BLUE MAQAM OF CHEFCHAOUEN
An improvisation on street daily life in Morocco's Rif blue medina
Blue Maqams is the title of a masterpiece of oud master Anouar Brahem, but Maqam is in fact the Arabic concept to designate a type of melodic construction often based on improvisation that forms the basis of traditional Arabic music. Most of the times Maqams can turn into a kind of hypnothic trance.
As the Maqam can become hypnotic, the day to day of the indigo-tinted alleys of the ancient medina of Chefchaouen, in the Moroccan Rif, invites the traveler to let himself be carried away towards an hypnotic and unexpectedly full of sensations walk: women selling some wild fruits that have been gathered that morning; some others carrying the daily homemade bread to be cooked in the communtarian oven, that always have been run by men; children playing not so far from home doors while community are hidden and silently taking care of all them; olders taking its daily walkaround to chat with neighbours, youngers who at sundown gets on its best wears in order to be observed by their peers, and so on…
Despite being a worldly-known touristic spot, Chefchaouen is just a Moroccan Rif's village, in Yebala region. A village where, beyond the needs of tourism, people still try to preserve its privacy. Real everyday street life in Chauen has little time to be appreciate: few time from sunrise til just before the crowd of tourists still have not arrived... and then at late evening, when suddenly the real town returns into life short after the last buses have turn out the last curve in their route to another spot….
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