Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

1. Because of its stunning landscape and relatively inexpensive costs, Morocco is popular with Hollywood. In fact, it is called “the Hollywood of North Africa.” Look closely at such films as The Mummy and Mama Mia and you will catch a glimpse of Morocco. 2. You can ski in Morocco! The Sahara Desert is a prominent feature in southern Morocco, but in northern and central Morocco, the Rif, Mid Atlas, High Atlas, and Anti-Atlas Mountains dominate the region. The snowy peaks in northern Africa are popular with snowboarders and skiers. 3. Would you run 156 miles across the desert for fun? Each year, about a thousand athletes do just that. The Marathon des Sables is one of the toughest races on earth. It lasts an entire week and includes five…

Coastline Region: Beach Lovers’ Delight Stretching along the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the coastline of Morocco is 1,140 miles long. Not surprisingly, many people who live along the coast make a living in the fishing and tourist industries. Morocco is well known in the film industry as “the Hollywood of North Africa.” Many movies have been filmed on location in Morocco, such as The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Bourne Ultimatum, Gladiator, and Mamma Mia. Why do movie producers choose Morocco? It is inexpensive to film there, the light is beautiful, and the ancient buildings can stand in for many cultures throughout history. Also like Hollywood, California, Morocco’s Atlantic coast is a surfer’s paradise, with plenty of waves to catch. Mountain Region:…

Hundreds of grueling ultra-marathons take place throughout the world, but only one is called the “toughest footrace on earth.” It takes place in one of the harshest, most unforgiving places on the planet — Morocco’s Sahara Desert. More than 1,000 athletes from around the world will travel there in April 2017 to compete in the 32nd annual Marathon des Sables (MdS). The race covers 156 miles (250 kilometers) and lasts an entire week. It consists of five competitive stages and a sixth stage that is just for fun and raises money for charity. The course is different every year, and runners don’t receive course maps until the day before the race begins. They also receive compasses to help them navigate the desert and its steep sand dunes, rocky jebels (mountain…

Anew, ancient art is back in style. People everywhere are discovering the fun of displaying beautiful designs on their skin — through henna tattoos. What is Henna? Henna is a small flowering shrub that grows in northern Africa, northern Australia, and southern Asia. Its leaves are dried and ground into a fine reddish-brown powder that is used for dying clothes, hair, and skin. History of Henna Henna’s exact origins are unclear, but it is said that Cleopatra used henna to adorn her body in ancient Egypt. Egyptians also used the dye to paint the nails of mummies before burial. In Morocco, the henna tradition is more than 2,000 years old. The practice of applying henna is believed to bring God’s blessing, or baraka. Henna Today The art of applying henna…

What are these strange things? Exotic spices? An after-school snack? Maybe cafeteria leftovers? The answer is — yes! They’re all types of amazing and popular Moroccan foods. An Invasion of Flavor Morocco is truly a melting pot of flavors. Throughout history, as each new culture settled there, from the ancient Phoenicians and Romans to the French, Arabs, and British, they introduced their own tastes and styles into the kitchen. Long ago, the Berbers created seksu, or couscous, a staple of Moroccan cuisine. Rolled by hand, it looks like rice, but is actually wheat pasta. It’s normally eaten with tajines, tossed with raisins and nuts, or, in the Berber style, drizzled with buttermilk. From the Far East, Arabs introduced a variety of spices such as saffron, cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and of…

Casablanca is perhaps Morocco’s most famous city, an important port and commercial center on the Atlantic Ocean. But Casablanca is also an interesting place to visit, partly because of the traces of its French heritage as well as for being the setting for a famous old movie by the same name. If you are lucky enough to visit Casablanca, here are some sites you won’t want to miss. THE HASSAN II MOSQUE Casablanca doesn’t have as many imposing or unusual buildings as some famous cities do, but visitors must see the Hassan II Mosque, which was commissioned by King Hassan II and completed in 1993 after 13 years of work. Costing $800 million, it was financed through contributions from the public. Built on land that was reclaimed from a slum…

The date palm is synonymous with Morocco, and millions of these majestic fruit-bearing trees grow throughout the country. They are one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees in the world, and dates have provided critical nourishment as well as a source of income to the people of Morocco for thousands of years. More than 100 different varieties of dates grow throughout the country. A staple of the Moroccan diet, dates contain protein, vitamins, minerals, and sugar — lots of sugar. Their high sugar content (between 40 and 80 percent) helps protect them from bacterial contamination and enables them to last for years. The average Moroccan eats almost seven pounds (three kilograms) of dates annually, and those living in date-producing regions eat closer to 35 pounds (16 kilograms). Dates are eaten…

The Strait of Gibraltar is the passageway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Legend has it that the strait was created by Hercules, the demigod son of Zeus (the king of gods) and Alcmene (a mortal woman). The Pillars of Hercules refer to the cliffs on either side of the strait formed when Hercules put his superhuman strength to work scrambling through the mountain range that once separated the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. The northern pillar, known as the Rock of Gibraltar, was thought to be a portal between reality and myth. The strait is about nine miles wide at its narrowest point. It is bordered by Africa and Europe, and more specifically, the countries of Morocco, Spain, the British Colony of Gibraltar, and the Spanish…

Does a camel have one hump or two? The answer to this ancient question depends on the type of camel. In a nutshell, the dromedary lives largely in northern Africa and Saudi Arabia. It has one hump, long limbs, and short hair to protect it from the heat of the desert. Its cousin, the Bactrian camel, has two humps, short limbs, and long hair to insulate it from the cold winters of central Asia. DESERT SURVIVAL SPECIALISTS Dromedaries are ideally suited to live in the desert. Most noticeably, they have one hump on their backs that can store up to 80 pounds of fat. This fat can be broken down into water and energy when food is not available. Thanks to their humps, dromedaries have the legendary ability to travel…

Sweet Moroccan mint tea means, “Welcome, friend. Relax and enjoy!” Not only is this national drink universally served and loved, but it’s also an important cultural tradition in every Moroccan’s daily life. From the time a child is young, the mother may give the baby tastes of bread soaked in tea. Teatime is an important time for families at meals and in the evening, and often many more times during the day. Family members gather to talk and share news, and no business deal is completed without several glasses of tea. The ritual of tea is much more than a glass of the amber liquid. It is a gracious sign of hospitality and dignified respect. If you are invited inside a Moroccan home or business or go into a shop,…

While Arabic is spoken by more than 180 million people in the Middle East, there are great differences in the spoken language between the Arab countries. The Arab dialect spoken in Morocco is different from, say, the Egyptian and Jordanian dialects, because Morocco, on the far west of North Africa, has its own culture. In fact, Maghreb, the Moroccan word for Morocco, actually means “west.” The Arabic alphabet has 29 basic letters, with additional vowel marks and symbols. It is called “cursive” because the letters of a word are joined (in print and in handwriting), and this changes the shape of the letters, in some cases quite drastically. In addition, some letters have three different forms, depending on their position in a word. Most of the sounds of Arabic are…