• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Waugh Zone

The website of Louisa Waugh

  • Home
  • Waugh Stories
  • Books
    • Meet Me in Gaza
    • Hearing Birds Fly
    • Selling Olga
  • Ideas
  • Waugh on Peace
  • About
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

in which I ponder Marrakesh, Shenanigans and the pull of the Palmerie

Sometimes, I am such a bloody slacker. This blog has needed / demanded / screamed to be updated – so appologies to anyone who has returned, only to read about MTs funeral shenanigans again.

Shenanigans, now there’s a good word that can be used to describe, for example, mischief, funereal eulogies – and many fun things in between. But I digress. The main reason I haven’t updated my blog is because I took off for Morocco last week.

Most of you reading this will probably have been to Marrakesh; until last week I was just about the only person I knew who hadn’t been to Marakesh – and was feeling a bit left out. But four hours on a narrow Easy Jet seat put that to rights. I spent three days in Marrakesh (staying at the fabulous, friendly and good value hotelsherazade.com)and, just in case you haven’t been, the city looks like a film set, with gorgeous orange adobe buildings, emerald foliage and a vast brilliant sky. But I was there alone. And that felt significant because, after three days of being leered at, whistled at, stopped in the street/ square/ doorway of wherever I was by Moroccan men, I was feeling quite nippy. I had forgotten how eroding harassment is.

No doubt many of these letches think that what they’re doing is a bit of fun, shenanigans if you like. Or maybe they don’t care what I, or any other woman, thinks. Or maybe they fear, or dislike, women. But it got me thinking; I left London the day three young women escaped from a house in Cleveland, Ohio in the US after a decade of imprisonment by three local brothers, whilst in the UK we’ve been drenched in lurid stories of raddled old celebrities abusing young women, girls, and boys, because they could, because some people either turned a blind eye, or else saw it as a bit of almost-harmless fun, or shenanigans. There is literally a world of difference between my ewperiences in Marrakesh and the imprisoned women in Cleveland; but abuse of any sort begin with the perpetrators sense of entitlement.

One evening in the brightly-lit Marrakesh souk, I turned to the young Moroccan who had taken hold of my arm in his zeal to persuade me to go drink tea with him: Halas I said to him in Arabic, that’s enough. My Arabic is Palestinian, not from the Maghreb. But he got it. Halas, he repeated the word back to me, and let go of my arm, took a step backwards and let me pass by. I spoke his language and it was Game Over.

After the intensity and trials of Marrakesh, I took a bus to Skoura, an oasis town four hours south east from the city, passing villages of skour, mud hewnhouses and Kasbah citadels rising out of sheer rock. It was a fab journey through and sometimes literally right over the mountains. When I clambered down from the bus in Skoura, it was one widestreet of rough and ready cafes, framed by the nearby palm grove that stretches for more then 35 kilometres across the valley. I had a reservation to stay at a local Kasbah; it was the cheapest one in the guide book so I wasnt expecting chocolates on my pillow, just an interesting bed for a couple of nights.

I had somewhat enigmatically been told to follow the red arrows from the main street to the kasbah, but before I even had time to look, a grizzled middle age man approached. Are you Madam Louisa he asked.

Yes, I said.

I am Abdul Hakim, and I have come to take you to the kasbah. It is six kilometeres from here, dans la palmerie.

He indicated his frail looking moped, and on I hopped.

The Skoura palmerie is a wonder of some 300,000 date palms and olive trees, where small settlements of farming families live in houses of dried mud lined with palms. Abdul Hakims moped didnt break down until the depths of the palmerie; he then pushedhis moped and I hoisted on my backpack and we strolled up the rutted track until we reached a small store  where he bought a plastic bottle of liquid fuel and then I got back on the loped. When we finally pulled off the track, through a regal mud hewn gateway, my dry mouth dropped wide open;

Kasbah Ait Abou is in the very heart of the palmerie….. a huge citadel built in 1837 and still inhabited by the same family…… with a twenty five meter tower reaching into the sky.  The patron, Mohammed, is a quiet man who now lives here alone (but thats another story) and a total gent. We climbed the tower together and I gasped at the emerald forest below. Mohamed smiled and told me he has been here all his life and could never live anywhere else.

I had dinner in the Berber tent just outside the kasbah, then wandered nearby olive and palm groves until dusk and I started yawning. I was the only guest at the kasbah; sod having a room of ones own. I had a kasbah to myself!

That night the stars bejewelled the sky and I climbed back up the tower and could almost brush them with my fingertips. I felt safe happy and tired. This is why I love traveling.

May 17, 2013 1 Comment

Filed Under: Waugh Stories

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Helen

    May 17, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    I could almost have been there with you, the piece conjured up the colours and mood of Morocco beautifully

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Keep in touch

Sign up to receive the occasional update about my latest adventures! I won't sell your email or send you spam, promise.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

More Waugh Stories

Embracing Ukraine mural, Brighton

Mirror mirror on the wall – where the fukarwee…..?

My mum has these funky friends across the pond in Canada who like kayaking. One day they set off …

Continue Reading about Mirror mirror on the wall – where the fukarwee…..?

waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
13 Mar

Please support my fundaiser for Ukrainian refugees stranded in Calais https://care4calais.enthuse.com/pf/louisa-waugh-c7434

Reply on Twitter 1503005280719851527 Retweet on Twitter 1503005280719851527 Like on Twitter 1503005280719851527 Twitter 1503005280719851527
waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
27 Aug

It takes a man:
"I demand accountability" US Marine commander Stuart Scheller calls out US leaders incompetence
https://insiderpaper.com/marine-commander-stuart-scheller-relieved-duty-viral-video/

Reply on Twitter 1431389155775365120 Retweet on Twitter 1431389155775365120 Like on Twitter 1431389155775365120 2 Twitter 1431389155775365120
waughlouisa Louisa B 🌍🌴🔥 @waughlouisa ·
9 Aug

#Boden-uk - please do something about your terrible customer service. I have been asking to change my faulty coffee grinder for weeks: no help from your agents at all, I am dismayed.
#RightsCustomers #CustomerSatisfaction

Reply on Twitter 1424730312228081666 Retweet on Twitter 1424730312228081666 Like on Twitter 1424730312228081666 Twitter 1424730312228081666
Load More...

Discover more

Support Samos Volunteers


samos volunteers logo

We all know this long-term crisis demands a long-term political strategy, instead of EU member states abandoning refugees, and Greek communities, to fend for themselves. In the meantime, self-organised groups like SV are on the ground seven days a week, working alongside refugees on Samos, to make life in the camp more bearable.

HELP NOW

Footer

Copyright © 2022 Louisa Waugh · Design by Form & Function built on WordPress · Log in