We arrived in Morocco from a murky Britain. On the way to the airport the A23 looked undersea. The lamps along the highway spraying muddy light at intervals - a murky fish tank.
In Morocco, Teresa and the girls put on sun glasses and posed in front of the Arabic airport sign: Marrakesh.
And from there we went to the hotel and went out into town and visited the Gardens that were maintained by an Yves St Laurent foundation. It was full of French people, and quite plashing and pretty- painted in Berber blue, or electric blue and with fountains and palms and cacti. It was a riff on the Moroccan rather than Moroccan.
From there we went to the Tank of Health. It was on the periphery of a vast set of gardens. The Tank of Health was full of aggressive, competing carp. A man dangled a piece of bread on a string and one of the large fish leaped out and hit the morsel into the water with its tail.
Moroccans travel around a lot on mopeds. Families coming to picnic in the dusty gardens, to picnic in relative privacy, hidden partly by the tree trunks.
Lunch was chicken tagine and chips swimming in chicken stock with olives. Almond ice-cream. At night we set out for the square. A pleasant, educated looking man warned:
Excuse me, but I wouldn't go if I were you. The political and adult demonstration is over, but now the young hooligans are marching in the streets. The shutters of the hotel went down and the man at the reception desk looked hassled and sweaty.
Can we order pizzas? my daughters asked. I'll see, he said. Then...They've trashed McDonalds and a few shops so I am afraid all the fast food restaurants are closed now.
What do you think of the demonstrations? I asked.
A great thing he said. Changes. We are really happy.
Tourists crowded into the hotel restaurant.
The next day riding in an old Mercedes taxi, Abdulateef, the driver pointed out where the shop windows had been trashed. He only spoke French and so for the whole day on our trip to the Atlas we had to speak bad French. It was tiring.
After two hours or so we reached the mountains and stopped at his uncle's restaurant.
And I had a glass of coffee which was very good.
Visit the woman's cooperative. Said Abdulateef and so we did. The Berber women had very bright eyes. Hundreds of products are made from the Agar oil they extract.
It took a long time. The mountains started to oppress me. They are folded and folded and folded. Complex beyond comprehension. The vegetation didn't make sense. It varied so much and the rocks were red, blue, green, grey, black in different shades. Like the famous sands of Mauritius.
A Berber musician showed us around the ruins. He suggested I listen to Mahmoud Guinea. What's your group I asked. We're preparing to give a show at a big Berber festival tomorrow. Our name is Shalala Tait Ben Haddoud. You can find us on youtube. I couldn't.
There was a beautiful view of the old town and Kasbah from the restaurant. I liked the tablecloth but not the food.
The journey back was long. In Abdulateef's uncle's cafe there was a group of Berbers in the corner watching the demonstrations on the TV out of the corner of their eyes and eating from a communal plate hungrily. Everyone, women carrying huge bunches of firewood, well dressed small children, the young and the old walked along the mountain roads.
John had explained something to me. He showed me a TED talk. Humans were made for long distance walking and running. We ran together and walked together in packs over a period of days. We ran down our prey.
Finally, that evening, we went to the main square and it was very lively. Berber musicians and sellers of dried fruit and orange juice, street food.
Young men started to circle my daughters like sharks. Walking towards us, brushing against them, walking on. For a change they kept close to me. We shopped a little and then I tried a bowl of snails. It was very good. I spoke to a woman and her sister about the disturbances as we ate. Drink the soup, she said. That's the point. It's got ginger and spices. And it was very nice.
We were hassled into eating at a street stall. The food wasn't very good. Once we were out of the square my daughters and wife strode ahead and I felt very petulant and put out and made my feelings known.
The next day I let them go shopping and I went myself to the famous baths. Teresa had arranged them for me and to get there I had to go into the Medina. I crossed planking to get to the baths. The planking cracked and a women remonstrated. What did she say? I asked the doorman at the baths. That there is a deep hole underneath and that you should be careful.
I undressed and was given a bathrobe and slippers and sent to a couch. The décor was interesting. The main theme was darkness. But you could make out the high ceiling and the multicoloured brass lamps. The bathrobe was to small so I crossed my legs and waited. There was a sound of giggles, laughs and moans behind the curtains.
Finally a woman came out for me and called me into a little cell. A Turkish bath. Claustrophobic. She threw buckets of cold water at me wetting my underpants. Oh well. Wait she said. Came back and covered me in soap. Came back and scrubbed me like billy oh. Then threw buckets of water at me again. Thank you. I was lead out to the couch again. Sweet herb tea. Feet massaged with oil. Ice painted on my face by some beautiful girl about the age of my daughters. Thank you. Finished? No.
I was taken upstairs to a massage room and a woman asked me to lie face down and massaged me bit by bit until I was completely relaxed. I felt sorry for her. I felt uncomfortable about the situation. But I was told that Moroccans had baths like these regularly and I thought: Well I like massaging people and Chiropractors do this too and gradually I allowed myself to enjoy the experience. The masseur had a cold and sneezed occasionally.
The next day was palace day. The grand Vizier's, the Chamberlain's. And houses and tombs.
After the palaces we had a coffee in a traditional Riad hotel and went shopping again and had a tagine meal again and then went home.
What struck me about my visit to the palaces and homes was the visceral delight of abstraction and how this developed. The twin of the Mosque in Marrakesh is the Mosque in Seville. Morocco is the root and origin, not Southern Spain.
The Berbers were interesting too. The continuum between west Africa and the Tuareg, the Berber and the Arabs. The Atlas mountains. How unfamiliar they are in comparison to the Alps. The French now touring them endlessly. The Germans and the Spanish too.
