Morocco in the rear-view mirror

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Casablanca, Morocco
Sunday, May 31, 2015



May 30. Avril and I are leaving Morocco.  And together with digital memory cards filled with hundreds of images to be viewed, sorted and shared we carry within us the unsorted memories of a month, some more in focus and centered than others.  Bear with us as we try to download some to you. And in case your personal bandwidth makes you wish to be selective about what you download, here is an actual index to my excessive verbosity: 
     1) Cats and other creatures
     2) Jews and Jewish wannabes 
     3) Food and its implications
     4) Art, architecture and beauty 
     5) Personal reactions
 
1) Cats.  
Lots of cats.  And kittens. "Oh, so cute!" It seems like every street had its own community of felines curled up on stone steps and crouched beside the houses.  Who feeds them all?  For some, scrawny with ragged fur, obviously nobody cares for them - but in a land where garbage in the streets is all too common a desperate cat can eke out a living.  But others seemed reasonably healthy - and we'd notice containers of water or small cardboard boxes in doorways or beside parked motorcycles. There they were - prowling the ruins in Marrakesh, curled in the narrow passageways of Fez, piled in sleeping bundles on the painted steps of Chefchaouen,  greeting us on our return to the hotel in Meknes.  Avril, of course, was delighted. Me, I'm a dog person.  And so I'd bide my time, checking my watch or scrutinizing the fading doorways, while Avril turned her camera lens on yet another group of three demiurges in the service of the feline goddess, Cuteness.

 Avril has the soul of an artist.  But she also has her practical side which she felt called upon to employ:
 "We haven't seen any mice in all our time in Morocco," she argued in their defense.
 "Yeah, and we haven't seen any elephants either," I replied.
 Not surprisingly, my acute powers of observation went unappreciated.
 Coming from an urban setting, I had not associated cats with the cycles of nature.  But the country hillsides had young kids following their goat mothers and storks' nests crowded with hatchlings learning to flap their wings. May is obviously the kitten-popping season and those cutesy-wutesy widdle bundles of orange and white fluff were getting to me. I confess! - I picked some up and cuddled them.  Arghh! Get me out of here!

By the way, kittens were not the only animals to catch our eye. Those stork nests, perched upon the ruins of the El Badi palace in Marrakech, were a delightful welcome home to our riad (small hotel within an old multi-story house) where we would sit on our roof terrace, watching them fly in and out, but mostly enjoying their sounds - made not by calling but by clacking their long beaks. Those stork nests, whole neighbourhoods of them, would appear on the crumbling walls and arched gateways of the old cities, on the temples and columns of the Roman ruins of Volubilis and Chellah, and even on the tops of minarets and cell towers in rural settings.  Stop and listen to the clacking call. Slow, then faster.  Andante, allegro. And over the course of a month in spring, see how the young have grown in their nests.

 And turtles. No, we never saw turtles in the wild, but there were always some for sale in the souks. And each riad we stayed in had two or three resident turtles, some quite large, living freely in the main floor courtyard where we had our mint tea and checked our wifi. Avril loved them - until the day one crawled to her sandaled feet and took a bite.


 2) Jews.  
 Not as cute as cats.  And not as ubiquitous.  But the history of that lost segment of Moroccan history was nearly everywhere if you looked for it.  Which we did.  And often when we didn't. Jews have been here for about two thousand years, the first probably arriving with the Roman expansion into the Mediterranean that brought Jews to the shores of today's France and Spain.  But the numbers grew after the millennium as Jews and Muslims moved here, away from the advancing Catholics in Iberia. Many, unwelcome in Muslim cities, moved to rural areas and so began the strange weaving of Jewish and Berber peoples with significant numbers of Berbers accepting Judaism as their religion. But the numbers of Jews really swelled following the expulsions from Spain and Portugal and, together with the wave of Andalusian Muslim refugees they transformed the country.  The Muslims were the farmers and the construction workers - the Jews were the silversmiths and the leather workers. Today, even with most Jews gone, you can spot their old neighborhoods by seeing where the Arabs have their artisanal workshops. Where/when did the Jews go?  Today we are merely told "the Jews left" around 1956 - a non-narrative that leaves out the pressures and reasons that over 80% would emigrate on short notice. But they headed to Israel, to France, to Montreal. There are about 6000 Jews in Morocco today - most in Casablanca.  And, around the country, an abandoned infrastructure of locked synagogues, weed-filled cemeteries and pilgrimage shrines to Jewish holy men.

 But we were hardly the only visitors to Jewish Morocco.  On the day we visited the well-maintained synagogue in the Mellah (the walled-in Jewish sector of the old cities) of Marrakech we were suddenly swarmed by the arrival of a tour group of Israelis. Lots of Israelis visit Morocco (and Morocco keeps its relationship with Israel as friendly as Arab realities will permit), visiting the sites their parents and grandparents fled and making donations to synagogue maintenance. Very few of the Marrakech Jewish community of 150 families actually live in the Mellah today - they are in the more comfortable New Town, as is the synagogue they actually use - but this is the one that draws the tourists. And the cash. A sign in the courtyard says "founded in 1492".  Sounds good.  Maybe even true.     

