Unfortunately, no one wanted hitchers to Volubilis, so after more than an hour of watching car after car go by (plus lots of poor people with donkeys), I came back into town. Instead, I trekked out to the railroad station for info on the train to Algeria, went to the local museum (crafts again), and spent some time in the medina.
Previously, if I felt a little homesick, the place I wanted to go to was a big department store. Even in the major cities here, they just don’t exist and I was thinking how different shopping is here, but it occurred to me today, in the medina, that the market area is very much like one of America’s greatest institutions: The Mall.
In the medina, or outdoor mall, of Meknes, one can find: pots & pans; cosmetics; underwear; a thousand fruit & vegetable salesmen at shops or carts; bookbags, luggage and all kinds of leather goods; notebooks; dishes; ropes; birds; Adidas sneakers & t-shirts; Moroccan jellabas & caps; many shoe stores; candy shops; carpenters selling shelves, desks, etc.; chickens (complete); canned vegetables; detergents (Tide is very big); several branches of banks; rugmakers; ice cream stands; butchers; a police station; records & cassettes; dentists and doctors; toys & sporting goods; books; a hundred refreshment stands; Woolworths-type knick-knacks; movie theaters; little eateries; American jeans; and my favorite, the old men in wide-brimmed hats who carry brass water tanks on their backs and ring brass bells to announce that you can drink water from their brass cups.
Earlier in the week, I had morocco’s #1 dish, cous-cous, and tonight, probably my last night in the country, I had its #2 dish, chicken tajine. With a half-loaf of bread, tomato salad, a dish of grapes and the ever-present mint tea, it was a feast. At 2:50 am, I’ll board a train that will bring me to the Algerian border by dawn.PHOTO CREDIT 1
PHOTO CREDIT 2
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