HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1970-10-22, Page 11PACIFIED BABY
A veiled Moroccan woman carries her baby, complete with pacifier, in a
sling on her back. This is the usual method of baby transport in a country
where buggies are rare. (photos by Andrew White)
LEATHER PROCESSING PLANT
Leather hides drying in the sun (left),
earthen dye po tit, (center), and a • roof
covered with fur scraped from goat skins,
(foreground) a view of a leather factory
inside the walls of Fes.
Susan McLean White
STAINING LEGS AND LEATHER
The young man dips the hide into the
liquid dye then stamps the dye into the
leather with hi§ feet.
a
• EGO MARKET
A child and his mother
v. inspect eggs at an outdoor
market.
•
ROADSIDE CHAT
Two old bearded gentlemen sit by the roadside and wait for a ride. They,
like most Moroccans, have lots of time to sit and stare.
SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT
A roam trig barber sets out his chair and sets up shop giving a shave, on
a back street in the Fes medina. The donkey belOngs to the barber and the
bicycle to his client - - we think.
INSIDE THE CITY WALLS
The walled city of Fes stretches out to the foothills of the Rif mountains in
northern Morocco, Leather dyers sit on their dye pots in the foreground.
Txpostter
SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1970 Second Section Pages la-Sa
Morocco Offers Mint Tea and Camels
(Editor's note - Andrew and Susan White have completed a 12,000 mile Our that took them through North Africa, Europe and the
British Isles. During the ten months camping trip they travelled
by thumb, bus, train and car. This, the first In a series of reports
about some of the things they saw, recalls their travels through
Morocco. Mrs. White is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. Y. McLean,
Seaforth).
By Susan McLean White
"What country did you like
best?" is the first question mast
people ask my husband and m.,
since we've returned to Canada
after travelling for ten months
through 20 countries. Usually we
say "Morocco" and our
questioner says "Oh" or
"Where's that?" or as one little
kid said last week, "No, I mean -
What country?' - like parts or
Germany or where?"
Morocco is a country, a poor,
wild and beautiful Moslem king-
dom, formerly a French colony,
now ruled by Hassan the second,
in North Africa. In the north of
Morocco are the Rif mountains
and the Mediteranean shore-line.
On her west is the Atlantic - - a
hilly coastline with long deserted
beige sand beaches and jagged
coral reefs. The Sahara desert
begins near the southern borders
of Morocco and the Democratic
Republic of Algeria, formed in
the early 1960's after a bloody
war for independence from_
France, is on her east.
When we were in Morocco
last January, three weeks of
heavy rain had flooded much of
the north and the main north to
south roads were washed out and
closed to traffic. As a result
we criss-crossed through the
interior on unpaved back roads
in an attempt to get south from
the Mediteranean port city of
Tangiers. The bank country
roads were crowded with people
walking, people riding donkeys
and people herding sheep and re-
fugees whose mud and .straw
brick houses had been collapsed
by the flood waters. A flat
backed wagon pulled by one thin
donkey was crammed with men
and women in ragged clothes
and rubber coots returning home
at dusk from picking oranges in
groves where the receding flood
waters had left debris in bran?.
ches ten feet above the ground
All along the roadside women
with a towel or piece of cloth
covering their heads and faces
collected muddy water from the
flooded fields in round bottomed
pottery jugs and carried it bal-
anced on their heads back to
their homes. The villages we
saw were small - a reddish mud
wall enclosed several mud huts
with straw or sometimes tin
rooves. Sometimes a village
or a nearby field was surround-
ed by a dense fence of tumble-
weed-like bushes to keep live-
stock and children from stray-
ing.
Further south, away from
the flooded areas, were miles
of unfenced grazing land for
sheep, some acres planted with
cotton and occasionally, Euro-
pean style farms with large barns
and houses and long tree lined
lanes which were built origin-
ally by French colonists.
