Chefchaouen

Every time I go back to Morocco, I try to travel around a little. Often, this is with someone who has never visited the country, so we usually go to places like Marakech or Fes, two magnificent old cities in the interior that are must-sees. This time, since it was just me and my parents and we only had a couple of days, we decided to go north, into the Rif mountains and a small town called Chefchaouen (“Look at the Peaks”). I had been there briefly about ten years ago and my parents had not visited since 1971.

Back to the bled

It’s been three years since my last trip back to Morocco (bled means “land” and is often to used in the context of where you come from). I would love to go more often, but it is not easy. This trip was far too short, just ten days. Enough time to see some of my family and take a short sidetrip, but not enough to really experience and see the changes that have taken place since my last trip. And there certainly seem to have been some changes, however, it is not clear how sustainable they are over the long term. Morocco’s economy and politics has always suffered from a combination of mismanagement (=corruption) and bad luck (droughts, etc.). This has always led to a lot of pessimism about the future of the country. Add to that a large and growing young population who could not get work even with university degrees and the situation looked bleak indeed. This is the first trip in a long time that I can remember hearing at least some people being optimistic about the future. There is a lot of investment coming into the country (and the construction industry is clearly booming). Projects are not announced and forgetten about as in the past. There has been an opening up of the economy which has reduced prices for many goods and there may actually be a middle class forming. On the other side, unemployment is still very high and people still complain about lack of work, the economic growth seems to be fuelled by the travel industry, housing and consumption (with very high levels of credit) making it unclear if the economy is really on solid ground. That’s not to say that agriculture is not important, it is still vital to the economy. It should be said that these opinions also are coming mainly from those within a certain socio-economic strata (upper) of society. Those who we spoke with outside of that group tended to be more pessimistic (about lack of work in particular, but also because the housing and living costs are rising rapidly in some places due to an influx of rich foreigners). So, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’d love to see the country improve. More clearly needs to be done in the way of job creation and education (illiteracy is way too high), but some changes will simply take time.