3/23/12 Day 15A A Final Meal

Friday Evening

My last night in Rabat.   It is just past midnight and we leave tomorrow at 7 am.   Sadness and exhaustion set in.   My bags are packed and await transport by Grand Taxi with Khalid and Najib to Casablanca Airport.   Najar the manager of the Splendide has arranged this for a cost of $300 dh or roughly $36 – just what I spent on my red wallet.    I hear men’s voices in the street below speaking Arabic and think of the day and my interactions with Arabic speaking muslim people.   I am so grateful for this experience and for a wider view of this world, which is an antidote to the influence of an under current of Islamiphobia in American culture.   Looking at the ceiling in my room, I realize for the first time that there is an arrow indicating the direction of Mecca for the purposes of prayer.

Dinner tonight was arranged by Hilda who consulted with Badr, one of the staff at the Fondation, for a good recommendation for authentic Moroccan food.   We go to a real Moroccan theme restaurant: Dar Naji on the other side of the medina and Bab al Had.   Najar, the manager from the hotel, walks us over there and warns us to watch for pickpockets.    We enter a hallway lit with filagree lanterns casting beautiful shadows.   It smells of orange water.   We pass by a host dressed in white djellabah and fez, who pours water from a small pitcher over a basin for each of us to rinse our hands – a cleansing ritual.
After we wash our hands we proceed up the stairs and are led into a tent where we sit on cushions with a young man wearing a fez and traditional costume, who prepares us tea.   It seems just as if we are in a tent in the desert.   The ingredients are all laid out on the table in front of us with a number of teapots and glasses on a silver tray in the center and a container with enormous sugar cubes.   Idris, our host, is sweet, no more than 25, with a shy wide smile and very little English.   I do my best to communicate in French.  He tickles Richard who just wants his Sprite and is not interested in tea or tents in the desert having just slept in one.

Idris prepares the tea by putting the herbs in the pot with hot green China tea.   He passes some herbs around for us to smell: mint, vervaine, and absinthe!   He pours us all a tall glass in the traditional manner with the pot held high and the stream of tea falling from a few feet into the glass so it becomes mixed with air.    After tea and photos we are lead to our table with cushioned seats and share a last meal of tajine, coucous, zaluke or eggplant salad and we share memories and thoughts about our trip together.

Afterwards we walk back through the fountains of the Bab al Had.    Everyone seems content, but tired and not a little sad.   The others walk ahead and Hilda and I pass through the port together.   We are an odd couple, me a few feet taller, but we have passed through this culture together in an easy bond.  Under the port in the dark sits an old woman looking particularly desperate.  Hilda gives her some coins, because we can’t take much Moroccan money out of the country.   I stop and give her 1dh – not much and hold onto the 10 dh to give to my son.

            “Good karma,” we say to each other, to give some of the last of our dirham away.   An eager bright eyed young man runs after us.   We think he wants money too.

            “Excuse me, you speak English?  French?”

            “English.”

            “Excuse me.   I was just wondering.  I am Algerian student.   I see you give money to that woman and wonder are you Jewish or Christian?”

            “Christian.”

            “Why you gave money to the woman?”

            He is slim, with dark curly hair and very large, dark and open eyes.  He wears a red v-neck sweater.   I shrug.

            “She has nothing.  I have something.  Why not?”

            He bows and says, “Thank you.  God bless you,” and goes off into the night.

Hilda and I agree that this is living.  Living in a way, which means something;  making contact with the greater world; a feeling of goodwill between two cultures.   This moment feels emblematic of our efforts here.   We did not do so much in terms of art therapy, there were some frustrations with the work, lack of communication, and disorganization, but in the larger picture it was a great step forward and gesture toward understanding and potential for the future.

Day 10A-Meknes and Home to Rabat

As the afternoon wanes so does our energy. Communication with Hafid is minimal at best and he seems to have an agenda of regular stops so we just go along with it. He is after all very good- natured despite his dubious driving techniques.

We stop above Meknes to see the skyline - another ancient city surrounded by new.

Soccer players near the city

Named for the Berber tribe Meknassis who settled here in the 10th century, it was made into the first capital of the kingdom of Morocco by Sultan Moulay Ismael in the 18th century. The city has 25 km of walls with impressive "babs" surrounding a palace which was never completed. Such work is a testament to Moulay Ismael's control over his people and ability to crush any opposition and enemies of the new kingdom of Morocco.