 The graves in the Jewish cemetery go back to the early 1500's.  So we're told - the majority are so weathered there is nothing legible.  And massive weeds have overtaken the majority of this huge walled field.  But some areas are kept sufficiently clear for tourists to walk through - and the sector where ongoing burials happen is also cleared. 500 years of ongoing life and death around us. We learn that there will be a Lag B'Omer celebration at the cemetery that night. Lag B'Omer is a minor Jewish holiday, usually celebrated these days by bonfires and picnics.  The idea of bonfires and picnics in the cemetery strikes us as strange. But reality was stranger.We are told it will start at 9 PM, so that is when we arrive. Some police are outside the cemetery walls, but they wave us through. Inside the gate someone directs us (in French) to the right where we find a large sterile gathering hall where cheesy Israeli pop music is playing from the sound system.  Maybe a dozen people, men and women in their 50's and 60's, are sitting around not interacting much. Nobody greets us, so we look for chairs facing the stage. Along one side two people appear to be grilling something. We wait. And wait. Suddenly we hear men's voices from a side room - I guess they've started ma'ariv, the evening prayer. I go join the men and Avril tries to strike up a conversation in French with the remaining women. Nobody greets me as I take my place among the worshippers, there are no prayer books being used, the format is Sephardi so I recognize none of the melodies but some of the text, one guy does most of the chanting while several others are checking their cell phones, they seem to do a kaddish an inordinate number of times and suddenly it's over and everyone is drifting back to the Israeli pop music.  With covetous glances at the folks grilling the meat. I rejoin Avril and we wait. 10:15 PM. And we wait.  Still nothing Lag B'Omer happening here.  Finally one man, obviously a community big shot, signals for the pop music to end and he takes the mike.  With great enthusiasm and a mic held too close to his yelling mouth he launches in. In Arabic!  Wait a minute - this is a religious event of French-speaking Jews and he's welcoming us in Arabic?? Well, the French or Hebrew should come next. But what comes next is a cardboard box from which he withdraws a long fancy candle.  Which he proceeds to auction off.  OK, now that's a strange way to begin Lag B'Omer.  I wonder what's next.  What's next is another candle, waved about like a carnival barker waving a magic vegetable dicer, and auctioned with similar gusto. And another. And then another.  Avril and I are staring at that box, trying to estimate just how many candles it can hold.  Those around us are staring at the grilled meat, trying to estimate just how long they can hold out.  And still the Arabic fund-raiser candle extravaganza ploughs on.  We begin to pick up that certain candles are being auctioned off in memory of certain departed holy men and that buying this candle on behalf of someone you love will ensure the bounty of their blessing.  If you come up with the bounty of the requested amount which, though our Arabic is a little weak, we could discern was no insignificant amount.  Almost 11 PM, the box seems to hold more candles than a circus VW can hold clowns, and folks start drifting toward the grilled meat, now ready.  Somehow this is not our idea of a picnic and we drift toward the door. Nobody welcomed us on arrival, nobody greets us on departure.  Behind us, as an excited voice is haranguing the dwindling few to buy another holy candle, we slip out the cemetery gates, say goodnight to the friendly police, and head off down the dark, twisty streets of the Mellah toward our riad.

 As I said, there are many shrines to saintly rabbis and community pillars scattered about the hills and towns of Morocco. There are many pilgrimage sites to Muslim holy men (and I suspect they are all men) here - something that Orthodox Islam doesn't condone but which is too integrated into the folk beliefs to counter - and the same has rubbed off on the Jews. Because I had expressed an interest in visiting these, the owner of our guiding company booked a cab and we went to visit one nearby. "Nearby" means 20 km, much of it on winding dusty road, from the particular remote valley in the mid-Atlas mountains where we happened to be. Jews out here? Oh, yes, I'm assured, and learn some more of the curious history and relationship with the Berbers.  So we get to this dusty hillside and I'm facing a small room containing the 18th century grave of Rabbi Haim Ben Diouane and the graves of three of his devoted students.  A humble and reverential structure. I leave a stone in respect. (Should I have bought a Ben Diouane candle the other night?) But behind me? Behind me is this great modern reception hall, gleaming white with rows of shiny chairs and tables and a well-speakered sound system. Sure looks better than the social hall at the Marrakech cemetery! This place looks like it does weddings and bar mitzvahs. Close. It does hilouls - pilgrimage parties to the graves of Jewish holy men.  And it was built with the money of Moroccan Israelis whose idea of travel this is and who come for his hiloul twice a year. I thank the old Berber guy at the gate who informs me (through the guide) that a) his family has been custodian of these graves for four generations and that b) he expects a lot more than a stone in respect.