MOROCCAN .CLOTHES
French influence is still ap-
parent• in Casablanca, a
large, new (about 150 years old -
most Moroccan settlements are
thousands of years old) com-
mercial center on the Atlantic
coast. Essentially, Casablanca
is a big dull city like many
cities but mast Moroccans there
still wear Arab dress - - me
women in long tailored gowns
and veils and the businessmen
in long, flowing hooded cloaks
(called djellabahs) over their
western style suits. Beggars
on all the streets remind you that
you are still in a country where
people fight to stay alive.
Marrakech, an ancient col-
lection of lowJarange clay build-
ings near a palm forest, in sight
of the snow topped Atlas mount-
ains is a wool-dyeing and cloth-
making center with a fascinat-
-ing souk or market place. In
an open square next to the rime
of alleys and pedestrian streets
that is the city center and busin-
ess area of the Medina or old
quarters, snake charmers,
actors (playing in domestic com-
edies with men in all the female
roles), teeth pullers, scribes who
write letters for a small fee,
fortune tellers and doctors (who
sell bats' wings, animal fur,
bird skulls and assorted herbal
remedies) entertain and enlighten
the crowds .who form a large
circle around each demon-
stration.
Inside the market - it prob-
ably covers several acres, par-,.
flail), roofed over shoe merchants
are all together on one street
(their cupboard-like shops are
built into the walls on both sides
of the street, about two feet off
the ground) and scrap-metal
dealers, tin and brass ware Ma-
kers and slake sellers oper-
ate each in their own
section of the Medina. Small
factories, founderies, restaur-
ants, and tailor shops with small
lxiys who stand outside all day
holding a spool of thread while
the tailor sews, are all inside
the city walls.
In the center of the medina,
so that you come upon it from
a dozen different directions, is
the mosque - - the Islamic
counterpart of the Christian
Church.
LEATHER DYING
lees, with its centuries old
walled buildings in the foothills
of the RU range, north-east of
Marrakech, is the largest old
city in Morocco. Except for little
boys who speak the essential
words of three or four languages
who pester you constantly with
offers to guide you through the
old city, (they get a large per-
centage of what you spend at any
shop they take you to), ways of
life and business, Fes seem to
a westerner to have been un-
changed for centuries.
The booming leather indus-
try here ,is spread" all over the
Medina. In one section men
scrape fur from goat skins with
pieces of metal. The skins are
dried and cured, then in another
area are dyed bright colours in
clay dye pots by young men in
short pants who jump up and
down all day using their 'feet to
force the liquid dye into the skins.
All over Fes are dyers whose
legs and hands are permanently
coloured by the leather dyes.
Fes is also an ancient center
of learning and has a respected
Islamic university. The old city
ranges up and down hill and It's
easy for a stranger to get com-
pletely lost in the crush of crowds
on the cobbled streets which at
first -seem all alike. A river
rushes through the Medina swol-
len by the recent floods. Traffic
on foot and donkey is heavy in-
side the walls but cars and taxis
are restricted to one or two wide
main streets. A bus stops outside
several of the gates in the city
wall 'and runs to and from the
small European style downtown
and residential area about two,
miles away.
We were hitch-hiking near
Fes at the beginning of our 1500
mile trip across North Africa
from Casablanca to Tunis when
we were picked up by a young
French man, who was spending•
• two years with his wife and
baby as a teacher in Morocco as
an alternative to service in the
French army. We spent two
days with the Dumonts in their
low whitewashed concrete house,
which enclosed• a small, grassy
courtyard in the new section of
Fes.
On a drive through the country
around Fes we stopped to look
at a tribe of nomads who had
set up three large tents and
were grazing their sheep beside
a small stream about two hun-
dred yards from the road. The
head man, small and straight
with a brown tanned face, bright
brown eyes, with beard and hair
and wearing along white djellabah
and white turban came over to
the car and asked our host in
Arabic if we would like to have
tea in his tent.
