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Source: Woima Corporation |
If you've never heard of Morocco, then you
missed a lot, so let me take you to get to know this wonderful country. Morocco
is an African country to the north, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the
Mediterranean Sea
Morocco has diverse cultures, where each
city is unique to a different culture and sometimes a different language. Every
city has its own charm, from customs and traditions to every corner of its
streets.
Some of Morocco’s Cites
Chef chaouen is the blue Diamond of Morocco.
It is a city on the mountain that has great landscapes and houses painted blue.
The secret of blue is still puzzling, for
some say it is related to Jewish beliefs, with blue representing the sky and
the sky reminding them of God.
Another says the blue is to keep the
mosquitoes away and others say blue is the color of water, where the blue tones
of the houses are the color of the Mediterranean.
Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and a
city of fascinating features From the Hassan II Mosque, which is the mosque in
Africa, to the Marche Bab Marrakech, which was the first fortress against enemies,
to the Corniche of Ain Diab.
Tangier is a wonderful combination of
tradition, and modernity called Europe in Morocco. Tangier is famous for El
Kasbah and Phoenician tombs.
Traditional Music
Gnaoua musicians part of a rite
called Lila, which means night in Arabic, and is used to summon the
supernatural power in general. The celebration begins all night long after
sacrificing an animal and then begins to play and burn incense.
The
band wears colorful gowns and hats decorated with seashells, and these rituals
finish at dawn. Malhun is poetry sung in the vernacular of Morocco. This
kind of singing doesn't follow grammatical rules and extends to all strata of
Moroccan society.
For the most part, it's just sound, but
drums can also be used in this music. Gharnati music is very similar to
Andalusian songs. Its ancestry is back to Granada Andalucia and instruments
such as banjo and lutes were used in it.
Traditional Food
Couscous is a Moroccan dish in which
couscous is steamed and served with meat, chicken or vegetables.
Moroccan chicken bastilla is a pie stuffed
with chicken with saffron, ginger and pepper.
Tagine is a diverse dish containing
chicken, vegetables, or meat that is cooked inside a ceramic vessel and eaten
directly using bread.
Meat with prunes is a traditional Moroccan
dish in which meat is cooked with different spices and then dried prunes are
added with honey, a fine and complete mixture of sweet and salty.
Shebakia is a Moroccan sweet sesame cookie
fried in the shape of flowers dipped in honey.
There's also peppermint tea, which is
popular in Morocco, which is tea with lots of peppermint leaves and sugar.
Traditional Dance
Dance is an important part of Moroccan
culture as it varies from region to region. Shikhat is a dance known as belly
dance in which women wear tight tar sweaters and long skirts with their lower
body shaken.
Guedra is a folkloric dance performed by
Berber women, who dress in spacious dark blue garments and a veil with
exaggerated decorations, and begin kneeling round, singing and applauding with
a woman who is dancing in the middle of the circle.
Ahwash is a dance performed in the Atlas
Mountains area with many people around the fire in the middle.
Traditional Moroccan Clothes
Djellaba is wide, long clothing for both
men and women. Gandora Looks like a Dejellaba, but with short sleeves. Kaftan
is a long kind of dress that only women can wear, it was initially related to
royalty, but now the general public can wear it.
Tackchita is a Moroccan dress that consists
of two pieces, one of them is exterior, which has more embroidery than the
inside part. This type of dress is often worn at weddings or events.
Festivals and Events
Imilchil wedding festival. There is a
legend that two intersecting stars wanted to get married, but they came from
different tribes, their families opposed the marriage, and they both cried
until their tears were filled by two rivers separated by a mountain, which
indicates that they would not be together even in the afterlife.
Every year a number of people get together
in that place and celebrate, even though there's really no real wedding. They
celebrate this festival as a symbol of love and tragedy.
Marrakech popular arts festival is a
festival that takes place in El Badi Palace where belly dancers perform a show
on the stage.
Marathon des sables is a festival that
commemorates the Greek soldier Pheidippides, who walked 40 kilometers from the
battlefield to Athens, Greece, to deliver his message and declaring the
Knights' defeat, and then fell dead.
Kelaa des Mgonarose festival is an ancient
three-day festival where people celebrate the harvest of roses. You can find
anything made of roses, like rose breeders and vineyards and medicine. At the
end of the festival, they choose the Rose Lady, where the women go out to dance
with crowns of roses on their heads.
Written by
- Aya Salah Zaki
Edited by - Adrija Saha
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