After a lazy Friday morning, I went with Erin and Dave to Ain Vittel, a waterfall and picnic ground about a 15-minute taxi ride from campus. It seemed a popular place for Moroccans to come with their kids and spend a summer afternoon -- it was fairly crowded. There were several little boys with horses, and I negotiated with them a one-hour ride through the fields and up around the falls. Unfortunately, once we were already trotting off, the boys' older brother came and insisted they had told us the wrong price (in other words, the little boy had told us the real Moroccan price, while the older guy was giving us the tourist price.) They pegged me from the beginning as the one who sort of spoke Arabic, and so I was harassed constantly for the whole trip... yet, unfortunately, my language skills were not sufficient to explain to them what I actually wanted to say. It was a beautiful ride, though, and the leafy shade of the park was a welcome repose from the boiling heat of the afternoon. When we were finished, I was approached by a toothy honey salesman who was eager to practice French for some reason, and insisted that I not speak Arabic to him. After I insisted that I had no money to buy, he extracted an enormous tub of honey and let me stick my thumb in for a taste. It was cedar honey, he said, and probably some of the best I've ever tasted.
Later Friday night, I headed out with some friends to the marche to buy a movie to watch. Overnight, Ifrane has swelled to perhaps hundreds of times its normal size -- it is finally vacation time in Morocco, and everyone who can afford it is in Ifrane. There is a little green and white "train" that ferries families around town, there are flashing Christmas lights in the trees, and the crowd around the great stone lion has ballooned. We bought two pirated DVDs (that's all there is) from a little shop at the marche, and ended up in a long conversation with the grinning old proprietor comparing fusHa to darija to various other colloquial dialects. As it turned out, the movies, both American, were dubbed in French and I also think gave my computer a virus.
Twelve hours later, I was squished into the back seat of a grand taxi bound for Fez. Trying to entice sleep, I gave up and cracked an eyelid when John Lennon's "Imagine" came onto the radio... in Arabic. It's hard to believe that walking through the winding alleys of Fez's old medina is no longer a culture shock. Sometimes, I begin to forget how different this place is from home. Then a donkey trudging along beneath crates of coke bottles will suddenly round the corner or I'll hear the call to prayer echoing across the souk -- or, as in the old medina, where there is huge number of mosques within a tiny area, a pulsing blanket of voices chanting "Allahu Akbar" almost in unison.
We spent most of the day walking around the old medina shopping, since my friends had a lot of gifts to buy. Our Moroccan friend Sara (the one whose birthday party we threw) came with us. We thought we'd encounter less harassment when accompanied by a Moroccan, but in fact this was the first time that we were relentlessly pursued (for nearly an hour) by two would-be "faux guides". Sara offered to go into the shrine to Moulay Idriss II and take photos for us, since it is not permitted to non-Muslims -- seeing the pictures made me really regret that we weren't allowed in! We ate lunch at Palace Tariana, the same place we'd been with Dr. Shoup, and afterward met up with my friend Ada Petiwala, a friend of Diana's from Bard and a fellow staffer from Model UN this spring. Since Ada's been living in the old medina for the past 6 weeks studying in another Arabic program, she knew her way around well and led us to some reliable shops.
Completely by accident, we stumbled upon the antique store of Sidi Mohammed, the friend of Dr. Shoup's who had made us tea and cookies in his living museum of a home on our last visit. He recognized us the moment we walked in the door and greeted us with warm kisses and cold water. Bringing us upstairs, he brought out some of his newest treasures, including a miniature Qur'an in a velvet case from the 17th century. (Of course he didn't expect us to buy it for several thousand dollars, and in fact explained that it would probably go to a wealthy Saudi collector.) He insisted that we come by again before we leave the country.
Some typical views of the old medina:
Sunday has been a sick day, but these things are to be expected. Hopefully better tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment