The Marketplace

I walk out to the avenue to catch a taxi.  As I stand on the side of the road checking my phone, I realize that I am about to step on a dead cat and her kitten, decomposing in the dried grass under the African sun, the kitten’s mouth still searching the mother’s belly for the milk that would not come.  In Morocco, cats are everywhere and welcomed, but there were not enough scraps for this one.  Today is my last class at the language center.  I would like more, but I did not arrange for more, and now there is no spot for me.  I could join a group, but they are more advanced.  I don’t want to slow their progress, so I decline.  I feel awkward.  I have brought my camera today.  I ask another student to take a picture of me and Saida in front of the board with my writing in Arabic on it.  

Instead of going home, I wait for bus #1 in the opposite direction.  It is a long wait.  A young woman and a middle-aged one, both in head scarves, sit along side me on a low concrete wall near the bus stop.  When they see the bus coming, they get up and motion for me to join them.  On the ride to the marketplace at the medina, young women sit next to me, and we each fan ourselves with whatever we can find.  I ask when we near it whether this is the stop for Jemaa el-fna, and they say la, not yet.  At the next stop, I make as if to get up, and again, la, with the gesture to remain seated.  The third time, it is the stop, near the Koutoubia Mosque, where all the buses come and go, and the taxis, and the people who live in the medina, and the tourists, and the alhudhiuwn who drive the horse-drawn carriages, lined up in three separate queues all along the colonnade.  I walk past them all and enter the massive, open marketplace.  

It’s Friday afternoon, so it is not as crowded as it would usually be since this is the Muslim sabbath.  I know where I want to go.  I walk around the outskirts of the cluster of vendors to avoid the hawkers, the snake charmers, the henna artists, the monkey handlers, the musicians, the poor and the drug addicted, all of whom want my attention and my money.  I head straight for Café Argana for lunch and a view of the activities.  Just before I reach it, a fruit vendor invites me to buy some of his goods, but I decline.  I round the corner past the oranges, mangoes, and peaches displayed at vendor after vendor when I feel something warm running down my leg.  For a moment I am horrified to think that I have released some fluid from my body, but I realize that it is black tobacco juice along the side of my right leg, trailing down to my ankle and into my blue canvas shoes.  I look around but there is no sign of where or whom it came from.  

I enter the Argana, past the doorman, past the brass fittings, past the hostess, and to the counter, where I take a paper napkin from the display and stoop to wipe my leg.  I move up the three flights of stairs and am escorted to a seat on the balcony facing the square, where I eat a meal of green olives spiced with harissa, fresh bread, fresh orange juice, salad nicoise, and a coffee.  From here, I can see the locals and the tourists shopping, and I watch the food vendors setting up their metal pole frames and canopies for the evening meals.  I write.  I take pictures.  From this vantage point, I can see the whole square and hear the music of the snake charmers and performers.  

When it is time to pay for my meal, I am mortified to learn that they do not take credit cards.  By scrounging in my pockets for loose change, I have just enough to pay the bill.  But I have nothing for a tip.  I apologize twice, and the friendly waiter assures me it is no problem.  Down the stairs and out the door, I cross the square along the outskirts again, avoiding the ever-increasing crowds and scooters zooming diagonally past.  I make my way to the nearest ATM, take out a few hundred dirham, looking over my shoulder at the beggars parked on the steps nearby.  I need change.  I search a bookshop for some small, inexpensive paperback but cannot find one I like.  I browse the cheap bracelets with their Fatima hands, but I already have three of those.  I decide on a two-sided tabla pellet drum and a small Amazigh doll for my friend’s nephew and niece.  The seller wants three times what I should pay, and I haggle him down to my price, telling him that I want “the Moroccan price” not the tourist one.  He is a tough bargainer, but I win out.  

Armed with the change, I return to the Argana and up the stairs, surprising my waiter and shaking his hand to transfer to it the tip that is perhaps a little higher than I need to.  I am trying to make a good impression of an American woman in this country.  Before I leave, there is one person I want to see.  I walk along and in between the food vendors - the souks - knowing as I do that I am going to be harassed by the hawkers they employ to bring in customers, so high is the competition for business.  Again and again, I wave them away with la, shukran – no, thank you.  Eventually, I see him.  My soup guy from four months ago.  

