But you don't have a sugar hammer.

"Ali Baba! Ali Baba!"
Now, it's true that walking though the markets in Morocco is like entering the Den Of The Forty Thieves. But I didn't expect the local merchants to issue clear warnings.
"Ali Baba! Ali Baba!"
Funny though. They didn't seem to be calling that to everyone. Mostly to me. Why me? I was already suspicious of the dishonesty about me - did I need special warnings?
And slowly we realized. I was being called Ali Baba because of my beard and my age. For everyone we would meet it was the same tired joke - call the old guy Ali Baba, that well-known folk hero, but do it with warmth. Maybe he'll come into your shop.
"Ali Baba, where are you from?" "Ali Baba, have some tea!"  "Ali Baba, look at my carpets."
 
............
 
I had started an earlier blog about our time in Marrakech. Never quite finished it, but I realized it was mostly about the hustlers we had to deal with. There was more to our time in Marrakech than that - a visit to a beautiful botanical garden, a rooftop apartment next to a colony of nesting storks, a strange night celebrating the Jewish holiday of Lag B'Omer by watching members of the local Jewish community auction off memorial candles in Arabic and then stuff their faces - but it was the shopkeepers, the unwanted street guides and the slippery dishonesty of every "helpful" act that really dominated our memories.
 
Please note, this trip is not idle self-indulgence. Oh no, we have been engaged in serious research for the Lepages corporation in the physical sciences, while applying our findings to the social sciences of family theory and childhood therapy. This is what we have discovered: Marrakshi street hustlers have mastered the secret of how to attach themselves to you and bond so strongly you simply cannot detach. Turn down a side street? - they will follow you down. Duck into a store? - they will be there waiting when you emerge. Tell them you don't need a guide and they simply say "it's for free" - and stay by your side looking for the best moment to ask for coins. A fellow we thought we had shaken off in the central square popped up at our side as we entered the Jewish cemetery. Another fellow, who was walking in our general direction on his way home, helpfully pointed out the route to the synagogue before going into his house. I swear, we saw him go inside and close the door! So how, five minutes later as we neared the synagogue, did he emerge from a spice shop a block before we got to the door and invite us in to the shop "just for some tea"?
 
Those street "guides" are amazing. Since I have a good sense of direction I am fairly confident about getting us back from wherever we have gone. One day we headed to some historic tombs not too far from our hotel. On the way back we resolutely refused the offers of assistance of the local hustlers. True, we got into a conversation with a local shopkeeper who assured us that he was Jewish and just wanted us to see the local craft cooperative. Which somehow got us wandering about a big building filled with rugs, carved wooden boxes and metal lamps. "Ali Baba look at this. Ali Baba look at that!" Determined to shake off our helpful friend ("It's just to look. To look is free.") we shot out a side door and headed as far away as quickly as possible.  This, unfortunately, threw off all my internalized markers and memories of where we had been and we now had to reorient ourselves toward home. Luckily an honest young man took pity on us - he lived in the neighborhood and knew some shortcuts for us. Down this street. Across this field. Left. Left. Right. Through a skinny passage. On to a busy main road. Just go to the next corner, turn right and you'll be there. We thanked him, slipped him the obligatory "thank you" in local currency, walked to the corner and turned right as he vanished. And as he went out of sight, what came into sight? I dunno!! We were at some exit to the walled city, facing a military parade grounds, nowhere near where we wanted to be but now financially lighter than before. How did he do that? How did we let him?
 
It's not as if we hadn't been paying attention. We had already spotted the recurrent dance we have dubbed the Moroccan Three-Step:
1) While on our way down to street headed for our destination, the helpful dance partner will gratuitously point the way for us.
2) Partner will then advise us that said destination is closed at this hour.
3) But if we just walk this way he will lead us to something that is open and equally interesting.
 
