Dancing and doing aerobics with Moroccan women ended up being one of the more surreal experiences I've had abroad. When I got there I changed into my sports bra and shorts after asking Aisha repeatedly if it was appropriate to wear that. She said it was fine. As I was sitting awkwardly in the center of the empty exercise room, hijaabed women poured in through the front door and the privacy curtain. My outfit seemed more and more questionable but within a few minutes all the women had stripped down to their spandex and began to twerk like I have never seen anyone twerk before. Aisha was blasting generic American hip-hop and dance music, Daddy Yankee, and even Paul Simon (?). As a first time guest to the place, I didn't think I would be exercising as much as everyone else but Aisha had me running around and doing squats while she yelled in French at everyone. The workout was no joke. Especially with the lack of A/C or anything resembling air flow, the place quickly turned into a sauna. Exercising turned into belly dancing after about an hour and, naturally, everyone was laughing at my total ineptitude.
My plan was to go to Fes today (a 45 minute train ride) but my friends got sick and cancelled. It ended up being good for me because I finally had a chance to explore the old city by myself.
The first place I went was Bab Al-Mansour, the most famous Meknes bab. I saw that one of the large doors was wide open so I wandered inside I found that it was an art gallery. Most of the pieces were pretty mediocre, but it was a nice, cool place and I ended up meeting the curator and a couple of his friends who were incredibly kind and invited my for Friday couscous next week.
After chatting with them for a while, I wandered into the spice souq.
The next place I came across is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Meknes: Madrasa Bou Inania. I saw the sign for it, but it looked completely deserted so I wasn't sure if it was open. A man took notice of me taking notice and invited me inside. I had to pay just over a dollar and I was thrilled to get to see it by myself, without any tourists ruining my pictures...
I was also able to wander through the halls on the second floor which were once the very modest dorms for the students studying here (dated from 1350).
There was not a soul in the entire place. The guy who welcomed me came in for a minute to offer to take a picture of me, but then disappeared again after saying I could go up on the roof.
Immediately after leaving the madrasa, I met a guide who took me around to all of the shops for different crafts. Silver craftsmen, silk weavers, and woodworkers. Their art is unbelievable and some small pieces can take over twenty days for them to make. They were all happy to show me the machines and tools and didn't try to sell me anything (which I'm not used to in Arab countries).
The first picture is of my guide. You can see next to him all of the silk which is strung down the road in order to weave into different widths. At the end of twenty or more feet of silk there is a young boy with a small machine that twists it all together. The strands are in the middle of the path and practically invisible so I'm probably going to clothesline myself on them one of these days.
The other artisans are for silver (I really like the bird the guy is grinding) and cedar. The woodwork is amazing and the last picture is of a man who makes a Gnawa guitar-like instrument.
This is the main part of it:
Gorgeous. Here are some more pictures of the day. I saw so much but I was only gone for a couple hours. Maybe next weekend I'll see the Saharij and the prison for the Christian slaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment