Later on, in Casablanca
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”BLOG PAUSE: Later in Casablanca will be on haitus for the next few weeks while Dan and I go get married! Hooray! These events will not be covered here. We’re going to France, which is outside the jurisdiction of this working title.
Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Back In Time For Ramadan, and the Semi-Annual Parade of Unhappy Sheep.
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BE THERE WITH BELLS ON
At first we think it’s a wedding parade. At the back of the line five musicians, in cream-colored fancy djellabas and knock-off RayBans play raucous music with hand drums, and short wide-mouthed horns.They follow three men with giant platters of presents balanced on their heads. Some of the platters are open, and we notice baby presents. So its a baby parade! Some of the platters are topped by a large conical hat (in purple velvet, bien sur), and take the form of a tagine grown to Alice-in-Wonderland-like proportions.
The present-guys are following the young ladies, who carry big candles, and platters (smaller than those for the presents, but not by much) of cookies and treats. They are singing and dancing along with the musicans.
In front of the ladies, four men carry a new white crib through the medina streets.
And at the very front of the parade, two men drag a sheep by her horns. She is having less fun than the rest of the parade. She doesn’t like the musicians behind, and she doesn’t like whatever is in front. She is right to be worried. She is the new-baby celebration dinner, poor lamb.
The parade must be in honor of a new baby girl, because baby girls take one lamb. Boys get two.
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SEW NEWS (FOR ROBIN)
There are three ways to spool thread here in the Haberdasher’s Souq in the Meknes Medina (for the record, Lonely Planet is the only entity ever to’ve heard of the Haberdashers Souk).The first thread spooling technique is by hand. You tie your thread to a post on a medina wall, stretch it out along the length of the wall, and then roll it onto a spool. This is fairly time consuming, and I’d think you’d run the constant risk of passerbys (ahem, me) accidentally clotheslining themselves on your spooling project.
Second thread spooling technique: the semi-automatic bicycle wheel (see picture). This can be powered by foot pedal or small motor. It spools one spool of thread at a time, but it does so really fast.
The third spooling technique: is a real machine. It spools 8-10 threads at a time in a clattering-jumpy-racket that shakes the wooden stall doors in the medina.
The result are rows upon rows of gleeming thread stalls, like the one pictured.
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”The woman smiles at me from under her black niqab. At least, I think she does. I can see only her eyes and her eyeglasses. I know that we make eye contract and that I have smiled at her. And then I laugh at the two of us: polar opposites passing on the street. She is completely covered but for her eyes, and I am naked-in jeans and a t-shirt-but for my sunglasses.
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Hey, what’s up you guys?
I can’t believe it.
Anybody notice the palm tree up in here?
Shhhhhhht, Ethel don’t say anything! Look straight ahead and maybe he’ll move along.
Hey you mind, if I just hang out here for a bit? I think I can squeeze in…
OUCH! You are poking me with your giant palm frond hairdo! Merle, his giant fronds are poking me!
Pull! It! Together! Ethel! We are pine trees! Shoulder back! Spine straight!
Uh, like this?
Actually, Palm Tree, that’s not too bad.
-silence-
So, we’re stuck here, right?
Yeah. It’s gotta do with the root systems.
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