We ate here two nights in a row because it was the best soup we’d ever had.  It is early, and he does not yet have business.  He is sitting and talking with another man.  He does not even yet have his apron on.  A group of musicians and dancers is performing nearby, and he has many distractions, so he does not notice when I sit down on the bench seat at the metal table.  I look directly at him, remove my straw hat and my sunglasses, and he recognizes me with astonishment.  I ask, “Do you remember me?”  He says that he does, and to prove it, talks about me coming there with my zawj (husband).  He is so delighted that he puts his hand to his heart in a gesture of peace and immediately gets me a bowl of just-made soup from a large tureen.  I’m not hungry, but I cannot turn him down, force myself to eat it, and it is as delicious as I recalled.  I declare it bnin and he is tickled.  I tell him ana asmi Ellen, and he tells me his name is Abdoul.  We smile and nod before he goes back to his conversation.  

After the soup, before I leave, I look around and take in the scene and then surreptitiously film it with my phone.  It is not common for Muslims here to allow their photograph, and I haven’t asked permission.  Making my way back out of the marketplace, I stop to get some dates, top of the line Medjool kind from all the dried fruit available at the vendor.  I speak in Arabic and wish him jumma Mubarak, good sabbath, which surprises and pleases him enough for him to bestow on me a handful of ras al hanout, spiced nuts, as a gift.  More vendors call me to them, but I leave with a smile, a wave, and la, shukran.  

I leave the square and follow the colonnade back to the bus stop, passing again the horse-and-carriage lines.  Just as I pass one, the horse releases a forceful jet of hot piss so that I must veer to the left to avoid its splash zone.  A man waiting on a bench sees this, and we both smile and shrug our shoulders.  

I sit at the bus stop next to a little girl and her jidda, grandmother.  I pull out my camera and begin to shoot the traffic going by: the yellow petit taxis, the motor scooters, the bicycles, the cars and pickup trucks, the carts led by donkeys, and all of the people weaving their way in and between it.  I take close ups of architectural details that interest me.  In this way I try to capture the scene.  I notice the little girl staring at me and I smile and speak to her, asking her how she is doing – kayf halik and commenting that it is hot – har.  She sees my ankle bracelet, and I point to the Fatima hand on it as well as on my other bracelets and earrings.  Now, her grandmother is interested too.  I point to my tattoo of the Amazigh yaz symbol for “the free people.”  The grandmother’s eyes widen and she points to herself, indicating that she is Amazigh.  She places her hand on her heart and then gives me a thumbs-up sign.  We smile at one another.  

I decide that the bus is taking too long, that I am hot and tired and want to be in my own place.  So, I walk out from the curb and hail a cab.  When I lean into the open window to negotiate the price, he tells me something so exorbitantly high that I balk and step away.  He then asks what I’m willing to pay, and I tell him the amount, a fourth of what he has offered.  I point to the meter and insist that he use it.  He declines and I walk away, hailing a second cab as I hear the first driver calling after me.  This younger driver accepts the use of the meter, but before I can get in, the first cab nearly tries to butt me with his fender and beeps for me to get out of the way.  A scooter takes this opportunity to wend its way between the two cabs, nearly crashing into me.  I remain calm, standing there in the middle of the busy street, and let the first cab and the scooter pass so I can open the car door.  I turn back to look at the girl and grandmother, who have been watching all of this with interest, and we wave to one another.  

In the cab, the driver and I hold a short conversation in Arabic and I note that he is playing American music.  I ask him to play something Moroccan.  I watch out the window as we leave the medina behind, zip through Gueliz and out to Mabrouka, my neighborhood.  As we approach it, I indicate for him to turn yasar – left – at the light, and the driver asks in Arabic if my husband is Moroccan – zawji almaghribi?  I answer no, that jinsiati amreekya – my nationality is American – and that is where my husband is, that I am talaba and l’taellma alearabia – I am a student and I am learning Arabic.  He is surprised and nods.  I say, qif – stop – and he pulls over.  The fare is ½ a dirham above the price I offered to pay the first cab driver who turned me down – the equivalent of about 50 cents more.  I am not to be trifled with.  This driver is happy with what I have paid along with the small tip, and I exit with mae salama.  

I walk through the courtyard and climb the five flights of stairs to my apartment.  I am glad to be home.  The marketplace is energizing and exciting to visit, and it is full of obstacles.  To successfully navigate it as an American woman on my own, I have had to be confident, alert, savvy, and firm.  I have to be cautious with whom I converse and for how long and what I say, lest I give the wrong impression.  The marketplace is a good metaphor for life in general.  This day was like life, too.  Sometimes you get spit on, harassed, you are uncomfortable, and you almost step in dead cat.  Other times, you can relax and put your feet up, enjoy good food, be on the receiving end of a kind smile, and be accepted by strangers.  All in all, it was a good day.