Last Sunday
I went to Meknes for the first time. Meknes was a capitol of the country in the
days of the powerful Moulay Ismail, a contemporary of Louis XIV, who tried,
unsuccessfully, to become the Sun King’s son-in-law. Now Meknes is one of the
least visited of Morocco’s popular destinations, but somehow even though it is
only three hours by bus from my town I’d never visited it. Faced with a free
Sunday and some Christmas shopping to do I thought I would spend a day exploring.
Upon
arriving it became apparent why tourists skip Meknes in favor of Marrakech and
Fes. The old medina, while antedating
America’s Founding Fathers, is a young cousin to Fes and does not hold the same
medieval charm. Marrakech has easy access to the High Atlas, the desert, and
Essaouira, while northern charms like Rabat, the Middle Atlas, Chefchouen and
Volubilis are just as easily accessed from Fes. All this means that the Meknes medina hasn’t become overrun with shops
and restaurants catering to tourists, which is exactly what I loved about it, though
it made the Christmas shopping harder than I thought it would be. More than a
major city, Meknes’s old city reminded me of a larger version of nearby
Khenifra, a historic center still frequented by locals.
Since
people trying to make their living off tourists weren’t trying to overwhelm me
I had much more of an opportunity to talk with people then I normally get in
tourist centers. After making my compulsory stops at an excellent artisanal
crafts museum, Moulay Ismail’s triumphal gate (Bab Al Mansour, the Door of the Victorious), his tomb, and his
cistern I took the long walk out to his granaries (makhzen). These makhzen
are interesting because Ismail’s closest retainers became so closely associated
with them that the term Makhzen is
still used to talk about the powerful and influential in Moroccan society. They
are intermittently lit, and while inside them a tour guide addressed me in
French. When I asked what he’d said in Arabic he replied, “Oh, you’re a
Moroccan. The water wheel is over there.” Then he walked off. Later when I left
he was surprised to see I’m not Moroccan, but answered a quick Arabic question
for me, since I’d somehow gotten it into my head that makhzen translated to “stables.” It turns out I was confused
because Ismail also kept horses in his granary.
On the walk
back into town I wished peace upon a group of soldiers loitering by the edge of
the king’s palace—I guess guarding might be a more accurate word. In the sunlight
they were even more confused than the guide had been in the Makhzen. “You’re not Moroccan, are you?”
Basically Meknes was a huge ego boost for my accent and me. We chatted for a
little while, and I went on my way.
Shopping in
the not-particularly-twisted streets I asked the price of a symbol I’ve always
heard called the Hand of Fatima. The lady I asked was confused, saying it was
called Khmsa (the five) and that it
represents the five pillars of Islam. I’ve heard the symbol called Khmsa before, but I’d never heard anyone
favor it over the Hand of Fatima name. Her Khmsa
wasn’t what I was looking for, but later I stumbled into an artisan’s shop in a
quieter corner and after he took some time to show me how he makes his silver
on iron etch work—patiently and beautifully—I asked him about the Hand of
Fatima-Khmsa confusion. He said that Khmsa is the proper name and that “Hand
of Fatima” was a name used to help sell it to tourists. I don’t know if this is
the real origin of the alternate name, but it seems as plausible as anything
else. I thanked him for his time and his tutorial and ran to catch the last bus
back to Khenifra.
So all in
all it was a symbolically and lexicologically informative interlude, though I
still have a couple people I need to finish Christmas shopping for!
