Christmas in Morocco, Part I

Marrakech is a tourist factory. 

Bruno and I had gathered a lot of very strong opinions on Marrakech during our drive down the Moroccan Atlantic Coast, and this phrase, uttered by a local campsite owner, about sums them all up.  Not a single person we spoke with had anything positive to say about Marrakech.

So why was I on a four-hour-which-turned-into-a-seven-hour bus ride to the city which churns up tourists before spitting them back out?

I was picking up my parents for our Christmas in Morocco, that’s why!

I was positively giddy to be welcoming my parents to Morocco.  It would be my parents’ first time in Africa, and my first time traveling to a developing country with my dad (if you don’t count our holiday at a Mexican resort when I was fifteen, that is).  I couldn’t wait to witness dad’s culture shock and to help both parents begin to navigate all things Moroccan, even if it was in Morocco’s very own tourist-factory town.

Our Moroccan Riad

I arrived first at the riad my mom had booked for us in the heart of Marrakech’s medina.  A riad is a traditional Moroccan house, often several stories high and with narrow rectangular rooms, and, essentially, an inner courtyard.  Riads were once popular because the inner courtyard (or garden) allowed families to have a quiet and cool private space in medinas that were typically very densely-packed, a country that was generally oppressively hot, and a culture that valued the privacy of women.

Nowadays, dilapidated riads are being renovated as guesthouses; ours, Riad Signature, was no exception.  A few years ago, a Frenchman purchased this crumbling traditional home and spent the next two years painstakingly renovating it.  I’d recently finished reading A House in Fez, a book about an Australian couple’s experience of renovating a riad in another Moroccan city, and their tales of bureaucratic challenges, the Moroccan work ethic, and pains modernizing an old home made me wonder if any riad-renovation project wasn’t foolhardy.

It’s a good thing Riad Signature is as beautiful and comfortable now as it is.

When I’d arrived in Marrakech and hailed down a petit taxi, the local taxies that can ferry up to three passengers short distances within a city, the taxi driver had told me he couldn’t bring me all the way to my riad.  The medina is too small for taxis, he’d told me.  I was prepared for this – it’s a common taxi ploy in Marrakech.  That’s too bad, I’d replied.  I was looking for a taxi to pick up my parents at the airport later, but I need one that can take them all the way in.  They have luggage, you see.

Well, that changed the taxi driver’s tune immediately.  He not only brought my down the narrow lane that, a moment ago, he’d refused to drive down, but he ferried me directly to my riad, which, situated at the dead end of a tiny alley and without a sign, I never would have located otherwise.

So, I’d found my ride to the airport that night, where I picked up my parents and whisked them through the medina to our little riad haven.  Dad chatted and joked with the taxi driver in a mixture of French and English that he’d use throughout his time in Morocco and that would make any Acadian proud.  Inwardly, however, he was experiencing immediate culture shock at the tiny, dirty, alleys and seemingly-primitive way people lived.  Mom, sitting beside me, was simply glowing giddily.

Into the Souqs

The next morning, after a wonderful typically-Moroccan breakfast of msammen (Moroccan crepes) and baguette with honey, jam, cheese, and butter, freshly squeezed orange juice, and tea and coffee, the three of us ventured out into Marrakech’s medina.  I’d already discovered the pleasures of wandering aimlessly through Morocco’s mazes of medina alleyways, so I watched my parents ogle the sights that lay before them as we made our way past shops and souqs and narrow streets.  Men sat drinking tea and playing chess.  Spices, olives, and dried fruit, all piled high, sat out in the dusty streets; shopkeepers dribbled water onto the roads to keep down the dust.  Donkey carts filled with goods squeezed past us, as did the speedy motorbikes that kept us always on our toes.  My parents’ eyes looked filled with wonder at everyday life in Marrakech’s medina, so much so that mom almost ran into a huge carcass of meat hanging over the side of the road.

My parents soon got their first lesson in bargaining in the babouche souq, a souq filled with almost nothing but traditional leather slippers of every color and design.  As we passed the bright displays, shop owners called at us to visit their shops and shouted the standard price of fifty dirhams, or $7, for a pair of “handmade” babouches.  As we explored, I explained to my parents that bargaining is a way of life for Moroccan locals, and that it must be such for tourists, too, uncomfortable though it may feel.  I’d heard from several sources that tourists should never pay more than a third of the price initially quoted by a shop-owner, and though that had sounded like a large difference, I quickly learned that in Marrakech’s souqs, it was a conservative estimate.

We approached a stall displaying wooden puzzles of desert scenes and I saw mom’s eye linger.  The shop-keeper saw her lingering eye, too.    Tell me what you want to buy, but let me do the bargaining, I’d told mom earlier, unwilling to let my parents become two more ripped-off tourists in Marrakech’s souqs.  So when the shop-keeper announced his opening price of 150 dirhams (about $20), I couldn’t help but take over:

“That’s your tourist price,” I smile.  “Give me your Moroccan price.”

“100 dirhams,” he replies without skipping a beat.

“Hmm… that’s still really expensive.  What’s your last price?  I mean, your lowest, lowest price?”

“How many do you want?  Two?  Three?”

“Just one.”

Pause.  “80 dirhams, for you,” he replies with a smile.  He’s almost cut his price in half, but I’m done yet.

“Sir, I think we’re going to keep walking around.  Maybe visit a few more puzzle shops.”