The neighborhood we drive through to get there actually seems quite posh; reminiscent of Brentweood in LA again, with large stucco walls and houses surrounded by secure iron gates, bougainville, datura, palms. A young boy picks among the trash below the overlook and then begs for a few dhiram. Hafid chases him away. The contrast in wealth in striking.

Down the hill we stop at a large reservoir, Agdal Basin, which served to provide water for the king's extensive gardens as well as a pleasure lake and has many carp or large goldfish.

Next stop is one if the largest bab or port ways in Meknes and it is truly spectacular - if a little grungy from centuries of smoke, car exhaust and pollution.

We stop for photos and then drive past the old palace and the Dar Jamai museum into the medina.

Here there is another even grander Bab el-Mansour which is the grandest of all the imperial Moroccan gateways with elaborate inscriptions. It was completed in 1732 by Moulay Ismael's son and overlooks the Place el-Hedim which is the center of the Meknes old medina. This square was used for royal announcements and executions. It is Meknes' equivalent to the great plaza, which Marrakesh is known for, the Djemaa el Fna.  Unfortunately this is when my camera battery failed alas - no picture.   You will have to imagine.

Hafid drops us off and instructs us to go around the corner to see the grand Bab. He asks us how long. We agree on twenty minutes and he is surprised but we are getting tired. By the entrance to the first port we see our first camel tethered to the wall chewing. Chewing on something, "most scrutiatingly idle," as Kipling wrote in his "Just So Stories." He appears to be waiting for tourists to be propped up on his back for photos. The scene in Meknes seems a smaller version of what might await us in Marrakesh should we decide to go.

We turn the corner and just as Hafid promised the grand Bab el-Mansour appears.  It is big enough to rival the Hassan II mosque in size, but blackened with soot and age as the other port had been. Across we find the square very similar to the Mohammed V square in Casa. It's is filled with strolling couples and children as this is again a weekend/Sunday and everyone is out to relax. There are hawkers with toys and bubble shooters of course, and groups crowded around specific spectacles. There is a game using toy fishing rods, where grown men attempt to place a rubber ring around the neck of a standing bottle. Hilda and I watch. One guy is very good and succeeds three times. The man handing out the rods spots us - we do stand our as tourists with out i-Phones - and comes after us with the rods. "No,no," we say and move on. Musicians playing drums and stringed instruments.  Boxing draws a big crowd. Teen boys wearing big gloves take their turns with each other. A man officiated and tossles hair when someone loses. It all seems so good natured and innocent. From another time another century.

We hear the distinctive sound of the snake charmer's flute (like an oboe or clarinet) before we see him. There is a crowd around him too, but a more wary one. He lifts a basket cover and a cobra rises up. We are fixated. Another smaller snake slithers across that stone tiles - red and white speckled. He picks it up holding the snake's head so that it cannot strike. We assumes these are both venomous snakes. Before we can say or do anything -and we are all mesmerized - he comes over and slips the snake around Raquel's neck.  He holds fast to the head, but keeps it close to Raquel's face. He forces her to sit and places a traditional hat with cowrie shells on her head. She endures this long enough for us to snap several photos and then is released to us and we all laugh and giggle hysterically. Immediately that hat is turned over with expectation of payment and we hand over some dhiram.

Raquel braves the snake charmer

He tries to come after another one of us with the snake, but we beg off and he settles for us watching him charm the cobra out of the basket with his flute. A little further on we see a giant boa constrictor, black and white speckled just slithering the through the crowd aimlessly, no doubt the charge of another snake charmer.

The square is ringed by cafes and the waiters come after us with menus when we get near speaking French then English. We beg off and try sticking together to make out way across the square and back to the bab and Hafid with the van.

The next stop Hafid pulls in front of another great wall with a small plaque which reads "greniers.". What is that we ask? The guide book is not readily descriptive. Hafid tells us smugly, "C'est tres interesant.". Okay. We pay our 10 dhiram and head in. Of course we are approached immediately by the guides - only 10 minutes 170 dhiram - 16 dollars. Despite our ignorance we just wanted to wander and we enter magnificent chambers that are very plain just stuccoed in red earth. The height is immense and I understand enough to know that this was a grannery and a giant one. We enter an exterior part or perhaps just where the roof has fallen away over centuries, but the height and depth and number of rows of arched doorways and supports are astounding. These are now populated by weed gardens of thistles and other wild plants. I even find a fig. We begin to speculate what this magnificent structure might have been and not going get a little silly. We are punchy with fatigue and don't know who started it but begin to play i-Phone tag. We hide behind the giant arches and run out and photograph each other from behind. Later I read in the Lonely Planet that this was the stable for Moulay Ismael's 12,000 legion of horses giving you again the sense of his power and the might of his military forces.

