Our first stop, about an hour and a half from campus, was Volubilis, or Walili وليلي in Arabic. It dates back as early as 8,000BC and was capital of Berber Mauritania until it was absorbed by the Romans in 40AD. Even during the Roman period, which lasted less than 300 years, the majority of the population was not composed of Latin-speaking Romans. Yet when the French came in the 19th century, they stripped the site of whatever Berber elements remained in an effort to revive Roman monumentalism. Rome abandoned this peripheral colony voluntarily as the empire declined. It turned out to not be too hot, and we spent several hours walking around the archaeological site. Exquisite mosaics remain, including one almost fully intact of sea creatures in the city baths, and it is possible to identify fairly easily the layout of the patrician homes. The plebeians lived at the bottom of a hill because of water allocation, and their neighborhoods have not been fully excavated yet. The city never exceeded a population of perhaps 20,000 but was still, with Tangier, the largest in the region. While there is a large triumphal arch in the center of the city, built in expectation of an imperial visit that never occurred, much of the decoration on the patricians' houses is much cruder than Roman craftsmanship, and was clearly done by local artisans trying unsuccessfully to imitate, for example, Corinthian capitals. Many of the mosaics, in fact, mix images ordered in kits from Rome with borders and backgrounds featuring distinctive local designs still common today in carpets and pottery in this region of Morocco. The location itself was very picturesque -- the marble columns rose up in a valley of desert shrubs, but on all sides were the rolling Atlas, peppered with the occasional cluster of rectangular whitewashed houses.
At Volubilis
After leaving Volubilis, we drove to one of these very towns for lunch. Moulay Idriss Zerhoun is home to an important Islamic shrine that has received considerable patronage from the Moroccan government. I had gone to a lecture last week about Moulay Idriss I, a Moroccan saint who founded a dynasty in Morocco in the late 8th century, but only Muslims are allowed into the shrine itself. (There are two adult American women in the class who have converted to Islam who got to go inside.) While the town was well kept, it was nothing like Ifrane. Almost all the women were covered, many even with scarves covering their noses and mouths; most of the women, and many men, were wearing traditional djellabas. The restaurant where we ate was covered in beautiful blue tiles, with a little sink in one corner for washing hands, and a tiny wooden door that led to a squat toilet. The menu consisted of tajines (which come in cone-shaped ceramic pots) and kebabs, beef or chicken. The food was thousands of times better than our cafeteria food though. After eating, while the two Muslim women went to the shrine, the rest of us wove our way through a steep labyrinth of narrow alleys to the top of a hill, competing for space with donkeys and their stick-wielding owners, little boys selling candy, and toothless beggars with weathered faces. The young boy who led us, perhaps the son of the proprietor at the restaurant where we had eaten, was eager to practice his few words of English and show us the panoramic view. From the top, it was clear that the city of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun was built on two adjacent hills, with the whitewash ending abruptly at their foot. We could see out clear across the valley, bordered by the Atlas, and looked down upon the deep green tile roofs of the shrine.
Moulay Idriss Zerhoun
On our way back down, an elderly man at the door of another shrine allowed us to peek inside, but all we could see were prayer rugs. Next door was the elegantly tiled graveyard of the descendants of the saint to whom the shrine is dedicated. The proprietor convinced me to pay 10dh for some excellent sweet biscuits his wife had made, "guaranteed to bring luck all day even to non-Muslims!" When we got to the bottom of the hill, the group relaxed with some traditional mint tea while I helped my friend negotiate the purchase a pair of babouche slippers in part French, part Arabic at one of the stalls (most of which were selling the tall, garishly colored candles used at the big shrine) lining the main square. We didn't see a single other foreign tourist in Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, and it was obvious that it isn't a major destination from the respectful way we were treated by the shopkeepers. When the shoemaker asked me why I wasn't buying something and I responded that I was a student without money, instead of heckling me, he patted me on the back and said in Arabic, "It's ok, money isn't in the heart, only in the hand."
Our final stop of the day was at another shrine village, Sidi Ali Hamdush. This was much smaller and much poorer, because the Moroccan government has shunned it rather than showered it with money. It is the site of the tomb of the founder of the Hamadshah Sufi order, whose name it bears. The order specializes in treating mental illnesses through the exorcism of evil spirits (jinn), which supposedly possess the ill. We were given this warning before going to the site: "There are a number of important restrictions about the Hamadshah, including colors that provoke the various jinn. It is recommended that you not wear anything in black, red, yellow, or green. People who are possessed may bite themselves or others when provoked. There are bread stalls along the pathways for you to buy loafs of bread to stuff in the mouths of those biting others." To be fair, we did not see any biting. And while it is still a major pilgrimage site for many Moroccans, others believe this kind of exorcism is completely un-Islamic and have tried to shut down the shrine. Not a soul spoke English and even French was iffy -- Western tourism here was clearly pretty rare, and we got more suspicious stares than excited "Hellooo Hellooo"'s. We followed a dirt path. At the start, most of the stalls sold watermelons or vegetables, but as the path narrowed and steepened, as we descended, more and more were selling chickens, sheep, or other animals for sacrifice. One had pinned a live goat to a stone wall. Further down, many of the animals were dead already. There were fox skins, heads fully intact, porcupines, and lizards, accompanied by mysterious herbs. Other stalls sold swaths of fabric in the colors we had been warned not to wear. Women crouched alongside the path doing elaborate henna tattoos. Scratchy Arabic music wafted toward us from an old cassette player. Finally we reached the destination for mentally ill pilgrims -- the grotto and the spring. The medium who usually dwells in the cave appeared to be out when we arrived, but his attendants welcomed us. Some people were lighting candles and placing them in grotto crevices. A few chickens were strewn about the ground. Next to the cave was a little bathhouse where those seeking to be cured (mostly women) can bathe in the spring. Outside were piled thousands of pairs of brightly colored underwear. It is traditional for women to shed their underwear to symbolize the shedding of the jinn that possesses them. (The nearby stalls were laden with underwear so that they have something new to wear home.) Then they will consult the medium, who will tell them to come with a certain color garment or with eye of newt and toe of frog, or with a sheep to sacrifice. The medium induces a trance state to exorcise whatever jinn -- and only he knows which one -- is the root of the problem.
On the way home, in the early evening, we witnessed shepherds prodding their herds alongside the highway, fields of yellow sunflowers, and, frequently, men asleep along the side of the road.
girl you have such a cool life.
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