43. Pieces of Eight ...

We’re thrilled to be back in Marrakech, within the ancient walls that hold so many treasures for us.  

The car was disembowelled of its bursting contents, the spoils of our trip, with an enormous sigh of relief.  We wandered happily back into the pink, shadowy souks filled with perfume bottles, pouffes, babouchkes, leather lampshades, silver tea pots and carts of dates and peanut brittle.  And more jewellery ....

We checked back into the Riad al Sebbin, into enormous rooms that smelled sweetly of jasmine oil, into enormous beds under high ceilings;  my room this time had a central courtyard with tinkling fountain and a bathroom larger than my Sydney apartment.  Oh, I love Morocco!  Even the calls to prayer have a certain familiarity now, as comforting as the pink crumbling walls, the frayed djellabas and flapping fabrics drying on overhead poles, the turnip vendors, the dusty donkeys and their ancient owners, or the irritating men who continually flip articulated wooden snakes under my nose hoping I’ll buy them just to make them go away. 

Washed, soaked, oiled and coiffed with argon oil, the three goddesses hit the souks of Djma el Fnaa to celebrate Luda’s birthday and the fact that she would indeed, never be too old, and every man under 75 turned their heads. Every boy over 14 became semi-erect.  Every youth over 20 rubbed their groins, snorted, readjusted and shouted “fish and chips” as we sauntered past. Fish and chips is the best compliment a Moroccan man can pay a tourist, apparently; closely and hoarsely followed by “lovely jubblies”.  We ate at the local stalls where its a race to either get past the men trying to lure you to their tables or to escape their clutches before your way is blocked and you’re grabbed by someone else. 

Trying to buy sunglasses from the carousels drew every muscled youth with slicked up hair and pumped up muscles and oiled up skin to come close and whisper their intentions. Every man gave an opinion, or chose a new pair, or offered to take us somewhere else where there’d be a better choice.  Luda was pinched, pulled, bruised, cajoled, embraced and fondled, fish and chipped and lovely jubblied; but the highlight of her evening, amidst the jugglers, balloon blowers, henna writers, cutlette cookers and macaroon sellers was being “goosed” by a 12 year old boy who gave her the widest grin ever when she turned to see who’d “man”handled her. We were even followed for most of the evening by a whining child demanding one dirham because I’d given in to her sister and her macaroon tray who followed us from our table because I promised to buy some sticky cookies “later”.

We moved to Riad Papillon the following morning, with 45 kg of beads and jewelery, as well as our luggage.  Now you must understand that moving from one hotel is difficult at the best of times. It might involve an escalator or lift, a taxi, a concierge and a small tip.  But picture moving out of a 12th century warren of cobbled stones, wide only enough for a donkey carrying olives.  Where the walls are pink or orange or saffron stippled and the carved doors are gnarled with hands of fatima, and the sky appears and vanishes and the sun creates marvellous, exquisite shadows and light against the geometry of the buildings.   

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And children rush up to you shouting Bonjour Bonjour Bonjour and stick out their little sticky hands for a shake. And every five seconds, a man blocks your way and says, Please, Looking Free, you come Inside. And then a lunatic in a hooded cape made of goat’s wool, screams past on his fuming motorbike, almost knocking over the cart of figs into the slipper shop. And you trip over a blind beggar who sticks out his hand for a dirham.  And three youths shout Yuvverley Jubblies!  and try to tie a six foot turban around you as you crash into a pile of african masks which come tumbling down under the wheels of a bicycle ridden by a man who has a carcass of a sheep dripping from his bicycle. And you are BonJour’d by the bald man in the corner biblioteque who has the Bijou Maroc book you want,  but he wont sell it for anything, even though each time you look at it, he has to gently wipe the mould off the spine as if he was wiping the bottom of his first grandchild. Because he just has the shop so he can sit there and read all day and drink mint tea and eat dates. And watch the six cute kittens play with a plastic bag throwing distance from the butcher who has bunches of plastic flowers and a lawn of plastic parsley on his stall.  

And you don’t know if your riad is left or right or straight ahead from the Berber in his blue embroidered kaftan (who has identical twins in so many other corners of the souk) who sells hand tooled camel saddles who is always stoned and still lives in hope that yes, I will come in and have some hash with him and let him teach me a thing or two about western women and sanddunes and his camel. 

And you know that when you’re given a phone on loan by the manager of the riad, in case you get lost, you know that there’s a damn good chance you will, getting deeper and deeper into the souks until you’re miles from tourists and yellow babooskes and red handbags, and people are smashing bits of leather into slimy piles in pots, and hanks of wool dry on rooftops and the price of bananas on the cart has plunged from 20dirham for a bunch to 4 dirhams a bunch and scrunched up men sit in dark warrens stitching djellabas on sewing machines I haven’t seen since my domestic science days way back in South Africa.  

And it’s not bloody funny -  it’s a bit scary because everyone wants to help, and every man wants to take you the short cut, and every unmarried man needs a shag so badly, you can almost see the pain etched on their yearning faces as they hobble to the backs of their shops - after you’ve let them caress your elbow as if it was the most private part of your body.

