Marrakech

Ben Youssef Medersa

I mistook the sounds of cats mating for the call to prayer. At 6.30am, I would be woken due to the close proximity of a mosque, or so I thought, but instead, that night, it was the cats that startled me. There were cats almost everywhere I looked in Marrakech and even the tortoise that lived on the roof terrace tended to eat catfood.

The riad where I stayed had pretty blue and white tiles and original ornate plasterwork borders and across the seats were cushions of green and gold. In the centre of the riad, the courtyard felt almost as if it was another room, except when you looked upwards, there was the sky.

Wandering around the centre of Marrakech, I noticed the pinkish hue of the buildings, the natural colour of red ochre. I saw lanterns and carpets that may have been magic and filled with djinn, but I did not stop to look.

I saw scribes, writing frantically, with crowds gathered around them in the Jemaa El Fna.

I saw people who seemed as if they must have been storytellers, but I could not understand the language they spoke.

I saw orange trees and beautiful mosques, ruined palaces with elaborate tiles still remaining and storks nesting, contrasting with the satellite dishes and laundry drying on nearby roofs.

( Read more... )