ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 9 – au revoir Riad Kalila, au revoir Mme Joelle!
Mme Joelle wrote back a dear letter wishing the best and asking what would be the schedule back home.
Mme Joelle is a great strong woman that was a real pleasure to meet, Mme Joelle is the kind of person that still knows what indignation is, what means to distinguish the Good and the Evil, what means to face our world with such a disunited humanity.
Mme Joelle has chosen to move to Marrakech a few years ago and has built her little space of “non hell” that is the Riad Kalila: http://www.riadkalila.com/
Her creation turned out so well that everyone in the Medina calls her Mme Kalila.
The time spent in the riad was filled with attentions and discretion so welcome when you travel.
When asked Mme Joelle might share her experiences, she is a traveler too in a way, she decided to take a longer trip in a country that was not hers and that probably never will, but at least is like listening to Voltaire’s astonishment in front of the diversity, sometimes characterized by the distant Arab mentality.
Merci mille fois Madame Joelle!
P.S.: Mme Joelle speaks a lovely French I wish I could speak it. Mme Joelle is probably what we love about France! Vive la France!
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 8 – more Morocco please
No shooting any more, at least not with the same drive, it’s not time, not anymore, these are the last hours in Marrakech and it really feels like it’s time to go, probably to come back and develop what we have just started.
There is not much of a difference between traveling as a tourist and traveling for work, every trip can turn into the same thing, it’s hard to intercept darts of life, the stream of it flows through your hands and it’s hard to grasp it, your expectations might distort your vision and viceversa, I tried to leave it to the camera.
Read reality after, I am looking forward to see the results, to see what will I be able to deduce from the images, those 3 degrees of separation from the world that Ralph Gibson lectures about his photography: scale, two dimensions and color. Three steps away from reality.
I love this alchemy.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 7 – le tanneur
If I want to be impartial, as a witness should be, I should only report what I have seen today, but it would probably be enough, because what I noticed might be intolérable for the majority of us.
I wanted to see the door Bab Debbagh, one of the entrances to the Medina, because I heard it was shaped as a tortuous cross vaulted corridor that connects the inside with the outside. The name literally means “the door of the tanneries”, if you had any experience with the leather tanning process you probably know that the scent is not exactly what you would recommend for a romantic date.
Getting to the tanning quarters was an adventure, people are aggressive in Marrakech, if you stop taking a picture a storm of uneducated children will start chasing you even if you did not take a picture of them but of the soccer field they feel like their own property. If you refuse to give money because you definitely think that it’s not fair to root deeply in their mind that begging is a profession, you end up with a collection of epithets that sound pretty unusual coming from a ten years old inhabitant of Marrakech, especially when the same disrespectful concept is expressed in various different European idioms: “Stronzo, maricon, fuck you!”
The door was interesting, a fracture between the inside, smelling as a sewage and the outside, a real sewage, with people sleeping in their carts and skinny dogs with long leaning ears looking for some shade under an old car or ransacking piles of garbage in search of something to eat. The scenario was framed by a long row of national flags.
The diaphragm itself, the doorway, used to be painted in white, and still is, if you do not count the long series of hand prints dragged on the walls after a happy fellow has dipped his left hand in his own faeces.The smell follow the vision.
The tanneries are an infernal circle, with men soaked in pools filled with rotten leather and pigeon shit, an old men asked me a few dirhams to take his picture while he was removing hairs from a goat skin. As I went back to the major square I had the odour and the corroding substances attached to my trachea, I had to drink several glasses of water, cough and spit, but still the nausea was there.
I still feel the smell after ten hours from the visit.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 6 – le roller!
I do not resist, the most awful meals are there for me to be explored, that’s why now, at 4 in the morning I cannot sleep, my intestines are refusing the mutton head I just drooled over a few hours ago.
I have been roaming quite a bit in the Medina and I spotted almost all the typical products of the place and in one of the little shops I remembered, from a few days ago, I saw some great boots. I love boots, they make me hope that one day, maybe, I’ll be able to ride horses in a decent way, I actually dream, while wearing a pair, that one day, I will. I can imagine the little cracks of the leather of the saddle adjusting under my weight as I hop on the horse, I feel the spurs under my feet, the reins in my hands and I can feel of the undulating movement of the horse, the music of the hoofs on the ground, the gallop.
So again I wake up that I am already trying these cool boots in a shop and the guy knows that I’ll buy them, he damn knows, the deal is going to be hard, but in the end I’ll use all my Middle Eastern skills to get them.
In the middle of my browsing the Muezin calls for one of the five prayers, so the shopkeeper apologizes, wears a white pin striped caftan, adjusts his long, thick beard, takes off his glasses and invites me to wait in the shop while he reaches the mosque.
