December 2014

Intro

Flying into Marrakech, the Atlas Mountains loom on the horizon, and it’s easy to see why the ancient Greeks imagined this imposing presence at the edge of their world as a giant carrying the weight of Everything on his shoulders.

Me, I’m leaving the weight of the world behind me for a few days, and I’m doing it at the edge of the Atlas in more ways than one. Like the Greeks of old I haven’t gone beyond the straits of Hercules (Gibraltar) before, and riding into the bustle of the Medina I quickly realise that I have indeed entered a very different world.

My young driver Mohammed enthusiastically extols the virtues of his good Muslim wife and cousin who is never allowed to leave his house, and only breaks off his monologue when he suddenly clips the rear wheel of one of the many mopeds that swarm in front if us.

The car sends the moped and its hapless rider tottering right into the arms of two armed policemen. They witnessed the whole thing, and I fear the worst, but a rapid fire exchange in Arabic is apparently the only consequence this mishap will have, and so on we go through ever tighter alleys, weaving in and out between people, dogs, food stalls, donkeys, mopeds, often missing them by nothing but a hair’s breadth.

When we finally reach the riad I have already come to the conclusion that Mohammed’s wife has got the situation sussed, and that my only hope of surviving this sojourn is to stay resolutely indoors. Luckily my hostess, the lovely Maria, soon convinces me otherwise.

She shows me the beautiful inner court yard with its ornamental pool and sky light, and my opulent bed, which looks like something Scheherezade could have been telling her tales in – the sight of which only strengthens my resolve – but then she takes me to the roof terrace, serves me dates and mint tea, and as we look over the rooftops of this medieval labyrinth and the last call to prayer of the day sounds in the velvety darkness as it has for a thousand and one years, I feel as if the call is for me, and me alone.

Suddenly I cannot wait to go exploring tomorrow, and Maria – who clearly has seen this reaction before – grins as if to say I told you so…

Jalla, jalla!
Marrakech, day 1

After a breakfast for sheiks that included snake pancake (thankfully named after its shape rather than its ingredients), Maria insisted on taking me to the main square of the old town. I thought her care for me rather endearing but a little overprotective. How wrong I was.

The onslaught to the senses as you enter the Medina is difficult to describe. Donkeys bray, music (like bagpipers on speed) plays, mopeds bleat, the perfume of sandalwood and strange spices mix with car fumes and the wood smoke from the hammams, and everywhere you look there are sights to behold, spilling out of the little shops like so many cornucopias; multicoloured earthenware and cloth, even more colourful merchants, wrought ironwork, food (one store apparently sold nothing but lamb stomachs, another had two sets of cow’s hoofs neatly placed in the street, making me wonder if they had sold off the animal piece by piece from the top down), you name it, it was there.

Without Maria I would have got lost immediately. With her assistance we got through the maze without difficulty, in spite of me gawping at everything and putting questions to her every ten seconds like an over-excited five-year-old.

She showed me a donkey parking, caravanserais, shops where they kept live fowl (enabling me to engage in a bit of impromptu presidential turkey-pardoning by not buying one), a man transporting 3,000 eggs on the back of his moped at high speed, a snake charmer and a monkey trainer having a violent argument (or possibly nothing but an engaging conversation, there really was no telling) while their respective wards faced off with an air of inscrutable patience. She taught me the importance of choosing honey patisserie-makers on the basis of how many wasps their wares attracted, and fishmongers on the basis of how few stray cats they attracted. It was all rather marvellous.

Once Maria left me on Jmaa el Fna I wasted no time in getting gloriously, impossibly lost in the souk, where I spent hours wandering about, happily haggling, admiring the architecture, dodging donkey carts, drinking it all in. Souking it up, as it were.

As the sun set, setting the ochre walls of the old city on fire, making it redder still, I found myself back at square one in a manner of speaking, on one of the rooftop terraces overlooking El Fna, watching the space below fill up with people, acrobats, jugglers, storytellers, soothsayers.

Eating my lamb and prunes, listening to the drums and the distinctly Arabic hubbub of the crowd it felt as if Ali Baba and the forty thieves were about to enter the stage, but the real wonder of this scene is of course that – no matter how exotic it is to me – it is real, and not a fairytale.

