Marrakech
Most people would say a guy my age, who’s favorite past time was riding a bicycle through the madina of Marrakech, is a little weird. But, hop on and folow me for the time of your life. Each city has an old city called the medina, usually in the center of a modern city. The medinas have no north-south or east-west direction. Every street winds around like a maze. Even though I’ve been coming to Marrakech for more than thirty years, I still get hoplessly lost within the first half mile in. That’s precisely why I love it. It’s like going back in time. You’ll stumble on shops selling herbs and spices from around the world, that people use as their pharmacy. Other stores that sell anaconda skins, some fifteen feet long and longer, Zebras, crocadiles, leopards, all the skins that are indigenous to africa seem to make their way across the Sahara to Morocco. The only things along that nature that can’t be brought into the states are crocadiles and Cheetas.
At the entrance to the Marrakech madina is the most famous tourist spot in Morocco. The square, Djemma El Fna covers about one half square mile. It is the gathering place for anyone who has something to sell, be it a product or an act. Shaman’s from the Sahara bring their powder’s and potions, looking for someone to cure of something. Story tellers and koran reader’s hypnotize their Moroccan audiences with koran readings and tales of mystical times and events. There are men with trained monkeys, who go so far as to put the monkey’s on tourist’s heads until some coins are extracted from them “for the show.” You’ll see men wearing colorful cloaks and big red hats, carrying goatskin bags and belts adorned with ancient coins and shiney brass cups. The watermen of Morocco get the water from the well, mostly for locals needing a drink. They ring brass bells that dangle from their belts so, all within earshot would know there is a drink nearby. But, the main source of the watermen’s income is from taking pictures with the tourist’s, none of whom in their right mind would drink the water. Stands selling fresh dates sit next to stands selling the most delicious fresh squeezed orange juice and other’s selling cookies, baked in the homes, only hours before. Nut venders peddle pistachios from boxes, hanging around their necks and are followed by other’s with urns of hot tea. Hot grills bearing rows of goat heads are in the alleys leading to the square, so consumption preferences for the locals, wouldn’t be a turnoff for the tourists. And everything in the square is fair game for purchase. They might walk up to you and touch your shirt and ask “how much?” If you say it isn’t for sale, They will ask again “how much?” this time meaning how much did you pay for it.
Djemma El Fna stands for square of the dead, from the old day’s when men, who broke the wrong laws, wound up with their heads on poles at the square. Every tourist who visits Morocco usually winds up visiting the square. Young boy’s taunt you into hiring them as guides to show you around without cost to you. If they take you to a place and you buy something, a commission is given to the guide. These little rascals know how to ask the right questions, to sell you something, in a dozen different languages. Morocco has their official government guides, a job that puts them in a position of great reward. The guides, as well as the government frowns on the young boy’s activities, so they skulk.
Morocco has some interesting system of laws. If you park your cars in the wrong place, the police, who carry pliers, take your license plate off and you have to pay the fine to get it back. Crude, but effective. If any of the boys get caught selling hashish and arrested, the first thing they do, before a trial or court is discussed, is shave their heads. It tells everyone what they were arrested for and makes them a hot potatoe to deal with. embarrassing, but effective. People don’t tend to resist a policeman in Morocco. The country, on the whole, is too submissive for that. But, once I saw a man try to struggle with two policemen who were trying to remove him from his car. One of the policemen reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a ball point pen. He then inserted the pointed end of the pen into the strugglers nose, with his right hand and held the back of his head with the other. The man followed without further resistance. Painful, but
effective.
