We went to Imlil on Sunday for a Trek in the mountains. It should have been a good half days trek but it was so windy we had to limit it to just 2 hours and a break for tea in a little Berber house. They were a wonderful family and looked after us with true Moroccan hospitality.
One of the treks I will be doing on a regular basis with my photography tours.
Sidi Abdellah Ghiate Sunday Market, 6:00 am.
10 miles from the centre of Marrakech and not a foreign person in sight. Super. The reason I came to Morocco – to discover ‘real life’ – whatever that may be. This felt pretty close to ‘it’. Hard working farmers trading sheep, bantering and bartering and bleating.
I had for breakfast exactly the same as these men are having – porridge. Heavily sweetened and lovely. Dark rich black coffee to go with it. A perfect way to start the day.
What is most wonderful about these sort of places is that nothing appears to have changed in quite a long time. Sure, some of the younger ones have mobile phones and there are cars in the streets and you can buy a coke, but they have been doing this same sort of trading for centuries. Sons are doing what there fathers did and their fathers and so on and so forth. History in front of your eyes. We have lost that at home. How many sons leave school to work the same job as their father?
As a child on my first visits to markets in France I was intrigued by all the touching, feeling and smelling of vegetables and fruit before buying, well the same can be said of sheep buying here in Morocco. Every sheep is tossed about, turned around, squeezed and thoroughly examined before money changes hands. This one seemed to know exactly what was going to happen next!
Taking pictures of people in Morocco is never easy. Marrakech in particular is a struggle. The number of tomatoes and stones I have had thrown at me…. They say it is part of their religion and that you are ‘stealing their soul’. I know this is true of certain places in Central and South America but here in Morocco I think this might be a little story they have convinced themselves of. Please tell me if I am wrong, but I think it is more likely that they have just started to resent happy snappy tourists. The further you get out of Marrakech and the big cities, the easier photographing becomes.
The older generation and young children don’t seem to mind at all. It is the 20 to 40 somethings that have perhaps had a taste of the west on tv and are jealous (perhaps jealous is the wrong word, but you know what I mean). I realise they have every right to be.
I love their simple, historical existence and can visit it easily and take pictures to put on my walls and on my blog. But I am a tease to them. My life and way of living which is so visible to them is far from their grasp.
This chap did not want to let me in to a section at the rear of the market where sheep were being held after being sold. His father came along and took me by the hand to see some sheep he had just bought. He seemed proud to have me there. He wanted me to feel it’s meatiness. He told me he bought it for 150 Moroccan Dirhams which is about £12.00. A whole sheep (and quite a fat one at that). He chatted away to me in Arabic and I nodded my head and smiled. He shook my hand as he walked away dragging the sheep by one leg.
