Magical Marrakech

In a Mellah Spice Market
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In March 1987, my parents took me to ‘Morocco’ at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center. As a nine year old, I remember being wowed by Disney’s Petri-dish version of Morocco - dining while seated upon plump cushions, tasting the unusually-spiced foods, and meeting waiters who were able to write my name in a foreign, elegant swirly alphabet. Following my solo expedition to Marrakech last May, I decided to prod my mom to accompany me on a return whirlwind adventure. (Ever since seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s Marrakech-filmed flick, The Man Who Knew Too Much, she had dreams of someday visiting this North African escape.) In a scene reminiscent of my last trip, with hours to go until flight time, we bought tickets from Royal Air Maroc’s ticket desk at the Frankfurt Flughafen and set off on our journey.

Charming a Snake in the Ourika Valley
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After a lengthy layover at Casablanca’s airport (which featured a sub-Saharan cast of characters in transit, dressed in colorful African dress), we arrived in Marrakech during the late-evening hours. Marrakech’s medina (the walled city area) is relatively easy to navigate and from there we were able to locate our riad (the Moroccan equivalent of a townhouse, featuring rooms all opening onto a roofless-courtyard area) quite easily. At night, one can look into the star-lit sky; during the day birds chirp overhead… Most riads today are owned by wealthy European expatriates. From here, our adventures began…

En Sh'allah (Arabic: "God Willing") I'll be returning to Morocco again soon...

Intricate Silver Teapots
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The next three and a half days, I tried to show my mother the sites of Morocco that Epcot Center didn’t have - markets plentiful with artisans crafting copper sinks, hand-painted tables, leather goods, vibrant glass lanterns, kaftans (traditional Moroccan outfit) and camel-bone accented items. Also everywhere were vendors marketing silver teapots, rose water accessories, colorful tea glasses, tassels for clothing or for the home, mouth-watering pastries and African drums. There were snake charmers, drummers, storytellers, monkeys on leashes, men extracting teeth in public, henna artists, orange juice wagons and stalls and stalls of food with piles of hunger-inducing Mediterranean offerings. (There were also food stalls not often frequented by the tourists that featured a delicacy stew cooked with a decapitated goat’s head.) More important than the material offerings, we crossed paths with a diverse palette of people during our brief adventure in the ‘pink city.’

Babouches (Moroccan Slippers)
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Described below are some of the attached pictures, as well as those experiences that made our trip incredibly memorable.

-Powdered Spice Cones In Marrakech’s Mellah District (Jewish quarter). The herbalists, preferred over doctors by some locals, sell rainbow-colored spices, makeup favored by Berber women (henna, as well as natural dyes in terracotta receptacles that act as lipstick, for example) and healing concoctions. This particular vendor’s claim to fame came following a recent visit by a European princess. We later bought henna from a similar marketplace, and street artisans, inspired by beautiful Berber patterns, applied it onto our hands. This is a traditional wedding-ritual for Moroccan brides.

A Young Berber Girl in the Countryside Outside of Marrakech
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-Enjoying the Bahia Palace’s Tiled Courtyard, Featuring Intricate Islamic Architecture. Decorative orange trees, stained-glass windows and palm trees are also standard fare at this palace. Another architectural amenity of the complex, and the dream of many men, even today perhaps, is the former harem’s expansive housing areas. JJ (Kidding!!)

-A Berber Woman Hiking In The Ourika Valley - a lovely area one hour’s drive outside of Marrakech. Here, we tackled cliffs, briar patches, and waterbeds in pursuit of the first of seven waterfalls. This is an area where many Marrakechis escape city life. We were surprised to see lush, green landscape, and terracotta -colored soil. We were also interested to learn that Fatma’s home and burial place is here. (Fatma is a revered figure to devout Muslims. The ‘hand of Fatma’ symbol is prevalent throughout many North African countries and is featured on necklace pendants, door knockers, wall hangings, etc.) During our hike, we crossed paths with the 82 year-old caretaker of Fatma’s home. We were surprised by her billy-goat like agility as she criss-crossed the steep cliffs like an Olympian in her prime!! As graceful as she was, we had to administer ‘Berber first aid’ after the sweet woman tumbled down a rock wall. Ever the Girl Scout, my mother had Bandaids and cleaning pads, allowing our two guides to tend to the woman’s mangled calf. I don’t think she had ever seen a Bandaid! Sadly, the woman also had what appeared to be an advanced (and not surgically-treated) cleft palate above her mouth. The woman had a kind spirit about her, and while I could not speak Berber and she couldn’t speak English nor French, words were not needed. For support, she grabbed my hand and we descended through the valley. The sun was setting, and the lovely snow-capped mountains provided a picturesque backdrop to the village’s boxy earth colored buildings and green valley below.