I must say, after that toe curler, that Morocco has one of the best tourist safety records in the world. In my thirty two years of going there, I have yet to hear of a tourist being seriously bothered, physically. That’s not to say your camera won’t get boosted or you might find someone’s hand in your purse, but violent crimes are almost nil.If you are a Moroccan Muslim and you want to pray in the mosque, that’s fine. If you want to pray at home or in the street, that’s fine. If you don’t want to pray, but would rather have a beer, that’s fine too. They don’t mix the religion with the law in Morocco. You’ll see mosques, synagogues and catholic churches in the same area. There are three things the Moroccan government would rather you not talk about. They don’t arrest you, or anything like that. They just consider it to be bad manners. First, you don’t gossip about the royal family…”the king’s sister is gettig a divorce, blah.\, blah”. The second taboo
is the disposition of territory…”Didn’t france use to rule Morocco? and Spain, blah”. The third thing you don’t talk about, and why I think they have kept moderation in their religious lives, is you do not sit and discuss religion. And, brother. If you don’t talk about something, you cannot fight about it. But, there I go talking about it. My apologies.
By far, my favorite of all the Djemma El Fna performer’s are the snake charmers. By Moroccan law, these cobra’s must be de-fanged for the charmer to obtain a permit to preform in the square. However, some of these guy’s are rebels who come from down in the Sahara and, either don’t know or care about the law. Als, cobras grow their fangs back. Occaisionally someone get’s bit. On my first trip to the square, I saw a man sitting under an umbrella with a flute and tamboreen. In front of him was a wooden box with a sliding top. I asked “serpent?” He reached into his box and screamed. He pulled out his hand and there was a snake (not a cobra) biting down on his thumb. He shook it off, covered it with his tamboreen, then started chanting loudly, while he took his bloody thumb and drew crosses on his forehead. I, being both terrified and super sympathetic, reached into my pocket and, instead of the usual coins donated for the performances, pulled out all of my Moroccan bills (probably amounted to twenty bucks) and placed them, with an overdone compasionate look on my face on his blanket. The next day, fully expecting to see an empty spot where he was, I went by. There he was with a little band aid wrapped around his thumb. The way he loked at me and smiled, I realized, that although he didn’t want to get bit but, since he did, he took full advantage of it by voodoo scaming some sucker tourist, your’s truly, out of his dough.
Since then, I have learned a lot about the cobra charming. Ont of my best friend for thirty years is Essouini Bouchaib, Morocco’s oldest snake charmer. With each trip tp Morocco, I make sure to spend some time with Bouchaib. I even took him, as a warm up act, on a ten day three band, three city concert tour that I took through Morocco. His two cobras that he took with us, whom I affectionally nicknamed “look Out’ and “get Back” traveled in a little box under the front seat of our bus. A good wake up question for the band members was “has anyone seen the top to the cobra box?”.That’s another story for another time. Cobra’s don’t strike as fast as rattlesnakes, who hit you at 80 MPh. In hot weather cobras tend to move much slower. They tend to be able to raise up quickly, that’s where their muscles are, and then let gravity take them toward you. In colder weather they spring forward much more quickly. They also can only rotate their heads about 180 to 200 degrees. To get around any further, they have to shift their bodies. There’s a trick to standing just out of reach and making them look at you. Then, as you move further around behind them, they bring their heads around front to get to the other side and that’s when I jump in to touch the backs of their heads. Really ticks ‘em off. I asked my friend, bouchaib, if he had ever been bit. He said, while removing the fangs from one of his cobras (a terrifying thought, to me, in itself) one fang scrapped his thumb. He was in the hospital for four day’s fightingfor his life.
At night, the square takes on a different face. The acts and acrobats are moved aside to a smaller space and food stands wrapp around the square. You can buy any kind of food at these stands from lobster to veal. Twenty kinds of olives are available for pennies a plate. Every kind of salads, tajines, cous cous dished and plenty of shish kabob. The government inspects the food stands dilligently so they are clean and safe, so long as you stick to drinking bottled water and using the watermen for souvineer photo’s. Marrakech has always been called “the city of earthly delights” and all of the Moroccan’s who have anything to sell want to go there. It’s like the county fair for them. Today Marrakech is called the Paris of the south because of it’s beauty and worldly splendor. Don’t take my word for it. Make a res. Alf Taylor
