Wednesday 22 August 2012

Another wild day!

This morning started out great, as per usual. We enjoyed our breakfast in the El Minzah with our "white" coffee and headed over to the communidad. We spent two hours photographing books and we are done! Except for the one book that is still in the synagogue that we are trying to get our hands on. It is the book that started the whole project, the Marriages 1 book. The Rabbi left it in the shul and he is in Israel with the main communidad guy too, so we have been trying to get in touch with him to get us access to the book.

We dropped our equipment at the hotel and headed back out to go to the old Jewish cemetery. On the way there, we stopped at a bank machine for some cash. I got the cash and put my card away, and then for some reason, I thought the machine didnt give me my card back! I made a whole stink at the bank and made them open up the bank machine from the back. Turns out the card was in my purse the whole time. We snuck out of there pretty fast!


Haha! Then we headed over to the old Jewish cemetery with Abdelsallam outside of the Medina, on rue Portugal.



We spent about an hour and a half looking for my great-grandmother, Esther Haligua's grave, but no luck. Unfortunately, there is no guide to old Jewish cemetery and its pretty huge. There is also no shade, and every path has unmarked graves that need to be avoided while walking through. We said a prayer at the front of the cemetery for my great-grandmother and all the people buried there.

Next we went back to the hotel to cool off a bit. We tried to call a few contacts in Tangiers to get access to that one book, but no luck yet. We did hear that one of the men we were looking for was possibly at the "Casino" but no additional information.

So we headed off for our tuna lunch and ate it in the park overlooking the sea.


We wandered around and tried to find the Casino. We thought we found it but no one answered the door and we werent sure the parking garage attendant who led us there was right about the location.

Back to the hotel for some more cooling off, and then we headed over to the Medina to see our friend Muchsin who sells watches and has good information and tips. We wanted to find out if we were getting ripped off for a trip to Tetouan and Chefchaoun tomorrow. He said we were not getting ripped off. He didnt want to come with us though, because he just got back from the Hajj in Mecca.

We stopped for a tea at our favorite Cafe Central, and our waiter was nice to us this time and took a photo without being asked!


We decided to give the Casino another try to track down someone who could get us access to that last book. We walked back up and rang the bell. Success! We found the Casino!!


Our contact was NOT there, but his wife was!! She said we could find him around the corner tomorrow. Its a good thing that we gave ourselves a week to do this project. Just finding the right people to open doors is a challenge and a very lengthy process.

We ended our day at Cafe de Paris, with these guys:


Nothing has changed in that place in a hundred years, including the bathroom! HA!


1 comment:

Denise Levin said...

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.