Playing i-Phone tag

Clearly it is time to head to the train. Hafid is surprised as the next stop is the museum which would be really important to see at this point for some history, but it is almost 6 pm. Our cozy rooms at the Hotel Splendide are still two hours away by train. Down around the nouvelle ville we notice that the petit taxi are light blue. They are red in Fez and dark blue in Rabat.

We say good bye to Hafid with his sweet gap toothed smile and are now laden with our bags filled with the spoils of the Fez medina: rugs, pottery, scarves - and we realize that our train for Rabat leaves in 4 minutes. We run up and down several sets of staircases with the bags and get some instruction about which track is right. Eventually all is well and Hilda, Jennifer and I settle into three seats together. Becky and Raquel are further up the aisle. We watch the landscape fade away with the setting sun and discuss plans for the morning. 

Day 16 - 3/24/12 - Coming Home

We travel home…

Richard with all the bags

Sitting in the airport, we have come together for a last Moroccan tea and promise each other a reunion to share pictures in a few months.

Last breakfast together in airport

Becky, Raquel, Jennifer and Hilda

One more glass of Moroccan tea

Our drive here in the Grand Taxi was both wonderful and exhausting.   I hear from the others that their taxi was much more subdued, but Jennifer and I went with Khalid who was both English speaking and eager to talk about America.   He asked me about Mitt Romney and who I thought was going to win the primary elections.  I am not so sure jumping into my opinions of partisan American politics is a good idea, but he does seem to have a low opinion of Obama and what he has done to the American economy.   And I suppose American economics do have their repercussions every where else in the world.

Khalid has sent his wife and two daughters to New Hampshire in the past, and is eager to go himself, but is too busy working two jobs as a cab driver and at a call center.  He tells me that if I come back or any of my friends comes back – there is no problem he will arrange transport.  Even if we want to go to Marrakesh or to the desert.    He gives me his card.

We speak about the King – Mohammed VI.  Khalid says he is the first to ever present his wife to the public.   She is an engineer doing research in cancer treatment and is not even royalty, but a commoner like Princess Kate of England.   His father Hassan II and all those before kept their wives sequestered.   So the new king is quite a bit more progressive.   Khalid says he has really boosted the economy.   Mohammed VI has one son and one daughter.   The son is Hassan III and his son will be Mohammed VII.   The succession alternates and all are descended from Moulay Ismail, Moulay Idris and the prophet Mohammed.   The monarchy is completely tied to Islam and its development.  

Khalid wants his daughter who is now 10 years old to study English and go to college in the US.   We talk about movie stars and singers.   Mariah Carey will be in Rabat for the music festival in June.   Whitney Houston was there last year before she died and the Moroccan people love her.    Nancy, our host on Tuesday evening, had said she has seen Julio Iglesias, Sting, Elton John, Quincy Jones  and even met some of them.    Khalid says, “Brad Pitt now he really likes Marrakesh.   He owns a riad.   He go to disco.  He take a little liberty from son maree.”   I can only imagine.

To be Brad Pitt and own a riad in Marrakesh!

It is raining this morning, overcast like yesterday.   Khalid says, “This is good, good.  It is very dry this year and we are a country dependent on agriculture.  Last year there was much more rain at this time.”    Eventually we pay our 300dh and say good-bye, make our way through to customs where the Moroccans inspect all of the scarves and rugs and pottery I have brought back.  Thank goodness my spice bag is well hidden in my underwear.    Jennifer, Hilda and I all sit together on the flight back, which is nice because we have become fast friends over the last week.   Hilda works on finishing her last painting and I continue working on this blog – when I’m not sleeping.   Richard wanders around the airplane making friends.     We are all split up stateside when we hit customs.   The US customs lets me pass through too, but a man from West Africa travelling with two large bags of rice is not so lucky and those are confiscated.    We are lucky to even say good-bye at baggage check as all of our various rides and cabs are waiting.   I don’t even see Hilda, but Toshiko needs a ride to Manhattan and there are my husband and daughter so off we go into NY leaving Moroccan Travels behind.

