Art is Life is Art: Susan Reep Photo Art

Sunday, March 6

This was our only complete day in Marrakech and we thought we’d see more with a guide.  So Mustafa met us at the riad at 10 (we are not early birds) and we ventured into the medina.  First he took us to the Madersa Ben Youssef, a Koranic school founded in the mid-14^th century by Merinid Sultan Abou el-Hassan.  It’s one of the biggest in the Maghreb (western North Africa) and holds 900 students. The building itself is unaltered from the original design and it is magnificent.  The details of the carving and tile work are boggling.

Detail from Medersa ben Youssef

The rooms to house students are very small, with three students per room.  The imam has a nicer and bigger room, but not by much.  The rooms have “Berber” ladders – a series of holes caddy corner that you insert a round bar into, then take the one you just stepped off of and insert it in the holes above you, and so on.  Like you’d expect to see on a challenge on Survivor.  That is how students accessed their storage space.

The main courtyard has an ablutions pool, and then the mosque – one for the men and smaller ones for the women on either side.  The rooms are arranged so that some are utilized in winter and others in summer to avoid extreme cold and heat.  There is so much that is important and unique about the decorations and of course, I hardly remember a thing.  Too much information compressed into a short time.

Mustafa then took us through the Berber souks.  While shopkeepers in the Arab souks close up their shops at night, they don’t do that in the Berber souks. They have a gate that is locked at each end and guards are posted during the night.   Souks may seem haphazard but they’re organized by merchandise: the jewelry souk, the leather goods souk, etc.

Metalwork in the Berber souk

Mustafa said that all the goods in the medina were made in Morocco.  The king decreed that there would be no “made in China” or anywhere else because the medina needs to stay authentic.  That may be a UNESCO requirement.  I know Jemma-el-Fna is a World Heritage Site.

We bought a coffee table and I’m sure we paid too much but how do you know?  We’re not there long enough to know the market and we have to bargain.  We did buy for less than half of what was originally asked, but still, who knows?  If the table holds up I do think we got a good price.  And what matters is we love the table.  We went upstairs to the workshop and like all the workspaces in the medina, it’s small and primitive by our standards, yet beautiful work is turned out.  There was one fellow up there sawing out table legs.

Our table

The whole bargaining ritual is just that: a ritual.  We stand around and look, talk casually, while the owner points out this and that.  Finally we get around to what we might like to purchase.  The owner runs around and comes back with a rickety plastic chair with a broken arm, and a saggy little straw stool, so we sit.  We talk about the table, he thumps it to show how sturdy and good it is, we see the photo of King Mohammed VI in the workshop and at his desk with this souk owner’s work, and Mustafa tells us this shop does the highest quality work in the medina.  We actually believe him because we can examine the wares ourselves, and I desperately want a large, exquisite trunk with a simple pattern of triangles, for which I have no use.

And so it begins in earnest.  A price is proffered by the owner, in dirhams and including shipping to the U.S.  We react in horror, discuss with each other and make a counter offer which is as ridiculously low as his price was high.  Anguish all around ensues.  The table is thumped some more to show its soundness, the mother-of-pearl inlays are praised for the precision work, and we agree it is excellent.  But we cannot begin to consider the price.  He offers another price, not much lower.  We counter somewhat higher than our original.

The game is on.  Mint tea is offered and we decline.  Mark and I decide what our final offer will be and finally we make it.  It is declined so we get up, thank him for his time and for showing us his fine work, and we walk out the door.  He keeps lowering the price but not to what we want so we continue on our way.  And then he’s there saying done and shaking our hands and we are half-scared that we paid too much.  And certainly, Mustafa will get a cut from the owner.   We get our coffee table, which we actually needed (or at least wanted) and we like it, but we are beset with doubt.

Undyed wool being taken into the medina

Dyed wool hanging out to dry

Onward to the Saadian tombs, which date from the 16^th to 18^th centuries.  When the first Alouite king, Moulay Ismael, ascended the throne in the 1600s, he was intent on destroying evidence of all the dynasties before his.  (The current king is from the Alouite dynasty, still in power.) Moulay Ismael, with significant encouragement from the French protectorate, walled off the tombs instead of destroying them since he didn’t want to disrespect the dead. In 1917, the French protectorate opened the tombs to the public.  Mustafa said that preserving history was the only benefit of the protectorate.  Kind of like Mussolini who didn’t have many redeeming features except that he preserved the Roman ruins.  This information comes via Mustafa, who is probably correct.

On the way to the Saadian tombs we passed the King’s residence.  Previously I mentioned that Mohammed VI stays in residences, not the palaces.  I must say that the residence is huge – is there a difference in anything but name?  I took a picture and Mustafa ran around a corner, literally.  He said that the guards dressed in red meant that the King was home, and he’d seen cameras confiscated for photographing the guards.  He didn’t want to be associated with a tourist taking photos.  I got my photo, kept my camera, but only photographed the normal guards, not the ones dressed in red – and they are far away.

Either the king or queen's tomb

Tile detail from the Saadian Tombs

After visiting the tombs we were tired and had used up our three hours with Mustafa, so he left us to lunch and we took a petit taxi to the Majorelle Gardens.

Majorelle Gardens

Majorelle Gardens

What a surprise!  Yves St. Laurent visited Morocco, fell in love with it, and established a residence with gardens that are just amazing.  There is a little memorial to St. Laurent in the gardens, but mostly they are full of bamboo, cacti, all kinds of plants, pools, bridges and benches, plus color – vivid blue, yellow and orange planters.  The colors ought to be garish the way they are used, but they are not.  They are stunning. The entire effect is amazingly tranquil and it was well worth taking a petit taxi out to the area.  We had tea and some cornes du gazelle (wonderful almond pastries shaped like gazelle horns) in the little restaurant in the gardens, relaxed, and headed back to Maison Do.

Detail, Majorelle Gardens

Detail, Majorelle Gardens

We were totally exhausted and washed out, but we walked through Jemma el Fnaa and saw that the huge empty area we saw earlier was being turned into outdoor restaurants and eating stands.  Just like that, from nothing to restaurants with tables, chairs or benches, sinks, cooking areas, etc. in a flash.  This happens every night.

Restaurants in Jemma-el-Fna?

In the evening, instant restaurants!

When we went out later for dinner, the square was abuzz – packed with people, festive with music and vendors throwing light sticks into the air in bright colors, all the snake charmers and other diversions. There were many food booths selling snails and people standing around eating them by the dozens.  Also, I realized that the huge carts of oranges all over Jemma-el-Fna are for orange juice.  Moroccans drink lots of orange juice and almond milk.  We were so tired, but determined to go back to Oscar Progres for dinner.  Finding it at night was not the same as finding it in the day but finally we did and had a dinner we enjoyed.

I find I am saying  “we were tired” frequently.  Traveling at the pace we are used to doesn’t seem quite as doable at 64 as it used to be.  It’s as if, all of a sudden, it’s been decreed that we slow down and consider tours instead of planning for ourselves.  But we pushed on.

Next – to the South and kasbahs, camels and dunes.

Tags: Berber souk, dyed wool, inlaid table, Jemma-el-Fna, Majorelle Gardens, Marrakech, Merdersa, Merdersa ben Youseff, metaiwork, Morocco, mosaic, mother of pearl, plaster carving, Saadian Tombs, tiile, wool, zellige tile

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 10:18 PM and is filed under General, Travel Journals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.