And apparently Elias Canetti wrote about Morocco. I wonder what he said.
In Morocco, Teresa and the girls put on sun glasses and posed in front of the Arabic airport sign: Marrakesh.
And from there we went to the hotel and went out into town and visited the Gardens that were maintained by an Yves St Laurent foundation. It was full of French people, and quite plashing and pretty- painted in Berber blue, or electric blue and with fountains and palms and cacti. It was a riff on the Moroccan rather than Moroccan.
From there we went to the Tank of Health. It was on the periphery of a vast set of gardens. The Tank of Health was full of aggressive, competing carp. A man dangled a piece of bread on a string and one of the large fish leaped out and hit the morsel into the water with its tail.
Moroccans travel around a lot on mopeds. Families coming to picnic in the dusty gardens, to picnic in relative privacy, hidden partly by the tree trunks.
Lunch was chicken tagine and chips swimming in chicken stock with olives. Almond ice-cream. At night we set out for the square. A pleasant, educated looking man warned:
Excuse me, but I wouldn't go if I were you. The political and adult demonstration is over, but now the young hooligans are marching in the streets. The shutters of the hotel went down and the man at the reception desk looked hassled and sweaty.
Can we order pizzas? my daughters asked. I'll see, he said. Then...They've trashed McDonalds and a few shops so I am afraid all the fast food restaurants are closed now.
What do you think of the demonstrations? I asked.
A great thing he said. Changes. We are really happy.
Tourists crowded into the hotel restaurant.
The next day riding in an old Mercedes taxi, Abdulateef, the driver pointed out where the shop windows had been trashed. He only spoke French and so for the whole day on our trip to the Atlas we had to speak bad French. It was tiring.
After two hours or so we reached the mountains and stopped at his uncle's restaurant.
And I had a glass of coffee which was very good.
Visit the woman's cooperative. Said Abdulateef and so we did. The Berber women had very bright eyes. Hundreds of products are made from the Agar oil they extract.
It took a long time. The mountains started to oppress me. They are folded and folded and folded. Complex beyond comprehension. The vegetation didn't make sense. It varied so much and the rocks were red, blue, green, grey, black in different shades. Like the famous sands of Mauritius.
A Berber musician showed us around the ruins. He suggested I listen to Mahmoud Guinea. What's your group I asked. We're preparing to give a show at a big Berber festival tomorrow. Our name is Shalala Tait Ben Haddoud. You can find us on youtube. I couldn't.
There was a beautiful view of the old town and Kasbah from the restaurant. I liked the tablecloth but not the food.
The journey back was long. In Abdulateef's uncle's cafe there was a group of Berbers in the corner watching the demonstrations on the TV out of the corner of their eyes and eating from a communal plate hungrily. Everyone, women carrying huge bunches of firewood, well dressed small children, the young and the old walked along the mountain roads.
John had explained something to me. He showed me a TED talk. Humans were made for long distance walking and running. We ran together and walked together in packs over a period of days. We ran down our prey.
Finally, that evening, we went to the main square and it was very lively. Berber musicians and sellers of dried fruit and orange juice, street food.
Young men started to circle my daughters like sharks. Walking towards us, brushing against them, walking on. For a change they kept close to me. We shopped a little and then I tried a bowl of snails. It was very good. I spoke to a woman and her sister about the disturbances as we ate. Drink the soup, she said. That's the point. It's got ginger and spices. And it was very nice.
We were hassled into eating at a street stall. The food wasn't very good. Once we were out of the square my daughters and wife strode ahead and I felt very petulant and put out and made my feelings known.
The next day I let them go shopping and I went myself to the famous baths. Teresa had arranged them for me and to get there I had to go into the Medina. I crossed planking to get to the baths. The planking cracked and a women remonstrated. What did she say? I asked the doorman at the baths. That there is a deep hole underneath and that you should be careful.
I undressed and was given a bathrobe and slippers and sent to a couch. The décor was interesting. The main theme was darkness. But you could make out the high ceiling and the multicoloured brass lamps. The bathrobe was to small so I crossed my legs and waited. There was a sound of giggles, laughs and moans behind the curtains.
Finally a woman came out for me and called me into a little cell. A Turkish bath. Claustrophobic. She threw buckets of cold water at me wetting my underpants. Oh well. Wait she said. Came back and covered me in soap. Came back and scrubbed me like billy oh. Then threw buckets of water at me again. Thank you. I was lead out to the couch again. Sweet herb tea. Feet massaged with oil. Ice painted on my face by some beautiful girl about the age of my daughters. Thank you. Finished? No.
I was taken upstairs to a massage room and a woman asked me to lie face down and massaged me bit by bit until I was completely relaxed. I felt sorry for her. I felt uncomfortable about the situation. But I was told that Moroccans had baths like these regularly and I thought: Well I like massaging people and Chiropractors do this too and gradually I allowed myself to enjoy the experience. The masseur had a cold and sneezed occasionally.
The next day was palace day. The grand Vizier's, the Chamberlain's. And houses and tombs.
After the palaces we had a coffee in a traditional Riad hotel and went shopping again and had a tagine meal again and then went home.
What struck me about my visit to the palaces and homes was the visceral delight of abstraction and how this developed. The twin of the Mosque in Marrakesh is the Mosque in Seville. Morocco is the root and origin, not Southern Spain.
The Berbers were interesting too. The continuum between west Africa and the Tuareg, the Berber and the Arabs. The Atlas mountains. How unfamiliar they are in comparison to the Alps. The French now touring them endlessly. The Germans and the Spanish too.
And apparently Elias Canetti wrote about Morocco. I wonder what he said.
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