Day 15 - 3/23/12 - Last Minute Purchases

Saying Good-bye to Morocco

Our last full day here.  Ikuko has arranged that we do not have to work at the Fondation so we are entirely free to wander, to shop, to have a last breakfast in the wall of the medina with wonderful yogurt in a little clay pot.

Hilda and Jennifer and I sit and watch the world go by on the dusty street the new shiny Rabat subway, with its elaborate geometric graphics, is not twenty feet away on the tracks.   Livingston, Ikuko and Richard have taken the subway over to Sale for the day.

We head over to the embassies and the Villa des Artes, where the archeology museum is hidden.   What a gem of a place.   Small and unassuming with display cases a little dusty and the labeling very casual, the pieces they house are astounding.   Marble statues from Volubilis; an entire mosaic recreated from Volubilis in the main entrance;  a pair  of bronze acrobats; an elaborate scoop for wine which was used during bacchanals. 

Hilda and Jen go upstairs to see ancient examples of Fassi pottery.   A woman leads me to the back where there are statues of Venus and the marble head of a beautiful young Roman boy.   In the last hall the light is subdued.   The display cases are even a little dusty, but hold incredible examples of gold jewelry: a circlet snake bracelet; a swastika symbol in lead – Pre-Nazi symbolism it has a very different meaning.   In Sanskrit “su” and “asti” translated to swastika means literally “to be good” and generally indicates the right turning swastika which the Nazi’s co-opted as a symbol of the power of the Aryan race.   In Buddhist belief the left turning swastika is a symbol of eternity (Wikipedia).

Sketches of relics in museum including

lead swastika

I think my favorite item is the bronze dog, life size or a bit smaller.   It seems poised to attack or to play with a snarling jaw and ears pointed up just as you might encounter it in the street of Volubilis.

Roman bronze dog believed to be associated with 

Diana the goddess of hunt 

I sketch this and some of the jewelry when the tour guide comes in with a group.   They admire my sketches and he points to my $10 shell button necklace from Chinatown in NYC and says, “That looks very old.”    Which it is since I purchased it probably $15 years ago, bur “old” is a relative term when surrounded by such relics.

On the other side is an open-air courtyard with plants in the middle and neolithic stone carving all around the sides.   These were also found in the Volubilis area.    I am transfixed, as I am enamored of primitive symbols of the human figure.

They remind somewhat of the figures created by Boushra Benrazzi’s patients in the psychiatric ward in Casablanca; flattened figures demonstrating a one-dimensional image of self.     There is a curious stone carving of several interlocking spirals, similar to ones found in ancient Celtic culture.

Neolithic stone board game

detail from apartment building decoration

Spirals and stars in the Rabat Ville train station

Spirals in the Oudaia stone walkways

Spirals are everywhere in the designs of buildings and in graphics in Morocco in general.   I wonder about the spiritual connection to this image.   Spirals are an important symbol in energy healing and can been seen often times in the work of clients who are either descending or ascending from a depression.

I stop to draw this image because photography is not allowed as in most museums.

Horses or camels?

One of the museum guards sees me and says, “You have a camera?   Just go ahead, but do it quick!”   He gives me a wink and a nod and tells me to go upstairs and photograph the Fassi pottery quick before anyone else sees.  This small favor comes at a price of 100 dh or about $12 because he convinces me to buy a dusty old museum catalogues in French, but which contains numerous black and white photos and perhaps some explanation for what we are seeing.   I am happy to have it and to make a small contribution to this wonderful little museum which has artifacts to rival anything at the MET in New
York.

Assyrian or Babylonian?

Roman text

Astrological instruments

Fez pottery

An oil lamp with a Menorah - or a genie lamp?

From the archeology museum we stop in again at the Villa des Arts to see the galleries and view the collaborative show between a Moroccan and a Belgian artist.

Villa de Artes

Work of Moroccan school children

Fireplace in gallery

Detail of ceiling in gallery

Swastika/spiral fountain design

The next stop is Chellah, which is a bit of a walk and for the first time since our journey began we don’t have blue skies and crisp air.   The sky is overcast and greenish.   The air is muggy and smoggish portending the hot spring and summer ahead.    We pass the palace with its great walls and avenue lined with orange trees.  The blossoms are fragrant.    Government ministries with their whitewashed walls mark the other side.

On the way to Chellah 

near the palace and ministries

Military guards mark the route in their green fatigues bearing the red Moroccan star. They also bear machine guns and remain serious – not to be engaged in conversation.   We pass through the port and across the highway to the entrance for Chellah, where we see Becky and Raquel.    We are all hot and sweaty.  They are off in search of shade.   Jennifer has never been to Chellah, so Hilda and I show her the way and she wanders while we settle in to finish paintings begun yesterday.

