#2: Surrendering to Your Destiny in the Souks

By way of introduction, go to the bottom of this page to see a picture of a souk (market). Note the man in the yellow djellaba who seems to be grimacing. I actually didn't take nearly as many pictures in Morocco as I'd expected. In short, the people do not like to have their picture taken. There is some feeling that they should be paid -- and I tried that once & was unhappy with the experience -- and I also think it's considered an invasion of privacy, possibly related to religion. Indeed I did resist the temptation to photograph, e.g., a man sleeping in a parked wagon, his legs hanging over the side and cardboard covering his face. Isabelle didn't entirely share these feelings, so most of the portraits you see among our pictures where taken by her.

I felt it was a little less invasive for a woman to be taking the pictures, but just the same, you'll notice that some of them are blurry because we wanted to shoot as discreetly as possible. When you see a person in the picture holding up a hand, it means they were objecting to having their picture taken. So this is one of the lessons I took away from Morocco: how important is it to share these images? ...and what rights to we have as a tourist?

On our first day in Marrakech, predictably, we head off to the souks, a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys lined with market stalls within the medina, or ancient walled city. The souks are sometimes open to the sky, like alleys, and sometimes covered, smelly, and poorly lit. As you walk by the stalls, the merchants instantly identify your nationality and speak in the language they think you understand. They speak English to me and French to Isabelle, asking us to stop and look, using the favorite expression, "Pour le plaisir des yeux," -- For the pleasure of looking.

Isabelle fearlessly negotiates for the purchase of a pair of "babouches," or leather slippers (for about $6), and soon after this we stop at a stall selling spices and herbs, intrigued by the young man in a white lab coat who shows us how what looks like a small lid-shaped piece of pottery can be moistened and the resulting red dye used as lipstick. He's handsome, speaks excellent French, and is smoothly credible. We agree to enter his souk for a lesson about herbal remedies.

There are a few butterflies in my stomach as we follow him, realizing that his store is much bigger than expected, and then my awareness really goes up when he leads us through swinging doors into a back room. But nothing to fear -- it's a room lined with shelves containing jars of herbs, spices, dried mushrooms, and unknown contents. He asks us to sit on a bench in the center, and launches into a perfect presentation that lasts at least 20 minutes, about everything from the benefits of ghinko to how the locally produced argan oil can be combined with arnica oil for a soothing massage. He never pauses to think of what he will say next.

He's assisted by a sweet young woman he describes as his sister, dressed traditionally, no hair visible. She knows the drill and pulls the right jar down on cue. It's theatre.

Finally, to prove his point, he offers me a massage and I am ordered to strip to the waist and sit on small stool. His sister gives me a back massage with a combination of the two oils that is warming, as promised, and does seem to help. (I have a fleeting curiosity that I am not allowed to see her hair, but she is allowed to administer care to me, naked above the waist...)

Now, as they say in sales, it's time to close, so we stand at a small counter and decide on our purchases, which to me is a confusion of quantities and prices. We choose a few oils and spices, notably a spice mixture called "head of the boutique," which varies depending on the maker, and can contain as many as 30 spices.

The cashier is hidden in a small alcove outside the back room, away from public eye. The herbalist's sister has discreetly placed herself in my path as we troop to the cashier, and I give her a tip. When the total comes to 450 Dirhams (about $55) I ask if it cannot be reduced to, say, 400, but the answer is no, the prices are "fixed." As a gift he has thrown in one of the lipstick cones and another stone, clear and pyramid shaped, that when moistened can be rubbed under the arms as deodorant.

As the herbalist sees us to the door, Isabelle mentions how another couple in the room with us, who were Spanish, were given the presentation by another herbalist, speaking Spanish. He said he and his colleagues are trained to give the presentation in five languages (!)

As we left, I was amused by the idea that his prices are fixed, because prices on everything else are almost never marked. They are assumed to be negotiable, as we will see in the next installment, when Isabelle & I buy our first Moroccan rug.