Memory

I was having trouble writing for work and so began to write for fun (how else do you get rid of a Block?). I initially emailed this to a friend but thought I'd post it here, too, for posterity's sake. Just a memory of a place I would occassionally rather be...

I didn't intend to be in Marrakech alone. I'd traveled there many times to join other volunteers, and that time was no different. I packed my small bag and walked to the taxi stand outside the village, the sand still angry and sharp after the previous day's storm. I called out for a cab to 'Maraksh' and half a dozen men started yelling their price, some exorbitantly high, and some suspiciously low. I picked the cab with mostly women, paid my fare, and climbed in, preparing myself for the requisite poking, questioning stares of strangers. Red hair always gave me away.

The cab ride was always two hours or so through dry, almost dead-looking countryside. I don't know if I will ever be able to adequately describe the color of Moroccan dirt. A pinkish, clay color that mixed with eons of Saharan sand and black, black crumbled rock. The red of carpets was a near camouflage to the ground the prayer rugs graced, and I remember aching for green, for leaves, for the cool of fresh grass. But in my slice of Morocco, red dirt was God's palate of choice.

The cab wound East from my village, ending at a huge cab stand on the outskirts of Maraksh, where I gathered my things and found a second cab to take me into the city. The discussion was always the same:

Rashida: Salam Ealaykom (blessings and peace)
Cab: Wa ealykom salam (blessings and peace to you)
R: Labas? (is everything well?)
C: Labas, hamdollah (everything is well, thanks be to God), ntee? (and you?)
R: Kolshi bekheer, hamdollah (everything is good, thanks be to God). Bgheet mshew Jma El Fna (I'd like to go to the main square)
C: Enchallah (if God wills it)
R: Enchallah (if God wills it), wash le magana kdhem? (does the meter work?)
C: Khdeem (it works)
R: Waxa, yalla (ok, lets go)

The cab ride to the main square was always different, never the same route, as we always had to dodge a donkey cart or a fruit stand surprisingly set up in the middle of a road. This time, midway through the ride, I received a text from the two friends I was meeting, one was ill (ah, parasites) and the other had missed the one bus out of her village for the day. I was officially in Marrakech alone. I left the cab with my requisite blessing and thanks, the smell of roasting nuts and the bang of drums drowning the tears that would have cropped up at the prospect of exploring my favorite, terrifying city alone for 3 days. I made my way through the twists and turns of an alley to the inn I always stayed in, the Sindi Sud, where for $2 a night I could unwind my sleeping bag on the roof and sleep under the stars, the sounds of the night market booming below me.

After storing my things and inquiring if any other Americans had stopped by (no luck, only a German), I emerged into the city I'd never explored on my own. I walked to the cafe overlooking the square for a late breakfast of eggs and bread and thick, black coffee with cream. The drums never ceased in the square. But their rhythm was never disturbing or overly loud, it was a drumming like heartbeats, with the peppering of shouts and price wrangling and the squeal of a stray cat under somebody's cart. After breakfast I wrapped a long shawl around my head to hide the shock of my red, Western hair, and ventured into the souk, the overwhelming market of cloth and food and trinkets that never ceased to swallow me whole. I wandered, shooing away most vendors with better Arabic than they expected from a blue-eyed tourist, and found myself lost near a pile of fermented olives being sold by a child no older than 7. I bought olives and bread and almonds from her, slid them into my bag for later, and set out to find a carpet seller.

After inquiring of several smiling, suspicious vendors, I found the carpet hovel of SiMohammad, who welcomed me in with a tray of mint tea and disgusting cookies. Moroccans are excellent cooks and I ate the most delicious foods of my life while living there, but the cookies were occassionally sawdust with sugar. He was a tiny man, wiry and dark, with clear hazel eyes and a long cream jelaba (robe). He was very religious and so would not touch me, when I offered my hand he sweetly placed his hand on his heart in greeting and I knew my unmarried touch was sinful to him. But his demeanor was warm and friendly, and he asked how I came to wander alone. We talked as much as we could in my broken Arabic and his broken French and after a half hour of laughter and his enjoyment of my pronunciation of several words that were probably offensive, he allowed me to wander his shop, pointing at the rugs I loved, asking their price. Soon he discovered my price range, my color choice, my length preference, and within minutes I bought a long, beautiful Berber rug, tucking it under my arm and promising blessing upon his house as I Ieft.

I sat down against a wall to eat my olives and almonds, watching women dye cloth in huge vats of dark, shimmering liquid. They pressed the huge strips with large wooden poles and, seeing me watch them, they waved and welcomed me and let me sit near a vat and listen to them sing. The sting of lye or vinegar in the dye made my eyes tear and the insides my nose burn in the first minutes, but over time the heat of the day, the cool of shared orange juice, and the laughter of children pushed the vinegar away and I layed down near an old woman knitting socks to sleep.

By the time I woke the sky was darkening, so I began to stumble my way out of the souk, moving always towards the sound of drums. When I emerged, night had arrived, dark in its way, but bursting with independently strewn lights across the square. Each light danced on skewers of meat, fresh fish, frying potato, hot bread stuffed with fat and spices. I sat at the first table I could find and ordered a dish of meat I, to this day, could not recognize. I ate and chatted with a French couple next to me who were shocked at my solo exploration, and impressed by my easy ordering skills. I recommended they stay away from the fish sold by the one-legged man unless they enjoyed the bathroom of their hotel quite fiercely.

I bought msimin, hot layered bread with pockets of olive oil and sage, and began to walk back to the inn, tired and ready for sleep. I climbed to the roof and unrolled by bed, tucking my new rug beneath my head as a hard, souk-smelling pillow. Cool desert air blew in from the Sahara and the shadow of Mount Toubkal was thrown in relief against a sky lit equally by stars and market lights. I fell asleep to the heartbeat of drums.