The sun finally fell below the horizon, and the instant this happened the music and the crowds fell silent as the many minarets called out the believers to evening prayer; a fitting ending to a day that really began last night with that very same call. Allah Akbar, indeed.
Marrakech, day 2

It is amazing how quickly we adapt to new environments; only two days ago the traffic had me petrified, and now here I am in the midst of the hustle and bustle, nimbly side-stepping oncoming vehicles like a lone bull fighter up against a never-ending supply of bovines (the one exception to my keeping my newfound cool was when I unwittingly came within four feet of a couple of rattle snakes and a cobra. I lost it then, and quite possibly a drop of urine, too.)

Of course, some things don’t change. My sense of direction is one of them. Map in hand I think myself on the right track through the contorted bowels of the city only to find myself – infuriatingly – at the exact opposite end of town to what I had planned.

How little the walled city itself has changed was brought home to me upon entering the photographic museum, showing pictures of the town and its citizens from 150 years ago. Apart from the advent of cars and electricity it remains strikingly similar to today.

One picture stood out. Taken in 1912(!), it showed a young Sudanese slave (whether male or female I couldn’t tell) with an expression like that of a beaten dog. It haunted me, and as I had my lunch in the Café des Epices, overlooking the spice market (which also happened to be the slave market), it wasn’t at all difficult to imagine a trader in humans hawking his wares in between the basket weavers and hat makers, and prospective customers lining up to inspect the goods.* Mind you, after two days on foot through the souk a couple of bearers wouldn’t go amiss…
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*Perhaps surprisingly, unlike the prohibition on alcohol for instance, the Quran has nothing to say on the abolition of slavery (in fairness, nor does the Bible). A sobering thought indeed, and a reminder of just how recent our notion of human rights is.
Marrakech, day 3

When you start daydreaming about bearers, you know the time has come to put your feet up somewhere. This I did yesterday.

My winding road ended at what had been described to me as a hidden gem, the Blue Hammam, and it truly was a diamond in the dust. Inside, serenity reigns supreme. A far cry from the muezzin, bathers lead you from one room to the next along a preordained path, bathing, massaging, lathering and ferociously scraping you all over until you emerge on the other side, weak and soft and pink as a new-born.

When at last I left, night had fallen, and I stumbled back towards El Fna to join the locals taking their evening meals at the many temporary restaurants that are set up there every night. These restaurants are really nothing but an open fire and a circle of tables around which families gather, and all the more wonderful for it.

I had minced spleen, lamb’s tongue and cheek, and little sausages – the contents of which I didn’t inquire about (I figured if they listed the previous things on the menu, I didn’t want to know what might remain to make sausages of). You eat with your right hand and a bread and wash it all down with mint tea (“Berber whiskey”). For dessert I had the best avocado milkshake I’ve ever drunk, which admittedly isn’t saying much, and then I staggered back home to the riad, very, very content.

Bismillah!

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Today I spent the morning shopping with intent. Now, I like negotiating as much as the next man, but even though I enjoy the transactions it makes for exhausting work; Feigning outrage at the initial price, displaying disinterest, allowing them to exhort a counteroffer as ludicrous as their starting bid, then walking away only to be pulled back and have that offer be accepted amidst grumbles of “Ali Baba” – a thinly veiled insult meaning thief, and hopefully a sign that you haven’t done too badly – takes more energy than your average shop visit.

Seeking a reprieve I set out for the Badiā palace, having read accounts of how “in Marrakech did El Mansour a pleasure dome erect”. This particular erection was an immense undertaking that took most of El Mansour’s reign to complete, but it was evidently hugely impressive at the time – a showcase of the Great Ruler’s wealth, refinement and power.

When I arrive there though, it’s Ozymandias rather than Kubla Khan that comes to mind. Long gone are the intricate fountains, lush rose pavilions, and the famous harem that used to enthral foreign dignitaries, and in their place are ruins that barely hint at the long-lost grandeur. Storks make their homes on top of the crumbling ramparts, unperturbed by the noise of the kasbah, and the ever-present mangy cats hunt in the rubbish heaps that fill some of the courtyards. How the mighty have fallen!