I feel a bit more comfortable on the street so there I go, camera in my hand snapping at the crowd moving around, people look at you when you take pictures, they do not like it lot, but they got used to it, and they got used to me too, the Medina people recognize you after a while and tolerate your presence.
In this framing and snapping process a lad comes straight to me, and I start thinking that I pissed him so much he in going to tell me something awful, ask for the film or complain about why am I taking that picture.
The guy is young, in his late teenage years and his French is definitely more fluent than mine, or is that just Arabic spoken with a French accent? Must be, because a homeless guy that passes by feels entitled to be the interpreter and comes closer pretending to explain to me what the guy wants (the idiom unknown), in the meantime the shopkeeper comes back and argues with the two men, he does not want to loose his client. I turn to Mirta that everyone here consider my wife, automatically, no possibility for a man and a women that walk around together not to be married, and she tries to pick up the few words of french coming out of the waving hands, faces turning, eyes twisting charade.
“Le roller! le roller!” the young boy keeps on repeating
“He says he wants to ski” the homeless guy in a broken English
“Iallah iallah!” the shopkeeper insistently repeats
I turn again to Mirta with a question mark on my face: “che dice? che vuole? che ho fatto?”
The trader turns away the toothless tramp, gets in the shop trying to pull me in, the lad grabs me and talks to Mirta repeating: “Ghelize, Ghelize, Ghelize, le roller, le roller”
Marrakech as we have already figured it out, is a small town and the young guy was looking for the photographer that took pictures of his performance on the rollerblades in Ghelize a few days before.
I handed him my business card and explained how to get them, he let the hold and I bought boots, at half the price the merchant asked for, I still feel I paid them more than I ought to.
P.S.: it’s 4 in the morning and the rooster is singing … damn it!!!
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 5 – rain in the Medina
Rain and Marrakech are two separate worlds, not much rain in this part of the world, the water that made the birth of this city possible was coming from the Atlas mountains through a system of tunnels called “Khettarha”, we had the pleasure to explore along with the geology faculty staff of the University of Marrakech (FAC for those familiar with the place).
The Sultan that founded the city tried to avoid a inevitable clash over the water resources of the Atlas mountains that belonged to the Berber population, so hired a group of Jews that had experience in the water supplying systems in desert areas, and so it was that this part of the world could have a sustainable agricultural micro climate.
Now the khettaras are dry empty tunnels, a danger for the kids that might fall in the digging/maintenance wells some deep up to 50 meters and also a problem for the new buildings rising all around Marrakech, that might need some special foundations to prevent from collapsing in the ground.
The khettaras are the reason why Marrakech was an endless garden, with palm trees that now are disappearing, dieing of a non curable disease. The population has lost memory of the scenario when everything was irrigated by the underground tunnels, there were fishes in the khettaras, there was life in and around the catch basins, there was life and now there is a desert and a forest, but the latter is made of pillars, with branches for the air cooling systems to grow and a storm of satellite dishes on the roofs.
This is the counter offer of the government to a lifestyle, the one you can still witness in the Medina and that of the rural settlements once outside the city walls. It’s all politics, it works, as the Romans used to do: “Divide et impera”.
Create monads with no doors or windows, so that envy can grow and ignorance can flourish.
Rain in the Medina is just a drop in this ocean, a cleaning hand that will wipe off the superficial dust, people are still digging in the dirt.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 4 – no Marrakech
Morocco is not only Marrakech, although for the majority of tourists that’s where they spend most of their time except for a few hours in the Ourika valley and the Palmeraie pretending to be Bedouins riding camels, or as they correctly call them here “dromadaires”.
Monsieur Pierre, from a different Riad suggested a few hours trip to Essaouria, but instead of going straight to the white and blue framed city we were invited to head towards a smaller coastal village, a bit more authentic, and so we did.
The small no-suspensions Hyundai Atos had a hard time trying not to be “everted” out of the bumpy road, where heavy trucks run towards you in a game that is more exciting then watching “Duel” right before leaving for a car trip. It’s a driving Russian Roulette, no one is willing to go off road, so you both speed up to eventually meet a spot where the road is a bit larger to be able to pass by not touching only by a few centimeters.
The pressure wave sucks you back in the middle of the route.
Sidi Kaouki gave us a windy embrace, it’s an apparently vivacious surfing community, wind surfing to be more specific, waves are not that massive around there.
Fabio, a geologist traveling with us was telling a little story about all the stones taken from the Atlas mountains, mostly porphyry that rolled along the river current, rounded towards the sea and rejected on the shore by the deep sandy ocean.
Also a chameleon introduced us the life and leisure of the Atlantic coastal villages, slowly crossing the road.
