On the Road Again: Marrakech to Fes for a Wedding Reception (or: Hangin' with the Hajji)

The drive to Marrakech to meet Alan’s 3:30 plane started off with a rush. We had no alarm clock in the apartment so tried to rely on open windows for the dawn’s first light to wake up, with limited success. Our goal was to be on the road by 7 am allowing for traffic on the 8 hour drive. The main road south is a two-laner with lots of villages and towns to slow down for along the way, not including other traffic – often heavily laden truck traffic which can be time-consuming to pass depending on oncoming traffic. Also, because it was Friday, weekend markets were in preparation mode, and traffic was going to be a bit heavier than during regular weekdays. We managed to wake up, shower, packup, and do a quick apartment cleaning in 15 minutes, and were just opening the door as Sayeed arrived.

The first few hours of the drive were relatively comfortable – cool morning temperatures in the mountains were well appreciated, knowing that we were soon to be driving in the plains toward Marrakech where the temps were in the triple-digits (Farenheit). Also, Sayeed’s car does not have air conditioning. It’s a Puegot hatchback. So, Tony and I took turns on who would ride in the back seats. With both driver windows down, the bulk force (and grit) of the air focuses on the rider in the back seat. If you’ve ever ridden in the back of a pickup truck at high speeds, and felt the wind force itself in through your nostrils, you know what this is like. As we headed further south, unfortunately, this wind became hotter and hotter. Whoever was in the backseat did little to no talking – the air would force its way into the speaker’s mouth and leave them instantly parched.

We did manage to take some breaks along the way for snacks, drinks, and once along the large dammed lake in the center of the country that supplies irrigation to what would otherwise be desertified, unarable land. That land, while red and sandy and dusty and hot, is still managed to cultivate fields of olive trees, argan trees, corn, beans, chickpeas, grapes, date farms (palmerias), orage apple and cherry groves, etc. In the spring it must look like a carpet of variegated greens.

We made it to Marrakech just after 3 pm, and waited for Alan’s arrival. There were 3 or 4 flights landing at that time so it took a while for him to clear customs, but when he did, he got a warm group welcome – even though Tony, Sayeed, and I were completely burned out by this time.

We headed into town to figure out what we were going to do for the night. After having a few beers to cool off and unwind, we met another friend of Sayeed’s, also a samsar, who showed us a cream-of-the-crop apartment in the ville nouvelle (new section) of the city. It was beautifully furnished, and had some very nice artwork. It was also walking distance from the Djma-al-Fnaa, the main square in Marrakech, where caravans of old used to stop to sell their wares and rest after crossing the Sahara. Today it is a Unesco World Heritage site. The medina backs right up onto the plaza, and from there you can wander into snaking alleyways selling everything from extracted teeth to herbal cures for witchraft curses. The main square is filled by day with various vendors, my favorite of which are the orange juice vendors. For the equivalent of about 25 cents (up 5 cents from 8 years ago), you can order a fresh-squeezed-as-you-order glass of orange juice. At night, the plaza fills with acrobats, performers, snake charmers, and my very favorite, the story tellers.

In this day and age where every rooftop seems to have a satellite dish, and even the most remote households are somehow ‘plugged in’, I love that the storytellers get such large audiences in the plaza. The stories they tell are millennium old, and spoken in Arabic, with lots of fanciful gesturing. Even without understanding the language, it is a performance not to be missed. The largest groups of spectators gather around the story tellers, after which a hat or bowl is passed to collect contributions.

Unfortunately, on this night, probably due to my not eating during the day (while roasting), I had developed a pretty bad migraine. So, Tony and Sayeed took Alan out for the night to a somewhat touristy restaurant that also includes belly dancing and other performance art, along with very good traditional food. It was a good introduction to Morocco for Alan’s first visit. The next day, we started our long drive back to Fes to attend Mohammed’s sister’s wedding reception.

Alan, Sayeed, young musician, and Tony - dancing a jig at the Dammed Lake in the Middle of Morocco.

Because of weekend traffic, driving back took us almost 12 hours, so we didn’t arrive at Mohammed’s place until about 11 pm. After having been in a pretty warm windy car all day. I can’t say that we were on our best appearances. At any rate, the family welcomed us in with open arms.

On a side note – I’ve been invited into several Moroccan homes in the past, but have always been treated like, and with, the men; not like a visiting woman. Typically the woman’s domain in the home is the kitchen or the rooftops, and I suppose it’s nice not to have been subjugated to those realms in the past, but I have often missed out on interacting with other Moroccan women because of this. Not so with Mohammed’s family. His sisters speak some English, and immediately his younger sister Asmet (who was dressed, literally, like a fairy princess) took me by the hand and led me into the salon – filled with women. There was one other westerner there, a co-worker of Mohammed’s from New York. All of the women, except the bride, were older than me, and were involved in discussions that I would have felt intrusive joining. Especially since I don’t speak Arabic. So, Asmet, who probably was anxious to have someone to play with, tried to teach me to dance.

She was like a little ballerina, Moroccan-style – meaning she was doing early belly-dancing and berber dance moves, complete with intricate finger movements, facial and even eye expressions. The whole room got a kick of me trying to learn from (by mimicking) a 10-year old who was very clearly much more skilled than I. Then some Berber music played – which by now I’ve come to recognize. So I tried to apply some of the moves I saw the Berber dancers doing in Iframe a few nights before, and this got applause from some of the older Berber ladies in the room. Berber music is often accompanied by a very syncopatic, loud clapping that is done with both thumbs pointed straight up. The ladies started clapping – louder, faster, and Asmet and I had a hard time keeping up, before falling onto the couch in fits of laughter. I’m sure the other women were thinking “what crazy foreign fool is this”….but I was having fun, and so was Asmet, so that was OK.

Then I was brought into the other salon where the men were. One of the ladies in the kitchen, keeping tabs on our location via calls from Sayeed, had prepared a meal for Tony, Alan, Sayeed, and I, along with the fathers of both the bride and the groom, and of course, Mohammed. The groom’s father was a hajji, or a Muslim who has completed his pilgrimage to Mecca. I’d never met a hajji before, but he insisted on sitting with Alan and I. When the first course was served – a huge chicken pastilla (a pastry crust filled with chicken, vegetables, couscous, and almonds, sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar) – the hajji broke off some of the best internal pieces and placed them in the main communal bowl in front of Alan and I. In a communal bowl feast, it’s considered rude to eat the food not directly in front of you – such as reaching into another person’s area for a good morsel. By placing the choicest morsels on the dish in front of Alan and I, the hajji was offering us the best bits.

Finally, sometime after midnight, we put an end to our long day. Mohammed, despite his day’s activity with his family, arranged rooms for Alan and I back at my favorite place, El Riad Yacout, where we stayed up until 2 am drinking and catching up on news in the courtyard. We didn’t talk much in the car on the way up, because….it was just too darn hot to talk. And, we had to decide what our game plan was for the next two days. This was Saturday, and Alan flew back to Norway on Tuesday – at 7 am. So we had to be back in Marrakech for Monday night. Having just made that drive, twice, in a hot car, we were discussing alternatives into the wee hours of the night.

I don't have any photos posted for this post - I was quite tempted to bring the camera along for the wedding reception, but there are times when it just seems impolite to shoot photos of other people's moments. Considering that Alan and I were guests, and treated most graciously, I would have felt uncomfortable snapping photos of a large family that I didn't know during a very private and otherwise traditionally significant event.