Hidden away behind an unassuming gate a mere two blocks away, beyond an orange grove alive with the sound of a hundred unseen songbirds, the Bahia (Arabic for “beautiful”) palace is an altogether different proposition. Here, the zelliq (ceramic tiles) and painted latticework remain intact, giving a hint of the opulence and splendour the vizier’s family lived in.

I find myself lingering, not quite able to muster the will to leave this oasis just yet. Haggle fatigue? Post Arabic stress syndrome? I don’t know, but suddenly I feel more than ready to go home tomorrow.
Marrakech, day 4

A storm is coming. I spoke of human rights before, but the great many human wrongs here (to coin a phrase) are casting dark shadows over Marrakech.

It’s a human wrong that the mosque in my quarter is known as the mosque of the blind men, but they have nowhere else to go, and blindness is an endemic problem in a country where everyone has a sweet tooth and no one has guaranteed health care, condemning many poor diabetics to a world of eternal darkness.

It’s a human wrong that there are so many beggars in the street, particularly old women, who – if widowed without children – have no other way of making money than asking for the charity of strangers, since they are not allowed work.

It’s a human wrong that a country that is – ostensibly at least – a democracy should have a level of illiteracy so high that voting is conducted by way of allocating symbols to candidates – more than half the electorate couldn’t participate in elections otherwise.

Perhaps none of this should come as a shock considering the lack of national cohesion in Morocco:

40% of the population are of more or less diluted indigenous Berber stock (the hill tribes and desert clans are known collectively under this name, which is derived from the same Greek roots as the word barbarian (literally “one who speaks gibberish”)), but in spite of their numbers they are being discriminated against. It’s only a few years ago that a journalist was imprisoned for suggesting Berbers were here before the Arabs.

Another 10% of the population (the black part) is known as Harratine (literally “freed slave” or “second rate freeman”), the descendants of black slaves enrolled as mercenaries in the 16th century,* and they are even further down the rungs of the ladder of Moroccan society.

Perhaps surprisingly in a country where 50% of the population is derided as barbarians or darkies, race isn’t the main divide. Privilege is. Once outside of the medina, this becomes glaringly obvious. The new town, built by the French, is much like a western city, and as such completely out of bounds to the poor, who have about as great a chance of making it there as making it to the moon.

The two cities literally rubbing up against each other, it seems inevitable that friction will sooner or later cause the situation to ignite. So as Mohammed the driver prattles away on the way to the airport (with me calmly looking on as he slaloms through the crowds) and the first drops of the winter rains start to fall, I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the Arab spring has sprung here too, in sha Allah.

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*It’s as if the English were to de-pict Scots as troublemakers, difficult to understand, and give the Welsh a name that denounced them as foreign and all swarthy and… Oh, wait.
Marrakech, outro

Leaving Marrakech I feel as if I have barely scratched the surface of this foreign land and outlandish culture, and yet, like Marco Polo on his deathbed, I am compelled to say I haven’t told you half of what I saw.

I didn’t mention the kindness and openness of the people – the three tent-clad women on a local bus who encouraged, nay, pushed their three-year-old boy into the lap of the infidel suddenly in their midst (imagine the opposite happening in your respective home lands – it is unthinkable!) – nor the unlikely spectacles that awaited you round every corner – the man coolly walking down the street, his dozen cocks swinging almost all the way to the cobblestones, contentedly squawking on their way to the butcher’s, or the Berber herbalist who cured me of sinusitis for life with one of his remedies and showed me a root that would give me an erection to rival that of Al Mansour’s (I politely declined, still staggering from the knock-out blow my nose had just taken) – nor the finely chiseled metalwork of the lamps I so desperately wanted to buy – each one of of them casting a thousand lights – nor the Palmerie, where caravans would leave their camels to graze upon reaching the Medina, nor the shrine to Yves Saint Laurent, or any of a hundred other things that would have made good stories.

So my story comes to an end, but like the tales of Sheherazade, I hope it has left you wanting more. Alighting on cold, sodden Belgian soil again, I know I yearn for another yarn.