So you call for a chariot to carry your luggage.  This involves a mobile phone, a shouted, animated, heated, escalating conversation involving bribes and curses, glances at a watch, and a big smile when the consultation is complete.  A chariot is a green metal cart, tall as the average waist, with long wooden handles, made to measure to the exact width of the souks, give or certainly take a few centimetres.  They’re lined with newspapers.  They’re dragged by ancient men in pink or yellow pointed toe slippers, who, when they’re waiting in the chariot rank, snore in their chariots with a V of cardboard over their faces.  They pile luggage onto the carts as they learned to pile figs on their father’s carts.  Then they run ahead on the cobbles, head down, backs bowed, toting their laden chariots, shouting in Arabic ... watch out/move/get away/stayclear - avoiding the donkeys and the refuse trucks and tourists pinned against the walls as we run puffing behind them carrying our handbags trying not to get lured into shops as we wind deeper into the souk.

We’ve promised not to buy any more jewelery.  We have spilt financial blood.  We have rent our term deposit sleeves. We have mortgaged our shoes. We have raised the shares of ANZ by our atm fees alone. We have silver and silver and more silver. We have amber. We have trade beads.  Black coral.  We have Saharawi necklaces and bangles. We spend the night cataloging our goodies, spread out over the mosaic tables while the fountains tinkle and the moon grows higher and the muezzin carries on about how much we have spent and thanking us for all we have contributed to the economy.  Everything is labelled, and put in plastic bags so customs can inspect with ease. The staff at the hotel are intrigued enough to bring us plates of banana tarts and fruit late in the night, and conscientiously leaves the kitchen light on.

We have 45 kilos of treasures that need to be dispatched before we can move one millimetre more on our trip.  Could DHL come to the riad, with a chariot? Eh? Though the souk? Non possible, madam, is little bit difficult ....  We are driven to DHL in a minivan the next morning and in an hour had despatched everything to Sydney.  Voule vous credite carde madam, merci, alliance Francais - au revoir.  We made sure the correct labels were on the correct boxes, kissed them goodbye, high fived each other at our brilliance at now being free enough of the “urge” to go and do sensible things like see museums and try on leather shoes and sniff perfumes and linger in grubby restaurants and find hip ones and eat everything besides couscous and definitely, definitely, definitely, not buy any jewellery.

Old Yemeni bead with hallmark

We return to the riad bereft.  We look at each other miserably.  Our raisin deter has gone. Pouf!  We drag ourselves off to the Bijou museum, wait while a laconic museum inspector unlocks his booth, takes our 10 dirham and raises the rope to let us in to a dusty labyrinth of dusty rooms showing dusty artefacts in very dusty cupboards.  Bijou?  Oui!  La Carpet!  Bijou?  Oui!  Le Pot!  Bijou?  Oui madam, le Scabbard!  Bijou? Oui madam, ici!   Huh?  Three miserable tarnished dusty fibulas, a headdress and some fake amber hang in dusty cupboards - our own collection far surpassed this shameful collection.  In unspoken agreement, we wander back to our favourite man - whose name and whereabouts can’t be mentioned here in case you find out where we get our marvellous silver at a marvellous price- just to say hello.    We start to fossick through his baskets, his trays, his hanks hanging against the walls;  our hands blacken, our pupils dilate, our hearts start to race .. and we are at it again.

Then we find some Turkoman beads. And they’re hallmarked by the Jewish silversmiths who made them before they fled to Israel in 1948.  We buy the lot.  I buy some Saharawi bracelets.   We’re so happy that we skip through the souk, arm in harm.

We return to another of our favourite dealers, deep in the souk.  I find another piece I want, and I swop one it for one I bought in Kathmandu. The dealer is thrilled - he’s going to take it apart and make something special out of it. His pieces are incredible - he’s a real design genius.  I wish I could do a book of his work.  Luda and I return again and again to the ATM, where there are now two padded chairs put aside for us ...;-)  ... 

The boys are after us again.  One of us buys some silver bangles from an eager youth who promises to give her a special discount if she kisses him.  One of us refuses and runs a mile. The other is taken in the back room where an eager young man tries to get more than his accomplice bargained for and is turned down.  But she still gets her discount. “Lovely jubblies!”  follow us everywhere - we are pulled and grabbed and now I’m being called “beautiful eyes” as well as Fish and Chips.  A Blue turbanned Berber takes us through the souks to find some hand tooled leather that I can use as a prop to photograph the beads. We’re led to parts of the souk we’d never seen before - filled with locals on bicycles and children carrying bread and women walking to the bakeries. And a kid leading a kid on a rope.

A kiffa for an Amazonite

The trade bead changes hands.  I give my rare blue kiffa to our special silver man, and he gives me a large chunk of Amazonite. He tries to tie it onto his keyring until he sees the look of horror on my face.  Such a rare bead will indeed get broken!!  He also gives me a lovely old Jewish silver bead.  I've decided that at each trade I'll keep one for my treasure necklace and the other I will pass on.

Travelling bead moves on

And we return to the hotel in the dark, after a farewell meal near the ATM, promising never ever to buy any jewellery or beads ever again .. at least until Istanbul.