By Rodger Sherman
A slow week on the blog I’m following, which is inexplicable, since Morocco doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Anyway, one post about the opening of a cafe, and one about a deluxe hotel experience in the city of Chefchaouen. We’re talkin the real deal here: they rented out a house in the city, about four hours from Fez, and it sounds downright luxurious.
The house consists of one twin-bedded room and one single room on the ground floor, with a luxurious bathroom (with tub – and heated towel rail). Up one flight is a large living room comprising a kitchen with everything you’d need, and dining table. There’s a study area, lots of bookcases, a wonderful white piano on which John played Bach and Chopin, and a comfortable sitting area with TV and chimney. Go up another flight to discover a very special roof terrace, fully furnished, with a lovely fountain big enough to dip your toes in, and fabulous views of the surrounding mountains.
Bang! Sounds nice. But being our representative on the economic and financial committee, I’m skeptical. On one hand, I’m hearing about poverty, unemployment, and on the other, I’m reading here about interior decorating and heated towel rails.
The blog author says all this cost about 400dh – a quick check of an online currency converter tells me that’s 52.22. Multiply that by 365 – that’s $18980. Now head on over to the wikipedia, and look at Morocco’s GDP per capita (not adjusted for purchasing power parity, in case you were wondering) and I find that the average Moroccan is living on $1880 a year, ranking it 110th in the world.
What I’m sayin is: I signed up to read a blog about typical Moroccan life. I’ve enjoyed the blog I’m reading a lot – well written, generally interesting topics – but it talks about something far more luxurious than typical Moroccan life. Judging by that GDP per capita figure, and knowing how much internet access in the US costs, I doubt there are any blogs about typical Moroccan life.
1 Comment
November 26, 2007 at 10:50 am
Any Wu-Tang reference is going to grab me. As for this blog being or not being about typical Moroccan life, that’s a good question. Obviously the typical Moroccan can’t stay in a hotel like this one, but the typical Moroccan may very well be working in a fancy hotel or doing some other service job.
The blog also illustrates the two-tiers of Moroccan society that we have seen is common in much of North Africa. There are the wealthy elites that have benefited from globalization and liberal economic policies, and there is everyone else.