We booked a luxury hotel in Casablanca (the Hyatt Regency) for our first night, using Dan’s accumulated points. Our excuse for this indulgence, besides for the fact that it was “free,” was that we were bound to be exhausted from our flights and wanted to immerse ourselves more slowly into Moroccan culture. We were given a room on the sixth floor looking out across the old medina toward the Atlantic Ocean, which could barely be made out through the haze. The view took in the famous Hassan II mosque as well as the working port.

Now maybe, like me, you’re focused on the main attractions–the mosque and the port–but maybe, like Dan, you’ve noticed something odd about the rooftops of the old city.

Have you ever seen such an array of satellite dishes? How are all these people in this (presumably) poor section of town getting the money for satellite dishes? Many days later we learned that there are organizations who will give satellite dishes to those too poor to buy one for themselves. As for a TV, however, the people are on their own. How many, we wonder, have them? Is that what our juvenile “guides” are saving their tips toward?