“That means you’re not coming back, doesn’t it?

“It just means we’re going to shop around, get an idea of price.”

“Ok, 60 dirhams and you take it now.”

“30.”

“50.”

“40.”

“45.”

“Deal.”  And the puzzle is ours, for less than a third of the initial price.

“How many do you want?” continues the shop-keeper.  “Two?  Three?”

“If you want to give me two for 45 dirhams, I’m fine with that,” I laugh.

He looks at my mother.  “This woman could put me out of business!”  And he hands us one puzzle.

My mom seemed a bit uncomfortable about this encounter, like we’d ripped him off or something.  The price just seemed too far from what he’d initially quoted.  If the man sold me the item, I assured her, it meant he’s ok with the price.  The entire interaction had happened with smiles on our faces.  It’s all a good-natured part of the Moroccan purchasing process.

It was a lesson my parents would have many opportunities to practice during their weeks in Morocco.

A Palace, a Tomb, and a Medersa

Over the course of Morocco’s fascinating history, Marrakech was often a strategic city along the caravan routes from Sudan.  As such, there are a few sites of historical importance that my mom and I really wanted to see.  We dragged dad to the Bahia Palace, a giant riad-style palace built in the 19^th century, and a great example of traditional Moroccan design.  Ceramic tiles (called zellij) adorn the floors and walls; the doorways and ceiling trim are elaborately carved; and ceilings are intricately painted with geometric floral designs.  In typical Moroccan fashion, the palace doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside you enter a maze of long, rectangular rooms whose windows and doors face inwards, to the inner courtyards and gardens.  Important ruling families, warlords, and even French generals lived here over the past 200 years, and it was interesting to picture their lives, tucked away from the bustle of the medina.

Later, we stopped by the Saadian Tombs, a 16^th century cemetery for the ruling Saadian family.  There are tons of tombs, and a few mausoleums demonstrating Moroccan ceramics and carvings, but we passed through quickly, rather unmoved.  I suppose a guided tour could have improved the experience because, as is typical with sites in Morocco, there are few signs describing what you’re viewing.

Of the three architectural sites we visited, I found the Ali Ben Youssef Medersa most interesting.  A medersa (“madrasa” in other Muslim countries) is a Koranic school, and this one, built 600 years ago, was once one of the most important in all of North Africa.  The same types of zellij, carvings, and painted doors and ceilings exist here as in the Bahia Palace, but what I found more interesting was the plain and stark dormitories for the 900+ students at a time that received religious and legal education here.

The Djemaa el Fna

None of the architectural sites we visited held a candle to the Djemaa el Fna, however.  Djemaa means “Friday mosque,” the most important day of the week to pray in a mosque, but that’s just a Muslim way of expressing the real meaning of the term, namely a “congregation” or a “gathering.”  In Marrakech, the Djemaa is the ultimate gathering, for it refers to the Central Square and beating-heart of the city’s medina.

On our first evening, we ventured to the Djemaa around sunset to witness halqa, the street theater that has been performed here for the past thousand years.  During the day there are snake charmers, colorfully-dressed water-sellers clanging brass cups together, and self-claimed “dentists” displaying their curriculum vitae of pulled-teeth.  Once the sun sets, it’s the musicians, dancers, meat-grillers, astrologists, storytellers, potion-sellers, and cross-dressing belly-dancers that take over the square, strumming and pounding and shouting into the wee hours of the night.

Dad took off at his typical breakneck speed, eager to see it all at once, but mom and I strolled slowly along, stopping whenever we saw a group of people huddled around a few musicians.  The musicians play for coins, of course, and we were quickly initiated into this ritual.  A group of Arab musicians played a tune that had everyone laughing hysterically then passed the hat around.  Of course, they asked us tourists for money.  I gave them a dirham, about $0.15, which my guide book had said was about right.  The man looked at my measly coin, announced to everyone that the tourist had given him an entire dirham, and then proceeded to jokingly curse me – May you never eat again, sleep again, or go to the toilet ever again!

Later, we stopped in front of a lively group of Berber musicians, the other main ethnic group in Morocco.  We were offered benches to sit on and super-sweet mint tea passed around in the same glass (Mom refused it), and then we witnessed what my parents quite accurately described as a tintamarre, an Acadian party involving convivial marching through streets with makeshift instruments making as much noise, or clangour, as humanly possible.  Dad got up and danced in front of everyone, then one of the musicians grabbed his water bottle, pretended to drink it and to get very, very drunk on its contents.  We stayed longer here, gave a few extra dirham, and left without being cursed.

The Djemaa became our evening entertainment, and we returned unhesitatingly the following night.  This time, we wandered through La Place, the hundred or so food stands arranged in the center of the square.  The stalls are numbered rather than named, and since they all sell almost the same thing, the way they differentiate themselves is by creating catch-phrases, which they wield in English at every passing person.  Number 87 takes you to heaven.  94 will serve you more.  Walking through the stalls felt like spinning through a factory assembly line, and, upon emerging, I took a deep breath of [semi] fresh air.  Dad, however, stayed inside a long time, coming up with his own catch-phrases and making up fake excuses about already having promised to eat at number 25’s stall.  It was almost as if dad had been Moroccan in his past life.

Of course, as with all things, Marrakech wasn’t all innocent fun and positive experiences – there was a healthy dose of touting, begging, and general harassment, too.  But you’ll have to wait until Part II of this story to find out about the dark side of Marrakech!