Morocco, Past and Present - Part
1
I am currently avoiding the cold wet weather in Europe by living
in Southern Morocco. I’ve been visiting this place ever since I
was a teenager. It has changed, but then most places have. When
I first came here with my wife we did in fact consider buying a
property and settling. That idea was ruined by some nasty
experiences we suffered.
One of the reasons we spent so much time in Morocco was that my
school friend Roger’s aunty Mildred was a missionary living in
Meknes, and one year, while we were still at school, we borrowed
one of my aunty’s cars and drove down through a freezing France,
got stuck for the night at an even colder Andorra because the
frontier there operated office hours and we arrived late at
night. However, the temperature gradually warmed as we coasted
down the southern slopes of the Pyrenees.
Although I was used to medieval Spain, the situation in Morocco
was even worse. The change from Northern Europe in the late
sixties to the way of life in Morocco was a culture shock in
spades.
All the main cities were divided not only according to history
and culture but by wealth. For example, Rabat consisted of the
old Moroccan town, or medina, the modern French town, and the
shanty town. Most of the main cities had considerable
shanty-towns constructed from any old rubbish that was in any
way serviceable, from cardboard to metal drums, and several
thousand people lived in each of these areas. The worst
agglomerations of these places were on the outskirts of Rabat
and Casablanca.
In the countryside accommodation varied quite considerably.
There were few houses in the sense that would be understood in
Northern Europe. One village I visited consisted entirely of
circular straw huts, and looked relatively prosperous. Another
was invisible to the normal traveller because folks lived almost
underground. Along the roads were people selling whatever was
available, ranging from oranges to milk in recycled plastic
drinks bottles, to cooked food, and chunks of sapphire.
Sadly, there was one other way to make money, and that consisted
of throwing children under the wheels of passing cars and then
demanding money for the damage done.
Every town had its quota of beggars. Some of these became state
subsidised as water sellers. These folk used to sport a sort of
Mexican sombrero with bells on, and they carried a little
handbell, plus a goatskin filled with fresh water, and a silver
saucer on a chain, which they filled for you to drink from.
Others, less fortunate, sought alms from the passers by. The
most unfortunate of all were those missing limbs. Those with no
legs sat on wooden trollies, and punted themselves around the
streets and across the squares. Some people were covered in
appalling sores, and had terribly damaged eyes, which, quite
frankly, were enough to put you off your food for a week.
The women were all covered when allowed out. More often they
were not allowed out at all. When I visited berbers in their
tents the women were kept hidden behind a curtain, through which
they peered at us lads, amid much giggling.
It was then that we ate the traditional foods. And that was
another division within the social system: several different
cuisines. French cuisine overlaid the modern state. The berbers
ate tagines and couscous, while the citified Moroccans ate a
mixture of the two. Sadly, what is now called Moroccan food is
still that combination of citified Arab and Berber. I ate a
rather nice tagine last night, but it bore little resemblance to
what I remember from my days living among the berbers.
I returned to Morocco many times after that first visit with
Roger. I even returned to Aunty Mildred and spent a month living
in a berber tent with the family, ostensively to look after the
goats. As a teenager I was up for anything, and I rather fancied
the life lived close to the earth. It was very close. I slept on
the earth. It penetrated my clothes, together with all the bugs
and beasties that lived there. I ate food from the earth, and
animals that had been ritually killed, which was usually only
when we had visitors.
One of the important rituals, and there were many, was that a
visitor who was staying the day was taken to view the livestock,
and was invited to choose lunch. It would then be caught,
slaughtered, and delivered to the girls behind the curtain. We
later encountered it in succulent chunks laid among the other
goodies on a mound of couscous.
After the first week my skin was riddled with bug bites, sores,
and abrasions. I spent most of my life searching for biters
among the folds of my clothes. Sleeping was painful. After a
month, however, I no longer noticed the bugs. During the day I
sat on a hillside watching goats. My brain’s horizon equalled
the horizon of hills of the Meknes countryside. During the night
I ached and slept. After about six weeks of this I realised I
couldn’t stand it any longer, and ran back to Tangiers where I
had my first bath for nearly two months. In fact I went to sleep
in the bath. It was unbelievable luxury.
I later returned to Tangier and stayed in a friend’s house on
the Old Mountain. I walked into the city centre for breakfast,
which became a comforting ritual, before going to the house of
Barbara Hutton. I had been scooped up, as often happens to bums
on the loose, and shepherded up to her eerie and asked to read
to her. She adored my voice and the way I used to act out the
parts in stories, and she had me reading the Pooh poems.
I quite liked the breakfast ritual. A group of locals would
stand around a stall consisting of a big tub of boiling oil.
Dough was kneaded, and then stretched out like washing, and
dropped in small dollops into the oil. It was then tossed around
with the aid of a long hooked wire. The clientele would order
the family breakfast, which maybe consisted of a dozen of these
doughnuts, which were threaded on a length of grass, and taken
home.
One morning I spotted a variation on this, and it became my
breakfast. One of the men in front of me handed the man behind
the cauldron a couple of eggs. There then followed a curious
routine. A dollop of dough was duly dropped into the vat and
tossed around for maybe twenty seconds. It was then hoiked out
and ripped apart. Another doughnut was similarly treated. The
first was dropped back into the oil, one egg was cracked into
it, and the second doughnut was locked on top to form an egg
double-doughnut.
From then on, I entered the main square in the old town under
the archway. Sitting in an alcove just inside the arch was a
woman with two buckets in front of her. One was filled with
water, the other with eggs. I ordered two eggs, which in itself
caused a spot of bother because my Arabic was what they call
classical Arabic, having been learned while I was living in
Cairo. Moroccans speak a variant, and as ill-luck would have it,
both the words I needed were different. ‘Two eggs’ in classical
Arabic is hopelessly different in Moroccan.
Confusion over, she picked out two eggs, dropped them into the
water to prove they were fresh, fished them out again, wiped
them on a cloth, and I trotted down to the breakfast bar, gave
them to the man, and ordered two egg doughnuts, which I then
took to an adjacent cafe where I ordered a mint tea, and ate my
breakfast.
Half an hour later I made the long walk back to my villa on the
Old Mountain. I’ve liked Morocco ever since.
However, as I said at the start of this short excursion, things
have changed. I’ll try to explain how in the next installment.
john