Hilda painting

As we work the air fills with the clacking sound of storks and then call of the muezzin rises for the noon-time prayer.

It is a transformative moment in an ancient mystical place.   Many groups of tourists come through: German, Italian, French -then a group of school children from Rabat.

They swarm us to look at our paintings.   They are very curious because we are Americans.   I can only get them to back off by saying I will take their picture.   After that a troupe of American college students comes through with two guides, and it is jarring to be all of a sudden be immersed in the jabber of American English.   I ask a girl where she is from – Bedford, NY – right near home.   She’s here with Hofstra University on Long Island.   Their semester in Barcelona has taken a week trip over to Morocco.   Their guides are so loud, shouting across the ruins to the group.   We have become so used to the gentle blend of French and Moroccan Arabic.

A group of tall Arab men approach and admire our paintings.  I try speaking to them in French, but they say, “Oh no we are from Saudi.”

An ancient tic-tac-to board?

Another group approaches.   They ask where we are from and vice versa.   They are young in blue jeans, sunglasses, dark curly hair.   “We are from Tunisia.”

            “How is Tunisia these days?” I ask.

            “Okay…Land of Revolution!” they say and I say, “Yes we in America are very inspired by your country.    We now have Occupy Wall Street, but we are very proud of your country.”

            They say, Thank you, thank you,” and leave, but soon return and ask that I repeat myself for one of their i-Phone video recorders.   So I do:  “Congratulations, you are an inspiration to the rest of the world.”    Then I wonder how soon it will be up on Youtube or Facebook.

The palace gate

We walk out of Chellah, past the palace.  When we peak in the gate it looks like more ministry buildings so we don’t bother to go in.

Lunch is behind the Gare Rabat Ville at a place where Hilda can try the rotisserie chicken.   Our table is outside surrounded by street cats.   We throw them bits of our leftovers.  They are dusty and grey with cuts and knots in their fur.   We contemplate the dramatic difference between here and the American treatment of animals like cats and dogs where we have the luxury to afford pets.   I have only seen one leashed dog in our time here and think of the dog in the shade at the entrance to Chellah who seemed so hungry and alone.   Jennifer is partial to cats and actually runs pet bereavement groups in her private practice in Manhattan.  

The small toddler son of the café owner wanders about on the dirty sidewalk near the cats.   He picks up objects and puts them in his mouth.   He wanders out into the street and the owner and his wife shout him back firmly, but gently in Arabic.   There seems to be great affection for children here and men are very affectionate with each other often embracing and kissing cheeks, or walking arm and arm down the street.    Women too.    We note that in NY this child would be strapped into a Combi or McClaren stroller, which reminds me of the documentary “Babies” showing how differently babies are raised and treated in different cultures across the globe.  

Our long walk and lunch have left us dusty and tired.   We head back to the Splendide to rest and freshen up.    But I have my little baboush to pick up in the medina so we return in the afternoon swearing not to buy anything else or we won’t be able to get on the plane!   Of course we have all been to the bank one more time to ensure that we have the $300 or so needed to pay the week’s hotel fare and the cab to the airport in the morning.   But I have in mind perhaps one more scarf in a beautiful saffron yellow.    Jennifer is in search of almond cookies to take home and Hilda shows us the shop that sells really good quality Fez pottery where the prices are a quarter the price they were asking in Fez.   So a few more purchases.  Across the street is the good leather shop where Hilda had purchased her suede bag.   There is a soft red goat skin wallet with my name on it – just gorgeous.

Impulse buy - red goatskin wallet

  300 dh – just what I need for dinner and the taxi tomorrow morning.   I resist and he says, “Credit card.”   I say, “No,” but in the end impulse buy which I now do not regret and one last trip to the bank for enough to get me home.   (Eventually I have exactly $1 and ½ dh when I board the plane in Casa.)   We end up at Said Jazzuli, the weaver's shop again and he offers us tea after we each make a final purchase from him.

Tea with Said Jazzuli in the weaver's shop

One more scarf for the road?

We end our afternoon at the tea shop in the Oudaia by the water and speak about what awaits us in New York.  We make a plan to visit the new Islamic wing at the MET and have lunch at a Moroccan restaurant.

Watercolor of Sale from the Oudaia