 And finally, there were Jews where we didn't want them at all.  Some of them turned up in the streets, like the guy in the Mellah of Fez who spotted us outside a restored but locked synagogue and, earnestly assuring us he was Jewish himself ("Shabbat Shalom"), offered to lead us to an open synagogue - wending us through narrow streets to the locked gates of the cemetery and then demanding money for his services.  Or the shopkeeper in Meknes who assured us he was Jewish himself ("Shabbat Shalom") and then dragged out every piece of forged Judaica ("Jewish. Very old.") trying to make a sale.  There was the tea merchant in Marrakech who assured us he was Jewish himself ("Shabbat Shalom"), the street guide in...well, you get the point. As well as the Berber silversmiths in Zagora who assured us their family had learned silversmithing from the Jews before "they just left". As proof of their judeophilia they had learned to say (what else?) "Shabbat Shalom".

 
3) Food.  
 What's a travel retrospective without food?  

 Do you like Moroccan olives? - those dry, shriveled, black things that are mostly pit?  Then you want to experience REAL Moroccan olives - not only the wrinkled black ones (but moist and tasty) but also the large green ones, the marinated smaller green ones, the plump, juicy purple ones and whatever other pitted surprises that will be laid before you as you take your restaurant table. Just grab the omnipresent toothpick sticking out and feast away.

 Fruit?  The Zagora watermelons might be the sweetest we've tasted, and we had a few, but the Crenshaw melons (green inside, orange wrinkled outside) are the sweetest, juiciest melon imaginable, and we had many!  Morocco grows its own bananas (not so great) and oranges in massive quantities. A typical Moroccan dessert is peeled, sliced oranges served with cinnamon sprinkled generously. Try it at home. (I would sneak cinnamon orange segments to the friendly turtle at our last riad.) What you can't try is the endless cheap orange juice being fresh pressed for you in every restaurant, at every market, in every town plaza, at every unexpected refreshment stop on the trekking trails in the mountains.  These refreshment stops are often just a basic ramshackle booth with maybe a bench or rock to sit at, a nearby donkey who carried in the oranges and the squeezer and a bunch of coca-colas, and a low smoking fire with a kettle on it brewing the inevitable "Moroccan whisky" - mint tea with too much sugar. One local told me, "the Scots drink their whisky cold, in a cold climate, to warm up. We drink our whisky hot, in a hot climate, to cool down."

 The core of Moroccan cooking is the tajine.  Meat or chicken slow cooked with vegetables in a conical clay pot. I laugh as I reread my first blog and see how I was looking forward to these. Frankly, I don't want to see another tajine again for years.  I had visions of apricots and exotic spices infusing the flavours - each one a little different than the ones before. But the main taste is over-steamed potatoes or squash on a cooked/steamed hunk of meat that, despite the hype of the restaurant owner or our hopes for the home-cooking style at our riad, seems strikingly similar to what we had last night. And the previous. And... Sometimes I'd order couscous (Avril, who is celiac, couldn't) so the chicken and bland veggies might also have interesting raisins and almonds in the preparation. Sometimes raisins or prunes turned up in the tajine, though the effect rarely matched my fantasy. We had seven-hour slow-roasted lamb occasionally and once even tried camel.  As you may have observed, this is not a country for vegetarians.

 Which got me thinking about the ecological interconnections of the meat economy.  This country's early history is tied to trade and the caravans. Even today in the old souks of Fez and Marrakech one can visit the fondouks - the caravanserai, where camel caravans once unloaded their wares on the ground level and merchants and traders slept and conducted business on the upper levels - now dilapidated workshops of leather or wood. But that leather includes camel skins - I bought a drum made from that - so of course the diet includes camel meat.  And all around the country we'd see herds of sheep and goats. Yes, there was goat cheese to be found.  But I think far more goats and lambs ended up in tajine pots. Leaving behind their leather. And a large industry of leather working. 

 
4) Art and architecture.  
 What traveller from The West can fail to be entranced by the beauty of Islamic architecture?  I don't think we saw anything here we hadn't previously seen in the Alhambra in Grenada, but then the Alhambra was a continuation of this same Moorish culture merging mathematics, calligraphy, carving and waterworks to create palaces on both sides of the Mediterranean.  Unfortunately, Morocco's history is of successive rulers cannibalizing or destroying the edifices of previous rulers in order to create their own, so much has been lost.  Can you imagine Stephen Harper's government dismantling the National Gallery or other institution built under the Liberals in order to ship it to Alberta for reassembly? (On second thought, when I think about Harper's dismantling of Canadian scientific research, of the CBC, of the social infrastructure that he inherited...)

