritual that I discreetly recorded at Rabat. Morocco is
quite progressive compared to other Islamic states like Iran and Saudi
Arabia. Women are emancipated for the most part and the country is
a Sunni variant and not Shi'ite, I discovered. Loyalty to the king him-
self seems to be the benchmark of their Islamic faith. Most businesses,
stores, and even the local buses, display photographs of the past and
present Kings of Morocco. The king is revered in the country much like
the British ones were of the past in Great Britain and now much faded
with rarely any display of even the present queen of England, except
at embassies and government ministries. While aiming to be equally
religious and secular, Morocco is still a "benevolent" police state
at where the police – Surete Nationale – and military apparatus is
ever present at every level of the society and at where every citizen
must carry a valid national ID card much like what Britain’s New
Labour government wants now to impose and inflict on all the people
of England at the outrageous cost of billions of pounds and all in the
catch-all name of fighting Jihad terrorism. Ironically, and viciously,
the biggest terrorist is oftentimes the state itself. Look to America,
modern Pakistan, Burma, and Israel for clear examples of that.
***
Of Rabat's glistening French past ...

Rabat’s glistening French past is seen in the above memorial
column I found of Moulay Youssef, Sultan du Maroc, (1912-1927).
Hardly any statues or columns (like the one I photograpghed above)
exists in Morocco or in Rabat or at Casablanca at where I later
stayed upon returning from the West Africa safari to the former
Upper Volta with dearest Maria, who departed then to New York.
Somewhat away from the beaches now, I enjoyed going to the
various rug, wholesale goods, antiques, and body shop districts of
the royal city to see how the other half lived in a city that isn’t the
the cleanest of places and with sidewalks designed by neglect to
break your neck if you don’t look carefully at where you step.
Although it's not so dangerous and broken as I found at Albana’s
capital of Tirana when visiting there earlier this year.

And wherever you go in Rabat, or in any other Islamic town, there
is always someone else watching what you do … especially when
photographing. When the old beggar I saw told me he’d never
had a photo taken of himself, I quickly convinced him to let
me photograph him with a 10 dirhams coin (about $1-) and
the result was my picture of him shown below. His old lady,
moreover, watched in agony at the thought of him being
photographed for the first time. He ignored her remonstrated
pain. He carried a smirk on his face, once I’d done my deed.
***
His first ever photo ...

Elsewhere, I found the North African labourer (seen
below) so tired out that he took himself a little and
well-deserved mid-afternoon nap at the rug district
of Rabat. He’d helped loadup the truck with those
heavy and newly machine-made colourful rugs that
Rabat is well-known for making since time immortal.
Some of the trucks I saw would have been ticketed,
fined and hauled off the road by the Brit cops and and
England’s maddening and crazy health and safety
goons. In Morocco, they’d have been told to go
and stuff it and then to bugger off … Bravo.
***
Taking himself a little mid-afternoon nap at Rabat.
***
Then onto the body shop district I went by foot. At the
car number plate shop – next door to the quaint Russian
Orthodox Church – I soon found some new Rabat friends
who eagerly wanted me to photograph them as they came
rushing out the shop after they'd seen me at the church and
greeted me with traditional Arabic exchanges of cheek-to-
cheek hugs and kisses. Inside the shop, I was invited to
record them making car license or registration plates
with the father of the family (second from the left), his
two brothers, and his three sons as shown below.
When the father found I was from England - or as
they usually refer to such as “Britannia” – he kissed
me again on both cheeks and said the British were the
best people in the world. Really? Well, I’ll be damned.

At one of Rabat's License Plate Shops.

Just less than mile away from the guyz at car plate
shop, I then photographed below the typical scene
from one of the old neighbourhoods of Rabat.

Many of them are run down and the level of
poverty can clearly been seen with the blind,
disabled and the elderly sick being forced to beg
on the dirty streets for whatever little money
they can get. At Rabat, public begging is rather
very passaive compared to say Marrakesh and Fez
at where the beggars never seem to come to an end.
You give to one and a whole herd then come at you.
I'd almost say the Rabat beggars are even polite.

A typical Old Rabat neighourhood.

***
It seems everywhere you go in Morocoo, the king and
the government have huge swags of land, property,
and buildings with unlimited armed soldiers appointed
to stand guard around the clock against the local
common folk. In many ways, it’s rather feudal and
obscure by modern European and American ways.
While at the same time, Morocco is, nevertheless,
pro-American and pro-Western business and is
politically-in-arms with the West against Islamic

terrorism and Jihad insurgency. To say the country,

however, is Westernized at the domestic level is a

rather fallacious and broadsweeping assessment of

Morocco in my view after visiting the country for the

third time in as many years. Being pro-West and be-

ing Westernized are two quite different kettles of fish,

I think. My lack of photographs of Rabat womenfolk is
due to the Islamic cultural prohibition against such

even though I saw some pretty seductive ladies to

include in my camera's eye. Again, it tells us

Morocco isn't so Westernized after all. But that's

just fine with me in many respects because the

West has become so decrepit and so immoral to-

ward women and open sex. Plus, I like Morocco

precisely because it isn't culturally and historically

at all like Europe and USA. I'm not fond, any-

way, of going to visit carbon-copy countries.

***
The Kasbah of the Oudayas at Rabat.

My story and photographs here of "Catching Rabat's

Raree-Show" only scratches the surface of Morocco's

wonderful capital city of about two million residents.

***
I hope I have given you a tiny whiff of the city and
the enticing nature of it. But the best thing to do is to
simply take a visit there and you'll find you don't have
to stay at such an expensive place like the standoffish
Bulmina Hotel at where Maria insisted on staying at
almost 100 quid a night. Just doors away we could
have easily and safely stayed at Hotel Mon Foyer
on the same Ave. Med V, No. 285, for a splendid 20
euro per night. Not so fancy for sure, but a good
buy for those of us who don't have a fortune to
spend acting like rich Limeys and Yankees.

Your's, Uncle Monty.
The Eve of Ramadan, 2oo8.
America's Labor Day.

Coming Next: My 3-Day, 1.615-Mile,
Bus Ride From Casablanca To Paris.

I'm now back after two weeks to continue posting
my new stories and photos on my personal blog.

Thank you so much everybody for the many e-mails
and messages I received while in North and West Africa
during my holidays there with Contessa Maria, who,
yet again, has so generously underwritten my hols
and expenses without even a murmur ... Maria,
you're just so wonderful and kind beyond all else. I
say: "Thanks a million," like Bob Hope used to say.
***

:: DIANA ::

Passing by almost silently yesterday was the 11th

anniversary death of Diana, Princess of Wales. I

happened to be in Paris yesterday and I thought how

sad it was that so few today of the "Peoples Princess"

now mark her passing without a single thought of her

tragic and untimely death (or killing) that took place

at the same Paris tunnel I happened to pass thru

myself just yesterday ... How quickly we forget?

:: Uncle Monty ::

***