More Shopping: Moroccan arts and crafts

In Asilah, souvenir and craft shops are concentrated in the medina. The copious displays of slippers, bags, jewelry, pottery, textiles, carpets, painted furniture, painted canvases, carved wood, brass lamps, and musical instruments overwhelm the senses, making it hard to distinguish the treasure from the junk. These days it seems like we see a new store each time we go out. After the quiet winter season, the medina is in bloom.

A shopping street in the medina

Sandal and slipper bazaar

The merchandise in Asilah is not the best that Morocco has to offer, but it's not a bad selection, and Asilah is hard to beat for a laid-back shopping experience. Merchants tend to be friendly and relaxed, and the starting prices are reasonable, especially since some bargaining is expected. In this souvenir shop I offered 300 dirhams for my purchase, but the vendor only charged me 290. And, he volunteered to be in the picture.

Some of the items in the souvenir shops are mass-produced, and some come from other countries, but a surprising number of the crafts are hand-made in Morocco. Craftsmanship has a long tradition here, and the handicraft industry still employs about 20% of the Moroccan labor force. Mark and I are not expert shoppers, but we do our part to try to help the local economy.

Here's a closer look at some of the items you might see on a shopping trip in the Asilah medina.

Carpets, the most famous of the Moroccan crafts. In Fez or Marrakech, walking into a carpet shop is like going to a time-share sales pitch--no exit without a purchase. At Asilah's main carpet shop you have to go looking for Omar if you want to buy something.

Ceramics. There are different color schemes for different regions, and it's all beautiful.

 The problem with pottery, of course, is getting it home in one piece. Last year Mark made it home with a ceramic basin something like this one.

Sink in the restroom at the Al Alba Hotel.

Most of Asilah's craftspeople are painters, influenced by the yearly art festival.

This artist paints in calligraphy.

Our house here is full of paintings by local artists.

 Woodcraft--painting and carving--also has a long tradition in Morocco.

This chest might be an antique, or it might just be weathered.

Display rack of carved trim pieces

Then there's the jewelry. Berber jewelry is bold and brash. Silver jewelry is sold by weight. Most of the gold jewelry is imported, but it's popular.

Moroccans do amazing things with textiles, often starting with raw fibers. Large pieces suitable for bedspreads or tablecloths are especially common in Asilah.

The striped cloth is made of "cactus silk," Moroccan rayon.

Tailors sit in cubbyholes making decorative trim and sewing it onto djellabas or pillows.

The leather goods for sale in Asilah are mostly accessories: bags, shoes, and belts. We went to Fez for our leather jackets.

Mark's camel skin jacket was made to order in an afternoon.

 I love the brass teapots and trays, but unfortunately they're not easy to export. Same with the glass, brass, and iron lamps.

With so many shops selling the same items, you'd think that the competition would be fierce, but I get the sense of a spirit of cooperation. Vendors cover for each other, and our guide in Fez told us  that when a shop makes enough sales for the day, it closes early to give others a chance. I imagine the shopkeepers become pretty good friends after hanging out with each other all day long. Also, Moroccans are just sociable.

Closing up for the day

Weekend in Barcelona

Anthony Bourdain names Barcelona as possibly his favorite spot in Europe for food, but after our Rich Man's Paella dinner at the 7 Portes restaurant, I couldn't shake the memory of the odd creature I found on my plate. I don't know how to describe it--it looked kind of like a tiny manta ray with a scorpion-ish tail.  I thought I'd be open-minded enough to try it, but halfway through my meal I had to put it back on the serving dish, hidden out of sight under the rice. Later I did a Google search-- "what was the odd creature in my paella"--which didn't produce an answer but did produce someone else's comments about the very same restaurant!

  

Mark and I met for a weekend in Barcelona when I got back to Spain after my trip home to California at the end of February. One of the perks of being in Morocco is that it's easy to travel to Spain.  The problem is that when I'm enjoying the heated hotel rooms, well-developed infrastructure, readily-available information, excess of attractive cafes and restaurants, absence of hassle and hustle, and general orderliness, I feel like I'm cheating on Morocco.

A street in the old city

My paella-surfing revealed other blog posts on Barcelona (it must be one of the world's favorite destinations), and I found another cyber-soulmate who said her favorite attraction was the Boquería fresh food market. (That was mine too.)  I might not have wanted to eat everything in the bustling Boquería market, but it was wonderful to look at.

Strings of peppers in the Boquería market

Amazing array of fish

Ready-to-eat fruit

Spain's beloved ham on display

We bought juice, empanadas, and ready-to-eat cherimoyas that we carried to the Plaça de Catalunya for a sunny picnic lunch. Then we continued walking around, checking out the streets of the old city.