Next stop Essaouria, long story short: too many tourists, very dirty and smelly.
The harbour, packed with fishermen and willing to be fishermen is a great source, but the locals are not friendly at all and curse at you when you take pictures of them, but that’s just what you have to do when you want to capture a great shot.
I am getting a bit tired of the food here, especially because it’s hard to find some good one, most of the time the sanitary conditions are far from anything we can call a standard. Marrakech could have access to many great alimentary resources, but the offer for the tourist is definitely poor.
©KEVO.biz
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 3 – the rollerblade night
Little by little we learn that what the Lonely Planet guide say is all crap.
Mark, an English nurse residing in the same riad, met one of the writers from LP in Cambodia and the selection of reastaurants was made on a few opinions collected while sipping a coffee in a one day stop in the capital. Apparently some streets have changed all the shop signs of the premises according to the name suggested by the guide.
In Marrakech the restaurants suggested by the guide are filthy and dark, while, just a bit off the main track you can find a paradise, called “Eveil des Sense” in Ghelize. A dinner for two at only 27 euros, with the best pastilla ever and a tajine with lamb and plums that will leave you speechless. The service is also great, with a waiter extremely attentive but not intrusive. Thank you!
What about the the rollerblade night?
Well … this is where we actually met the real people a group of rollerblade enthisiasts that started practicing on their own, under the guide of a more experienced skater that act like a sort of leader.
As I started taking pictures they all got extremely excited and wanted to show me all they were capable of and the ramp was changed from a basic one to a longer and steeper one. Kids of any age jumping one over the other, one after the other, not always succcesfully, but always collecting the applause of the crowd.
Some told me about their daily life as shoemakers in the Medina, some have noticed me before in the Suq, Marrakech is a city of a thousand eyes, everybody knows everybody sees.
©KEVO.biz
I found myself taking picture with my extremely basic Bessa-L equipped with a Russian 35mm and an old but reliable Sunpak flash.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 3 – taking pictures
In Marrakech I am also taking pictures, but you won’t see them till I go back home, I am shooting film again, black and white.
I am shooting without framing, I am again looking forward for a sort of sensibility to the subject and a subtle lower point of view that might give me an unusual perspective.
I am photographing basically because “I like to see what reality looks like once photographed” (Gary Winogrand), to quote someone I really like, although he might have said it in a different way.
I am happy I am travelling with only two extremely light rangefinder cameras and three lenses, a 35mm a 50mm and an 85mm of which I am using only two, the first and the latter.
Photographing this way is quite discrete, although people now notice the noise of the winding cranck, that is totally lost in the digital era.
I do not know what I am looking for here, I am actually hoping to capture the “Genius Loci”, who would not like to, you may notice, but in this case I am feeling quite close. Everytime I hold my camera and start taking pictures I realise that my personality is in the backstage and the eye is silencing all the other voices.
I am thinking of putting a book together.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 2 – the blue vase
The demiurge is a concept I got acquainted to when I was in architecture school, it was something that professors wanted us to understand, because it’s not just a “maker”, it is someone that instils its soul into what he creates, it can be identified with G*d, but not necessarily, a human can be a path through which a specific essence can be inherited by the objects of art he makes.
This is what the story of the blue vase is all about.
Madame reached Marrakech at the end of her career, a life made of meetings, deadlines, business proposals. The big holding she was working for had its branches in different areas, she was primarily involved with the travel and hotels field all she was after was organizing resources and plans for the leisure time of the customers.
A life arranging other people’s travels brought her to the point of thinking about a retirement somewhere far from the grey skys of France, the vineyard area in the south was out of reach and the cost of life, since the arrival of the euro currency was not an sustainable any more.
Memories of the past and a youth spent travelling, when the world was a place to discover and the lonely planet and routard guides had not pornographically revealed all the secrets, unveiled a place tha had been sitting in the back of her mind for a while, Marrakech, the colourful and vivacious city where many europeans from France or England used to go, set of so many movies that the landscape was by that time familiar.
Restoring the beautiful riad a friend spotted in the Medina was taking a while, it was a plan she had fully detailed, nothing was to be left behind, details, crafts, knick-knacks and a variety of products coming directly from the suq.
The dedalus of streets, when you have a purpose, opens up its beauty, it reveals the colours you are looking for, to match the paint of the court, the pale ceramic white needed a stroke of blue that could remind immediately of the blue sky left outside the door as you enter the riad.
It took a few weeks to find the right tone of blue, the vase was still in the making, when Madame started her research, at the furnace of master Eyal Solomon, his hands crafted a fine shape, as big as a newborn baby, with a nice cap and a handle on top of it as small and graceful as a nipple of a young woman.
