MOROCCO # 4 - Rissani and the Taflilalt

19th - 22nd June 2008

Many places in Morocco are haunted by happy memories but the tendency is to over- romanticize, some places acquire a rose tinted aspect, unhappy memories (few) simply disappear or become so blunted by time they no longer hold a sting. Rissani is a happy memory, we have visited only once before, about 15 years ago. We loved the very authentic souk and bought many battered palm wood bowls, battered but beautiful, gorgeous patina built up through years and years of hard work and constant handling. We had the idea of taking our finds to a cheerful metal worker in the souk and asking him to carefully patch up the worst cracks and chips with some brass, copper or zinc from his old pots, he did a great job, quite rustic but careful, we still have all those bowls, about 12 dotted around the cortijo and a photo of the metal worker hammering away. Rissani was a place of possibilities and we hoped that maybe it still held some magic.

It had been a long hot drive in our rickety hire car, I was zonked by the heat and kept dozing off, towards the end of the afternoon my blurry brain was registering a different atmosphere, much hotter yes, but this felt like South, real South Morocco. The men were all in their summer djelabas, mainly white with the distinctive bright yellow turbans. Lots of bicycle and donkey traffic on the flat shady roads through the palms. Not a tourist in sight!

We remembered that some new kasbah auberges had sprung up between Erfoud and Rissani and thought we would indulge as we needed a little pampering and the memory of the hotel in Rissani was of noise, dust and a particular night of desert wind banging all the shutters, strange cries and whispers, disturbing in a very Paul Bowles way.

We came across Kasbah Ennasra and it looked very inviting with a lovely pool, although it was a bit expensive we decided to recoup for 3 nights, 750 dhrs per night for big double room with a.c., bathroom and private patio......bliss!

Next morning we were up too early for the breakfast staff, searching around we eventually found them asleep on the roof, the coolest place, our room had been stuffy despite the air.con.

Off to discover the traditional villages around Rissani and into the desert, or as far as we dared with our fragile little car.

Very impressive and interesting, the villages were walled, virtually ksars. We didn't intrude through the gates but just enjoyed the scenes of children and donkeys collecting water from the wells, the slow pace of desert villages.

We left the tarmac road and followed a track that led straight into a marvellous desertscape, not exactly an intrepid adventure as there were signs of regular use despite the shifting sand on the track, many marabouts and plenty of palms, but at least there were golden sand dunes not the dreadfully monotonous hammada, stony desert.

Sunday is the big souk day in Rissani and I was looking forward to having a good wander. We arrived early to take advantage of the relatively cool morning but strangely enough no one else was thinking this way so the souk really didn't get going until about noon. All morning heavily laden wagons and trucks had been arriving with anything from bales of wool, fruit and vegetables, household appliances in various states of decreptitude, live sheep and goats but most of all people, lots of people jostling, ruminating and bargaining hard for their various needs and wants.

I knew this time I would only be a spectator, no room in our air luggage for any temptations. An old man was making new bowls out of palm wood stumps, exactly the same pattern as my old bowls, a square flat bottom with deep bowl on top, the new wood seemed so pale, it would take years to achieve a silky golden patina.

I bought 2 (small) clay bowls with a very rustic greeny glaze.........oh and a pair of magenta pink babuche made of leather and robust rubber sole from an old tire, very elegant!

We passed the animal souk, a chaos of milling animals and wily looking old geezers prodding and pinching likely purchases. The animals looked healthy even though the tiny donkeys were terribly overburdened as usual........ I thought of our great hefty donkeys at home never doing a stroke of work . I wonder why the donkeys in Morocco are so very pygmy, I guess they eat less in a land of poor pasture and can obviously still carry a huge load including the robust owner as well.

Siesta time............again.