Morocco - day four
Monday 5th June
We share our breakfast with the Congolese men and the man with the two women in black. Could they be his wives? How could one possibly cope with two wives?
Anyway, he probably wasn’t going to tell us, and we had stuff to do.
Mondays in Fez make it very difficult to get a taxi - everyone was off to work, and we don’t have the gumption to wrestle a ride out of the crowds of people who descended on each taxi as they came to a halt.
Eventually, by the time we’d walked a quarter of the way, a taxi stopped. We find the ticket office for the evening’s performance is closed, but set off into the Medina down one of the official, coloured routes marked out by signs and maps. This was the green, or �garden route’ which was meant to take us passed lush gardens and hidden groves.
The Medina
Despite being constructed for tourists, we seem off the beaten track. There are no tourists, few shops (none selling tourist tat). We stop at a ruined merchant’s palace, entering down a passage held up by wooden supports. At the bottom we come to a garden with threadbare patches of grass, a couple of solitary trees and two cobblers surrounded by shoes sitting in one of the two rooms situated at either end. There is a good view over the city, but we decline the cobblers’ invitations and set off again. Besides, the place smelt of urine.
Off the tourist track in the Medina
These high mud walls and occasional doorways make me think of The Battle of Algiers. Coming around a corner we slow down, a man carrying a boy of about seven and accompanied by another a few years older came up to us. He says that he is a Berber and visiting from his home town - where he was a musician - the place that Jimi Hendrix had visited when he made his trip to the country. His wife is from Fez and that is why he�s here. He seems friendly and genuine, so we move into the shade and talk. Setting off again, our friend leaves with his children, whilst we go into the restored merchant’s house, now a music school. Coming out again, our friend is waiting for us by the entrance. I begin to get anxious - he seem pleasant, but what did this man want from us? My anxiety is compounded by guilt - I wanted to get a carpet today and now I’m bound to find myself with a whopping commission thanks to this man. What a dreadful western consumer I am. Eugh!
The music school - is Abdallah still after us?
Tea and kif
By now my confusion over our charming but unbidden guide is becoming outweighed by thirst, it really is hot here. We turn to discussing the various types of Berber that inhabit Morocco. Our friend says that he will take us to an authentic Moroccan tea shop. He leads us into doorway just before our alley hits a tourist thoroughfare. The main room is about 6 foot square and has a cushions on the floor mats, the pastel walls are looked over by a television showing television. At the entrance is a large fridge and a counter for making drinks, we are taken off into a smaller room on the right with three tables inside. I am feeling more anxious now, and Alastair does most of the talking. Our friend is called Abdallah and he orders mint tea for all three of us. It’s not served in a pot, but in glasses which are lodged in small wooden pyramids – Mexican-type pyramids with the tops chopped off - but on the top rather than bloody human sacrifices, out pop our tea glasses.
Sitting on the white plastic chair opposite us is a young man; he has a foot long pipe, with a bowl the size of a pea into which he keeps on pushing kif or marijuana. The thin stem of the pipe is painted with diamonds and triangles of many colours. Two or three friends keep on coming in and sharing a toke or two, leaving the kif man increasingly red eyed. Abdallah takes no notice of the scene, whilst I wonder if the room on the right gets filled with stoners in the evening. Perhaps this is the Moroccan equivalent of a pub. We pay for three teas, say good bye to the innocent Abdallah and head off for food. It’s overpriced (�20 a head), but in plush carpet lined rooms.
Alastair buys some shoes, we wander. As we approach the tanneries, a famous tourist spot, a young Moroccan resting by a shop catches my eye and launches himself after us, he seems to be following us. After a few minutes I say �Is he still following you?�, Al says he is, the man mumbles �I’m not following you, you can go whatever way you want.�
Carpet
We find a carpet shop, down a side alley guarded over by a grey haired man in a djellaba. I must steel myself now, put on my best bargaining head. I choose a rug from the 20 we are shown. Now comes the bargaining. The soft spoken salesman sits kneels down, almost as if he is about to pray. �Je suis un berber pauvre� (I am but a poor berber). �Golly�, I think, �that’s a pretty good opening gambit, we’re on the back foot already.� �Quelle prix?� �deux mille dirham�. �Oh, non� says Alastair, who speaks better French than me, �un mille�. �You are like a berber� he says in French, about Al’s harsh bargaining skills. �Je suis un ecosse, le berber du nord� – a Scot, the bargain berber’s of the north. �Un mille, deux cent�, �Un mille huit cent� �Un mille cinq cent� and finally �un mille quatre cinq� �Oui�. And that was it. I think it might have been a little more that I had expected – we had to pay using the remains of Alastair and my small change. On the walk out of the Medina we can legitimately refuse the invitations to cafes and restaurants.
Afternoon concert
We attend a concert at 4.00, under the broad tree canopy in the Musee Batha by the Tibetan singer Yungchen Llamo. The dreamy, oriental vocals are a tad ethereal for Alastair. I am put off by her three man band – all in black, one wearing a Madonna style headset through which he played the electro flute, one with a weird-beard and the djembe player just somehow annoying – playing the djembe with Tibetan music probably.
Tibetan music under a Morccan tree
Evening concert
We buy tickets for the cheap seats, but the place is only 1/10 full, and we managed to sit 15 from the front. Tonight was we were being treated to �Capella de Ministrers et Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana� – fourteenth century music from Spain. There are about 15 men and women singing, and playing lutes, hurdy-gurdy’s and other strange medieval instruments. I think this is the only concert I have attended with the recorder as a solo instrument. The songs make me think of Brave Sir Robin, one of the singers has a mullet and a huge grin. Finally, the rousing finale brings to mind a banquet with Henry VIII throwing chicken bones over his shoulder onto the grass matting. It’s not surprising this is not a popular concert, after all the fourteenth century marked the �reconquista’ when the Spanish re-took Al Andalus from the moors.
The Spanish get medieval on our asses.