The Catalan Concert Hall

Balconies in the Barri Gotic

Building in the Ribera district

Our Air Arabia flight back to Tangier didn't leave until late in the day on Sunday, so we had most of that day to acquaint ourselves with Antoni Gaudí's Modernist architecture...

Gaudí's unfinshed Sagrada Familia, a Modernist Gothic cathedral

New twist on buttresses at the Sagrada Familia

Block of Discord

...and to ride the metro + funicular to Montjuïc, the base for the 1992 Summer Olympics. We wanted to return to the waterfront by gondola, but we couldn't find the terminal.

View of the waterfront from Montjuïc

Sculpture on Montjuïc

We didn't go to any museums--we'll have to save that for next time, along with riding the gondola.

The Shopping Scene

What makes grocery shopping difficult in Asilah isn't just that the stores are small or that we're on foot. What's hard is that we have to rely on communication. Goods are behind a counter, or stacked on high shelves, or in bulk, or in unfamiliar packaging, and so we have to ask for what we want, hoping we can come up with the correct word in French and that it will be understood. Like many activities in Morocco, shopping is social, which makes it uncomfortable for outsiders like us who don't speak Moroccan Arabic.

Our grocery store

We shop at one of the larger grocery stores in town, where we buy milk, nuts, dried fruit, yogurt, eggs, paper goods--the basic stuff. We like this store because it's well-stocked, it's usually open, the shop owner is pleasant, and we can get change here for a 200 dirham note (less than $25). Elsewhere those bills can create a fiasco--the shopkeeper or a helper might run off for five or ten minutes looking for change.

For bottled water  we go to the medina "hanouts," smaller shops about the size of a large pantry.

Hanouts are handy if you live in the medina.

Prices aren't usually marked in any of the stores; we depend on the honesty and math skills of the shopkeeper.

When Mark first arrived in Asilah and optimistically went looking for the supermarket, people kept directing him to this covered market, where there are separate stands for produce, olives, chicken, meat, bread, and packaged goods all under one roof. We buy most of our vegetables here.

Covered market: produce

Covered market: the poultry section

Most stores in Asilah are loosely specialized: shoes and clothing, hardware, electronics, plastic goods, blankets and mattresses, teapots and trays, sports bags, kitchen sinks... Sometimes the collections seem random, like sports clothing paired with brass knick-knacks. Spaces are small and inventories are small. Often the items are second-hand.

A cushion, braid, and tassel store

A wedding rental store

A men's clothing"boutique"

There are fewer clothing stores for women than for men, perhaps because more women than men dress in traditional, tailor-made djellabas.  The clothing stores with western styles for women tend to be located discreetly on side streets. What you see for women on the main street are bathrobes and lounge wear, leggings, shoes, scarves, and fabric.

Pajama sidewalk sale. You can wear whatever you want under your djellaba.

Tailor-made clothing for women

A scarf store

Shoe store, temporarily closed, as signaled by the broomstick.

Just about everything that's sold in shops can also be found in informal sales on the street.  Along the main streets of town small-scale vendors set up fresh and dried fruit carts, and many sellers line the streets with small quantities of fruits and vegetables, herbs, breads, goat cheese wrapped in palm leaves, butter, eggs, and fish.

Oranges and bananas are staples.

Street fish

Strings of dried figs

 It seems like anyone with something to sell can pick a spot to lay out their wares. The main street of town is a farmer's market/flea market/street fair, every day of the week.

Shoes set out on Av Hassan II, Asilah's main commercial street

Toys for sale on a mobile display (a shopping cart). The airplanes are Pan Am.

A street performance of folkloric dancing

Confession: about once a week we go to Tangier to buy specialty groceries at supermarkets with baskets and aisles, cash registers and marked prices.

The Cats of Asilah

When I was searching the web to see what experiences other people might have had with Moroccan children, I noticed that everyone's travel photos of Morocco include a cat. There's a reason why: cats are everywhere. I have a few cat pictures of my own.

Cats on the wall, last year

This year: same wall, new mural, new cat

Another mural, same theme

I showed a closer view of this cat in an earlier post.

Cat at the mosque

Many of the cats are strays, but some have homes. This one goes in and out through the window.

Window ledge cat

Cats love the fishing harbor.

This cat was hanging out on the platform at the train station, a place we also hang out a lot.

Train station cat

Okay, enough of that.  There are a few dogs around too.

Side note: Here's a closer look at the yellow mural in the background.

The blue writing is graffiti (if you consider the mural a form of graffiti, then it's graffiti on the graffiti.) It says "Hercules," the name given to a farmer who has become a local hero for standing up to the developers who want his land. His name is written on other murals as well.