Category: 2017

Meknes, Morocco – 21 May

We were double teamed today. 

A blue robed man encouraged us to come to his workshop. I was naturally reluctant as this was a well known tactic to have us eventually buy goods, but looking over his shoulder I saw the blacksmith forges, salt sellers, timber carvers and metal workers. My camera innocently led us down the busy street of smoke, grinding, welding, hammering and sawing. 

 

 

In the workshop, blue robe’s artist brother sat at a small bench hammering silver wire into carved metal. Other silver objects were in display cases. Silver! I knew I’d have to keep a close eye on the person who was travelling with me. Her arm still had space above the elbow for more metal.

I heard banging above me and looked up. Yellow light shone through a hole in the ceiling and the blue robed man adjusted the ladder and invited me to climb to see the artists at work. I nervously looked over my shoulder, but she was showing no interest in what was around her, so I quickly scaled the ladder. At the top of the hole a workman sat at a small bench.

A minute later I was down again but the transaction was already in its final stages. Three more bands were wrapped around her arm and the cash was gone.

I’d been double teamed!

The wedding was going strong and sleep was impossible so we walked the fifty metres to Place Lahdim, a large square not unlike Big Square in Marrakech. When we walked through in the afternoon the square was all but deserted but tonight it was buzzing with thousands of people shopping, eating, strolling and socialising. 

A blue robed man shoved a black snake in my face while another played a tune to a coiled cobra.

“Photo? Take a photo.”

A mother perched her small son on the back of an ostrich and he gripped its neck as the handler took him on a circuit of the market past another small boy on a tall white horse.

Two small suited monkeys, collared and chained, sat on a high box. The handler eyed my camera and gave me a pleading look. I pleaded poverty.

Young men stood on tables and shouted encouragement to shoppers to buy jeans, t shirts, shoes, dresses and underwear they held aloft. One yelled and another yelled louder.

We wandered down a packed side street where mostly women’s clothing was shouted at us.

The flow of shoppers drew us down the hill past dresses, shoes, underwear, and robes.

Eventually we reached the relative safety of the fresh fruit market.

It was time for eating and hawkers outside restaurants thrust their menus at us. 

“Targine? Cous cous? Pastella? Mint tea? 

On wheeled carts men roasted corn cobs on hot coals, vendors hid behind piles of round loaves, a man sat in amongst his bags of spices.

Salma, the pretty receptionist from our riad, somehow recognised us amongst the thousands of locals!

She was happy to see us and announced the wedding was over and we could return to sleep when we wished. 

“Do you like the market? It is like this every night!”

 

MOROCCAN WEDDING

We checked into the Riad Ritaj in Meknes around four and met Said and his sister, Salma, who run the hotel.

The reception seemed unusually busy. Many smartly dressed men and women sat at round tables at the sides of a central courtyard where a fountain bubbled onto a mosaic floor. 

Said said, “You will rest and have Moroccan mint tea and then we will take your luggage to your room and then you will come down and join our friends at the wedding. It is one of our staff. She is being married now upstairs.”

It wasn’t long before loud dance music began and we watched over the upstairs balcony as women and children danced.

I took some time to make my way downstairs and by the time I joined the party, Sharon was on the dance floor with a dozen women and children. She was enthusiastically dancing in the arms of another guest to the heavy Arabic beat.

Those who know me will attest to my dancing skill. However, high arm waving, gyrating hips and loud ululating is in direct contrast to my finger pointing, foot planted, bottom poking out style, so I sidled over to a dark corner,  and tried to look inconspicious on a settee.

Before long the bride came downstairs to be greeted by the same loud ululating of the women and the flashes of their mobile phones. In the disco lights, a machine spat out a rainbow of bubbles. A man in a bright shirt beckoned us to join the throng who were clapping and gyrating to the beat so in our best belly dancing style we joined in.

Soon the nervous groom joined the party and together they paraded the room to claps, more ululating and flashes.

Waiters brought large silver-lidded trays to the tables and we stood to leave.

A man came to intercept us and invited us to sit at his table and join the feast, but as we already were a little nervous about intruding on the celebration, we politely retreated to the upstairs balcony to watch the proceedings from above.

Music and dancing continued to the bubbles, coloured lights and fog. Women folded money into the top of the bride’s dress as she danced with her now less nervous husband and guests, mostly women, made circles around the couple then joined hands with them and jiggled.

It was a continuously noisy and exuberant celebration and if the walls and floor were not made of rammed earth, they would have shook.

What a privilege to witness such an event!