The vase was exposed in the window of the Solomon’s family run shop, but it did not last for so long, the time was right for Madame to spot it and bargain over it, the price they agreed upon made both parts happy about the deal. The vase had a discreet grace of typical of those things that hold a spirit within, a spirit that speaks about home, cozyness and style.
The vase had the grace of the new owner and the identity of the demiurge, the unspoken agreement was for the master potter to enhance the first, and for Madame to carry the latter in her new house.
Madame brought the new purchase home, proud of it, she would look at it here and there, hold it in front of her, look at it under various light scenarios, trying to prefigure its shape and presence in her life.
The place for the new china was found in the entrance hall, right by the main door.
A few hours after the arrival of the new purchase at the house the door was hit by a rock that left a void in the heart of the lone tenant of the three storey building, not too long and another stone was to reach the thin wooden surface, more where to come after, but the only thing Madame could see as she opened the door were the thin legs of kids fleeting.
No day would pass without a few rocks would reach the door flying, two or three in a row, the aim was to make a loud noise and then the sound of little feet running away.
Madame was surprised and shocked, there was no reason why all of a sudden, after a few months she decided to move to that riad, her house was under attack by the kids of the quarter. She decided to question one of the closest neighbour, that had disappeard as the stones throwing season started.
Hussein, a hard working mason, living in the neighbouring riad with his large family, could not bear the fierce glances of the little strong lady: “Madame, je suis desolé, je ne peut pas parler de ce sujet”.
The stones kept on falling on the thin door, the lads kept on running, without laughters.
Hussein was questioned again, there was no answer.
The morning after the taste of breakfast was bitter and sugar would not have made it any sweeter as she kept on staring at the vase.
The rocks kept on falling since one day Madame was able to catch one of the kids right before he could fleet and her grasp was filled with wrath as the eyes of the little boy where wondering what his destiny could be.
“Quesque qui se passe! Pourquoi tu jette des pierres contre ma porte!”
“Le vase, tu est le vase!”
Madame let the hold, the boy ran away, the question remained, what is this story about the vase?
“Hussein, Hussein!” Madame was calling her nighbour while slamming the brass hand shaped knocker on the door.
“Quesque voulez vous Madame?” a door filtered voice answered.
“Quesque c’est l’histoire du vase! Je ne comprende pas la relation entre le vase et les pierre!”
“… le vase … est fait par maitre Eyal … n’est pas?”
“… oui je suppose, c’est le magasin où je l’ai acheté, il y a quelque probleme?
“Nous ne voulons pas des juifs dans notre quartier”
Madame is not Jewish, but she felt like one in that very moment, and this is a true story heard in a glooming night in Marrakech. The rocks did not hit Madame’s door any more, but she has them all, piled up by the vase.
This story is inspired by a real event that took place in Marrakech but names and charachters have been modified if not invented.
ARCHIVE – Marrakech – part 1
“Senor, Saib, Mister, Monsieur, Italiano? Bonasera, tajinacaftanbabouche good prix … please please …
as you run away from the seller that tries to bring you in his little hole in the Suq, a few steps
“Halohalo halo cette ete la meilleur cousine de Marrakech, le prix excellente senor senor? Espanol? Italian?”
“madame madame madame la decoration pour la main oui oui tres belle gratis pour vou pour le traditionel berber … 400 dinar … ‘fanculo”
“beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeep wrooooooooom wrooooooom wrooooooooom”
“mais non mais non pour la place cette direction not there otra parte … fanculochisenefregadellapiazza”
this is a total disaster, tourists it’s all tourists.
It’s like home, but on the other side.
Imagine being home, in Florence, and being a tourist, it gets boring in a few hours. The awe is washed away in a few steps, the city essence is the vitality of the little shops, that are unfortunately not interesting hence are selling mostly to tourists and have totally changed their line of products in a selection of real rubbish, what you might find on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles or in the Mercato di San Lorenzo in Florence.
In Marrakech is impossible to walk look or even stop in a street without being harassed by a cloud of vendors that will try to sell you everything, from their goods to what the neighbour is selling.
To be in this place you have to be like a French or British colonizer, pretend to be home and behave accordingly, but then the question is … why are you travelling?
Why, as tourists, we have spread all over the world, exporting problems and crisis we had at home and forcing the world to close down its doors?
Tourists have outnumbered locals, forcing them to migrate towards our countries, now we feel the same inadequacy at home and in any other place we might travel to.
Locals are selling their houses at prices tha can compete in the globalized real estate market, riads are owned by nostalgic persons that have experienced the real Morocco, many years ago, when coming here was not through a low cost flying company.
The medina is for sale, place your bid.