 Our memory cards are just overloaded with the courtyards of medersas (Islamic schools) and their beautifully painted wooden ceilings, their carved stone archways, their vast tile work, and then more again with the public fountains, the mosques and shrines, the massive city gates.  And then, on a smaller scale, while walking the streets of the towns, "Oh, look at that door!" "Get a picture of that door!" "Look at the faded geometric painting on that one!" "Look at the deep carved patterning on that one!"  "Look at the beautiful hinges and door knocker on that one!" "Look at the cute little kittens sleeping by that one!" ("Oh no. Not again with the kittens!!")

 We've watched carvers and painters in their shops, turning out painstakingly beautiful contemporary work in classic styles. We've also watched them turn out mass tourist schlock. Hovering in silence we've observed engravers in tile. Tool workers in leather. Weavers working in wool (another aspect of the meat-leather social ecology mentioned above) and in "silk" made of cactus fibre. And, this being Morocco, we've endured the sales pitch that usually follows.

 Whole towns have their "look". Marrakech is built out of a pinkish stone.  And all buildings, even those built of concrete and then covered in a plaster, are in the orangey-sandy-pinky hues.  It gives the whole city an integrated, organic, somewhat dusty feel. (Or maybe the dusty comes from the fact that it hadn't rained in weeks when we were there and the blowing winds and minimal cleanliness simply meant that it WAS dusty). But in the north, among the Rif mountains, Chefchaouen has hit upon the tradition of painting its walls only in shades of blue. (One narrative credits the practice to the Jewish arrivals from Spain about 500 years ago, but that is now unverifiable. Maybe not Jewish. Definitely blueish.) This, plus the fact that its merchants are nowhere near as pushy as those in pink-walled Marrakesh, leads to a very peaceful feel throughout the town - at least as Avril and I experienced it.


 5) Personal reactions.
 So, with our visit behind us, how do/did we feel about our time in Morocco?

For one thing, and in reply to those who said to us "Morocco? Do you think it's safe?" we always felt safe. Sure, you'd move your wallet to your front pocket or sling your handbag across your chest when walking in crowded places - I do that on Granville Island - but we never felt unsafe. Not in daylight with dozens of strangers jostling against us and not at nighttime in dark alleys with a few men hanging out in doorways. True, we wouldn't recommend Morocco to single female travellers - we've read too many bad accounts - but we had not one scary experience. (That is, unless you count our driver speeding up to pass a truck on narrow road, going uphill, into a blind curve.)  And though many Moroccans were out to exploit us, many were diligent in their goal to protect us.  Our trekking and touring guides were solicitous about our health and safety. The hotel employee who accompanied us on a five-hour round trip hike to a waterfall insisted on wearing our daypack and offering his hand each time we stone-stepped across the moving stream.  Then he invited us home to have dinner with his family.Being Jewish was never a problem.  Those Muslims we got to talk to were consistent about their vision of inter-communal harmony. Or else they tried to pass themselves off as Jews. And those we didn't talk to? We can't know what they think, but we know what impact they had on us - none.

Secondly, I was delighted by the growth in my language skills. Yeah, a few words in Berber here and there, and some revival of the Arabic I tried to learn in Jerusalem in 1970. But my big treat was watching my French get better and better. At first I relied on Avril and her excellent French for everything. But over the weeks I began more and more to speak for myself. Finally, in our last week, we arrived in the north, the area long dominated by Spanish influence, first as colonialists and more recently as tourists. Now Avril went silent and I, with a good Spanish basis, was our spokesperson and question asker. Malheureusement, yo avait confundido mis idiomas y maintenant je parle una mescla de français y español et no puedo hablar pas avec nadie! 

Third, it has been a wonderful time for Avril and me together. While I tease her about her ability to get totally lost walking out of a building, in fact we have been very effective partners jointly negotiating our way in new territories. Our energy levels have been similar as we hit similar fatigue points in hiking, museum touring, tea drinking.  Though not, unfortunately, in shopping, where perhaps the X and Y chromosomes are incompatible.  We got tired of tajines at about the same time, and both stopped photographing still more doorways around the same point. Then we both started again. We've sat over dinners and swapped memories of past travels, allowed ourselves to fantasize future travels, and we've built joint memories of this travel that we can retell to each other. Or to others.
Maybe to you.

 Insh'allah.

 Avi & Avril
  

Comments

The telling is so papable, mysterious and make fantastic pictures. Thank you. And the best for me is that the two of you are so happy travelling and experinces together.
Please put me on the list for that evening of a " slide-show"
Hugs, mary From Mary, on Jun 2, 2015 at 01:40AM
Thank you for this wonderful account of your Moroccan adventure. Laura and I were in tears, laughing, and excited as we travelled with you through this wonderful blog. From Han and Laura (at Syzygy on Hornby), on Oct 28, 2015 at 10:32PM
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