-Standing Beside The Cascades d’Ourika (Ourika Waterfall). When our guide, Abdul, invited us into the valley’s villages, we didn’t know that we would be scaling rock cliffs, so we dressed as if we would be in town. (You’ll note that I’m wearing a long dress - to respect local dress customs - and strappy sandals.) Now that I’ve made it out with my teeth and skull intact I can laugh at the whole climbing expedition, though at the time I was somewhat terrified I’d slip or fall - either on the silky rocks of the streambeds or while literally being boosted up from my derriere - by our male guides. In this photograph, we’ve just climbed the lower third of the mountain. My mom’s pants are appropriately dusted in powder. A local Berber man brought us a water snake, which we draped around our necks. My mother’s face expresses exactly what she thought about the snake!! As we continued up the mountain, we discovered evidence that other climbers also had footwear problems. A red pair of traditional Moroccan slippers - known as babouches - was littered on the mountainside, their leather bottoms devoured by the jagged pathway.

-A Berber Family Living in Marrakech’s Outskirts. Our guides wished to show us a traditional Berber home, so they took a detour from our route to stop at a stranger’s home. The mother, taking a break from her housecleaning duties greeted us, as did her teenage son and darling daughter. The family lived in the ruins of a kasbah (old fortress) made completely of earth (in the adobe fashion). A herd of goats were ushered through the family’s yard. The family then invited us into their home for some tea. Surprisingly, while the home was made of sun-dried soil, the family had running water and electricity. We learned that the mother was widowed, that she walks a lengthy distance to the souk (marketplace) once a week for food, and that Berber women in the countryside typically visit a hammam (similar to a Turkish bath) once each week. Hospitality is amazing in this part of the world. Strangers invited us into their homes for mint tea, offered to loan me money when my ATM card was devoured by a machine, and offered to share their daily routines with us. When we told locals that we hoped to see them again someday, they uttered a common Moroccan Arabic phrase - en sh’allah (literally ‘God willing’ or ‘if fate allows‘). It was interesting to me that expatriates such as the Italian owner of our bed and breakfast, also inserted en sh’allah into conversations conducted in their native languages.

-While I cannot enclose pictures of all the people with whom we crossed paths, some of the noteworthy personalities included the German couple we met in lively Djem el Fnaa Square. When I asked them to take a photograph (in French) they said that they were from Germany. What a coincidence to learn that they also live in Heidelberg! We ended up taking a day trip with them out into the countryside. I asked Wolfgang and Claudia, if, since their riad was also located on the ‘50 yard line’ of the neighborhood mosque and the minaret (where the religious official calls people to prayer five times a day) were they awoken each morning, as my mother and I were? (Our windowless guest room was literally just feet from the minaret’s megaphone, making us feel at 5 AM each day, that the religious official was beside our beds!) We then asked Wolfgang and Claudia if they thought the chant was a recording or live singing and what the man was saying. Whatever your thoughts about President Bush, Wolfgang’s sarcastic comment, delivered in strong German was funny: ‘Allah is great, Allah is great, Down with Bush!.’

We also met some really interesting North Americans - first, a group of American educators doing nonprofit/ministry work in Moroccan special needs institutions. In addition, we crossed paths with an independent columnist and author of a bestselling book motivating readers how to find their career passions. I think it might be fun to do a few weeks of nonprofit work with the former’s group, and at the same time, expect that the journalist’s book might give me additional drive to someday start my nonprofit.

I’ll also never forget the darling children that lived near our riad. One of their mothers, a woman of short stature named Zorra, invited us in for tea. She and my mother talked about everyday life, while I played with her toddler, Zacchariah, and other local schoolboys in the street. One of the most touching stories, however, came while we were on the airplane headed back to Frankfurt. Seated next to me was a Moroccan woman, about my age, wearing the traditional head scarf that conceals a woman‘s hair. Immediately, I noticed the intricate henna designs on her hands. She was one of the first Moroccans I met who could not speak but a few French words, so we had no way of communicating. Nevertheless, we could piece together that she had just been married, thus her henna. My mother, the woman and I smiled when we all placed our ’henna hands’ next to each other. Several minutes later, after ‘conversation’ had ceased, the young woman, whom we later learned was named Magda, reached into the jewelry box on her lap. She pulled out a strand of pearls, placed them in my palm and clasped my hand shut. I was shocked, and in Arabic, tried to tell her no, no (la la)… She insisted. Later, with the help of my Arabic dictionary, cavewoman gestures and a flight attendant’s translation assistance, we were able to piece together Magda’s story. She had just bid farewell to her family, was presumably leaving Morocco for the first time, and was moving to Germany to be with her Moroccan husband. Fortunately, I was also able to gracefully give Magda back her lovely pearls (probably some of the only jewelry with which she was moving to Germany). Fearing that I would offend her, I had the flight attendant tell her that to be her friend would be an honor, and that while I was touched, I couldn’t accept the pearls. Our henna trio arrived at Frankfurt with Magda’s husband nowhere in sight. In a country with a foreign alphabet and vastly-different atmosphere, Magda slowly started tearing up. We were able to reach her husband, who was lost, on my cell phone and about half an hour later, he arrived. Magda embraced us and kept saying, ‘shokrun, shokrun’ (thank you). Having exchanged phone numbers, I think our paths will cross again.

In the spirit of Moroccan Arabic, I would also say that, en sh’allah, I’ll be returning to Morocco again soon. I’m hoping to do a Sahara Desert expedition (complete with camel and all) later this fall and would also love to go on the kasbah (fortress/castle) circuit. I look forward to again drinking gallons more of sugared mint tea with some of the warmest people I’ve ever met while on my travels!