Unless we wish to get swept off our feet, our appropriate counter steps are:
1) Recognize that our helpful partner is wrong. We actually are not heading for the place he is certain we are heading for.
2) Recognize that, if we are going to the place identified, it is probably NOT closed at this time. Helpful street guides and published tourist guides are rarely in agreement about hours.
3) If we do follow where he leads, we shall surely stumble and fall. Into an abyss of mint tea and an earnest salesman sincerely assuring us that the stuff in his shop is authentic handmade quality done by his first cousin in a nearby village and not to be confused with the seemingly identical schlock to be found in three dozen other shops in the market.
 
Then there is the refreshing new twist - the appeal to the ethical traveller. "Buy this for the Moroccan families! Give yourself a treat and help us to survive." This interesting social transformation from self-interested salesman to community-minded activist is simultaneously heart-warming and nauseating. It truly comes to the fore when, led by our do-gooder tendencies, we are drawn to "producer cooperatives". These are the places that are strategically placed where tourists tend to go, and carry only the carpets or leather goods or pottery of individual artists (usually, we're assured, family-based women or men working out of their homes in the villages) and turn over all our money directly to them as fair wage and not subject to sales markups. And then, curiously, the bargaining begins. "If that price is too high, then how much is Monsieur prepared to spend?" And here we are again, back in the souk, haggling over artificial prices, but with the hovering image of some malnourished child being denied a chance to go to school all because I don't want to fling my dollars at something I don't actually need or want.
 
One clever shopkeeper in Meknes had an interesting angle. His dusty shop is filled with antiquaria. Old copper trays. Heavy wooden locks with oversize keys. Brass inlaid hammers for smashing off hunks of solid sugar for your tea (you wouldn't believe the variety and artistry of these things). Plus a massive assortment of old Judaica - Hanukah lamps, engraved silver Torah pointers, mezuzah covers, etc. I guess much of this was sold off or lost as Moroccan Jews left for France, Israel or Montreal in the 50's and 60's. All he could tell us was "Hand done. Jewish. Very old. Unique" over and over. With no pressure at all, he let us wander the shop freely and explore its treasures, pulling out an old silver Hamsa or a fragment of the Book of Deuteronomy on a fine leather skin.  
   Then, as we felt ourselves becoming overwhelmed by the Little Shop of Treasures and were about to depart, the Tree of Knowledge morphed into some carnivorous plant seeking blood. "And which thing most pleased the Madame?" Suddenly Avril was called upon to comment admiringly on the necklaces or the silver teapots - and amazingly a host of necklaces and teapots were produced out of nowhere. Each at a reasonable price, of course, and one that Madame could surely afford. Or perhaps she could state her preferred price?  
   Inexorably, the hidden nature of The Little Shop of Horrors was revealed. Reaching for blood from the nearest available victims, the carnivorous plant turned to me. "And what did Monsieur find most interesting?" Of course, I had loved the Judaica, as he knew I would, but I was not about to be pressured into adding one more kiddush cup to my collection at home. So I went for the unlikely. "Those sugar hammers - I hadn't realized how different they could be."
   "Ah, there are more differences than you realize!" - and suddenly brass and silver sugar hammers begin to emerge from drawers and shelves.
   Avril and I are suddenly on the defensive. Her eye is caught by some silver earrings, but she recognizes both quality and her budget and knows she cannot buy these. And I dig in with my awareness of my current status in life - I have acquired many items of beauty and interest over the years, but I'm at the phase of life when my task is to downsize, to lighten my load in alignment with some future move to a smaller premises.
   "Thank you. They are beautiful. But I need nothing. I have everything I need in this world."
   "Ah," he replied, "but you don't have a sugar hammer!"
   Hard to argue with that.
.............
Resistance to sales pressure is admittedly easier for me as there truly is nothing I want to buy. Avril, on the other hand, is looking to acquire some items for herself and others, and this brings us into the shark infested waters to swim. But not me! I need nothing, want nothing, buy nothing!
 
So how is it my suitcase now has a wall hanging, a lamp fixture and several fossils?
 
But Ali Baba still has no sugar hammer!


.