I spent two nights living with Abdul'Iman and his friend Aziz in Demnate. Both were slightly older than me, lived in big houses, and had lost thier fathers some time ago. Neither of them worked, and they had just left a local university. Abdul wanted to get a job working with computers for which he would have to travel to a city. Aziz wanted to join a highly competitive course to train to be a Government accredited guide.
The next few days were spent wandering from one house to another, from one shop to the next: Aziz would walk with me down one street and then disappear, I would spend some time with Abdul, and then Aziz would reappear, and we would spend whole days doing very little but stopping to talk to people. Demnate is all houses, grocers' shops, there is a teleboutique on every corner, always painted a beautiful blue, and as many pharmacies. It must be a town of at ten thousand souls, but my friends seemed to know them all. We talked politics quite a lot, and religion as little as little as possible. They were Berbers, or at least saw themselves as Berbers (Aziz certainly had some Arab family), and were influenced by French Marxism, with Carribean influences from reggae music. They talked highly of certain Egyptian radicals, and the Iranian president, and against Israel and America. They resented the monarchy, and considered themselves repressed both politically, and culturally (the state owned TV channels show a mixture of football, Arab-Western popular music, and news).
One night we walked into the fields outside the delapidated ancient walls of the town and lied down in the grass. The night sky heaved with dense constellations of stars. They were quite concerned to affect a transformation in me. I flattered the town and Morrocco as much as I felt able to, and they were happy with that. Walking back in the pitch black we stopped and Aziz said that they had heard that there was a bad smell the way in which we were heading and that we should turn the other way. Forever turning to and fro, I still remanined uneasy these several days. Often my friends would appear terribly serious as they spoke in Berber about me. I feel reluctant to admit it, but there were times in the darkness when I expected a cool knife to be edged into my side, when I thought that there must be some trap being prepared for my demise. In the light of day this always dissppeared, and I felt slightly ridiculous for suspecting this.
Inside the local club. Posters of yesteryear Manchester United footballers, Che Guvara and Bob Marley adorn the walls.
This is on the veranda of the town's cafe, the Al Jezera, taking some tea.
Abdul and Aziz inspect my map of Morocco.
One of Abdul's sisters.
A grand taxi. These are shared taxis with three persons in the front, four in the back and a sheep in the boot. Like the buses one might have to wait half a day for enough people to turn up for the same destination in order for these to set off, especially if not on a market day.
The next few days were spent wandering from one house to another, from one shop to the next: Aziz would walk with me down one street and then disappear, I would spend some time with Abdul, and then Aziz would reappear, and we would spend whole days doing very little but stopping to talk to people. Demnate is all houses, grocers' shops, there is a teleboutique on every corner, always painted a beautiful blue, and as many pharmacies. It must be a town of at ten thousand souls, but my friends seemed to know them all. We talked politics quite a lot, and religion as little as little as possible. They were Berbers, or at least saw themselves as Berbers (Aziz certainly had some Arab family), and were influenced by French Marxism, with Carribean influences from reggae music. They talked highly of certain Egyptian radicals, and the Iranian president, and against Israel and America. They resented the monarchy, and considered themselves repressed both politically, and culturally (the state owned TV channels show a mixture of football, Arab-Western popular music, and news).
One night we walked into the fields outside the delapidated ancient walls of the town and lied down in the grass. The night sky heaved with dense constellations of stars. They were quite concerned to affect a transformation in me. I flattered the town and Morrocco as much as I felt able to, and they were happy with that. Walking back in the pitch black we stopped and Aziz said that they had heard that there was a bad smell the way in which we were heading and that we should turn the other way. Forever turning to and fro, I still remanined uneasy these several days. Often my friends would appear terribly serious as they spoke in Berber about me. I feel reluctant to admit it, but there were times in the darkness when I expected a cool knife to be edged into my side, when I thought that there must be some trap being prepared for my demise. In the light of day this always dissppeared, and I felt slightly ridiculous for suspecting this.
Inside the local club. Posters of yesteryear Manchester United footballers, Che Guvara and Bob Marley adorn the walls.
This is on the veranda of the town's cafe, the Al Jezera, taking some tea.
Abdul and Aziz inspect my map of Morocco.
One of Abdul's sisters.
A grand taxi. These are shared taxis with three persons in the front, four in the back and a sheep in the boot. Like the buses one might have to wait half a day for enough people to turn up for the same destination in order for these to set off, especially if not on a market day.
posted by Ian Blaney at 1:20 PM
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