Denis Dumont spoke Arabic,
English and French and acted as
three way translator for us, his
French speaking wife and Hassan,
the nomad chieftain. We sat on
cushions arranged on a rug which
covered the packed earth floor of
Hassan's tent. In the center of
the rug • sat a beautiful, cross-
eyed baby boy -- obviOusly the
youngest son and Hassan's pride
and joy.
WATERPROOF TENT
The roof of the tent was
woven from goat hairs which
swell and repel rain in wet wea-
ther. It was supported by a
pole about six inches in diameter
and six feet along and sloped down
to three side walls - the front of
the tent was open - made of reed
matting about four feet high. A
reed partitipn divided the tent
into two rooms and a brush fire
for cooking was sheltered by
bushes Just outside the front.
Chickens ran in and out and two
whole lamb carcasses, to be
eaten the next day - an Arab
holiday, the FeaSt of the Sheep -
were hanging by their feet over
our heads.
Two young women in their
early twenties - apparently Has-
san's wives ' - made mint tea
on the brush fire, passed in a
brass tea pot to their husband
and stayed on the other side of
the tent smiling at es all. Women
in Morocco do most of the work '
and are never introduced or even
mentioned.
After an elaborate ceremony,
a ritual performed by Hassan who
broke sugar into the tea pot and
tasted, poured and re-poured the
tea, we all drank a glass - it was
strong, sweet and hot - and
smiled at each other and at
Hassan's baby boy and the Du-
mont 's little girl who were
crawling around together on the
floor.
Hassan and some of the
younger men had jobs making
brooms in a nearby village --
when their, sheep have eaten all
the stubby grass around their
present camp they'll move t o
another part of Morocco and
other pick-up jobs. The tents,
chickens and groups' household
utensils ( the brass tray and pot
used for tea, cooking pots) are
packed onto three or four
donkeys. The women, with babies
tiedwal.k to their backs, the older
children and some of the men
Hassan, about 55 years old,
had lived throughout Morocco and
in the Spanish Sahara and the
Canary Islands where he
learned to speak some Spanish.
He spoke no French which is
Morocco's second language. He
couldn't write or read but carried
government issued identity card
with his picture, name, date of
birth and occupation on it.
warm
For wp ae toeprl .e awnhdo wa arnetn tu paran d_
ticularly interested in the old ,
Morocco, Agadir on the south
Atlantic coast is the place for a
winter vacation. The traditional
settlement there was completely
destroyed by an earthquake 15
years ago and a striking new city
has been built out of the ruins.
Buildings are concrete and
wood -I- - innpvative architec-
ture which is also earthquake
proof. The whole city seems to
have been copied line by line from
someone's drawing board and
plunked down on the Moroccan
coast.
There are lots of public
squares, gardens, open areas and
modern highways and it has
apparently been designed for the
people but the people don't look
too happy in, There is too much
open space co pared to the small
densely popu ted Moroccan
towns and pe ple in traditional
clothes look out of place in the
sleek, bold dramatically designed
buildings. Somehow it seems
like a modern ghost town built
as an international showplace for
tourists instead of for the people
whose old homes were destroyed.
Morocco is utterly fascinat-
ing to anyone who has only known
a North American way of life. It
is all strange and the strangeness
is attracting and compelling. I
could go on and on about camels
pulling a wooden plow across dry
fields, and crippled kids climb-
ing on buses to beg at every
stop (the Moroccans give, mich
more frequently than the tourists
do)-, about people who gave us
food and a place to sleep which
they barely had for themselves,
about kids peddling hashish on
the streetcorners and the ven-
dor& of junk jewellery slid shoddy
souvenirs who ,fellow and harass
every foreigner, about the foam-
ing Atlantic, the streaky white
clouds and the donkey paths that
lead over the 'hills to tiny villages
and about the chant which blared
out from loud speakers (it was a
recording) on the minaret of the
mosque in Casablanca at five a.tn.
every morning, but I have said
Go and see it for yourself.
L