My favorite café so far in Marrakech is Café des Espices in the spice piazza (I’m sorry I will never not be Italian in naming this type of space). Rattan umbrellas three deep, stools, armchairs with red carpet pillows on the perimeter, straw hats on each table, greeter man, waiters and waitresses! scurrying about, huge straw bell shaped lamps hanging inside, misters and the perfect people watching. I’ve started going everyday. It’s close to both riads I’ve been in and it’s good to feel recognized. When I’m traveling alone, it’s these small connections that help hold the day, help you feel in a place, help you belong. Tether you. I think we have them too at home, we just don’t realize how important they are. We have our routines, our families, our coworkers and so I don’t think we really notice how important the connection of our barista is or the one waiter at the restaurant we always frequent. But I know on a visceral level how much better I feel once I have some of these connections in a place that’s new. Consequential strangers, they’re called. My friend Google tells me; they are important because they allow you to explore facets of your personality without the pressure of your core relationships. They provide a sense of community, and they are crucial for fostering a feeling of belonging. Yes!
They know me there now and know that I speak enough Darija that they will now only take any order from me in Darija, which delights me. The other day, the big boss saw me coming and pulled out my chair, “We were waiting for you!” The waiters say nice to see you and when I leave, see you tomorrow, in Darija of course. I think so much language confidence is started here in these small interactions that don’t really matter. It’s where you feel comfortable starting to use more words and trying to say more things. Half the draw of this place is the people watching. I watch as the vendors in the piazza unwrap their products stored overnight under tarp and rope and begin to set up shop. It reminds me of my art fair days, setting up, arranging just so. It’s a precarious foundation on which all these straw bags are stacked…flimsy cardboard boxes with cardboard laid out like a table on top. Bags stacked inside bags, inside sideways, inside diagonally until they are stacked eight high so all the designs show. Bags stacked inside the next inside the next inside the next and hanging from the umbrella. Said umbrella has only four working ribs and has copious amounts of wooden sticks rammed into the joiner. It takes about five tries to get everything to say put. One sharp breeze and it’s going to be a catastrophe. All the while, joking, laughing, chatting.
The henna ladies are who I really like to watch. One sits just across the way on her chair with plastic stools in front of her covered in laminated images of henna designs. Under an umbrella, she always has a slight scowl on her face. She stares and me, I stare at her. I’m half convinced she’s putting a spell on me. She alternates between calling out from a relaxed position. Henna. Henna. Sometimes she stands and tries to put the booklet into peoples’ hands. It’s interesting to watch the dance of it all. Women will be intrigued and stop; the men they are with invariably are like come on what are you doing. It’s a precarious moment for the henna lady because the woman is torn, she wants to, but her companion is trying to talk her out of it. It becomes a bit of a stand off between the henna lady and the man…each trying to convince the woman. Whenever she can, the henna lady inserts her body between the woman and the man, tries to take the hand of the woman and lead her to the chair. The problem tends to be, she is not the henna lady…she’s the front man and once she gets the lady in the chair, she has to go fetch the woman who will do the henna. And here is where it falls apart about half the time. She’s left the woman unsupervised with the man who is trying to convince her not to do it and when she returns, it’s the same dance of trying to get the woman to sit back down, but you know it’s futile if she’s gotten out of the chair. Once the henna is happening, she seems like a different person, relaxed, chatting with the woman. Gone is the hard face, the harsh tone, the slight glare. She laughs and I think she speaks every language. She’s been gone the last two days. The café boys tell me she went on vacation to Essaouira. I’m glad for her, but it’s a disappointment to me to have her be missing from her place.
I love watching all the groups of people come and go. They sit, they drink, they leave. No one seems to linger, and it amazes me the turnover that happens. Most want to go to the rooftop terrace, and a lot of the interactions are spent directing people to the correct staircase. I watch men hurry down the street carrying trays of tea, donkey carts full of cement pass. This seems to the be main thing they transport, the donkeys. The most incredible thing I see is a juice man. He has a white metal drum on wheels with metal rings hanging from the side to hold glass pints. A bucket of water hangs from the side. For some coins, he dips a cone shaped ladle into the drum, holds it high in the air and a light orange colored juice streams out the bottom. The customer stands there and drinks the juice while the next man waits for his. They drink it on the spot and hand the glass back. The juice man dunks it in the bucket of water and hangs it again from the side of the drum, ready for the next customer. I wonder about germs, but somehow this all works…like the tea glasses circled around everywhere with just some water washing them out between drinkers.
Sometimes I write in my journal, sometimes I just sit back and watch it all. I say see you again to my favorite waiter, but it will not be tomorrow. I go to my suburban apartment and start a new chapter in the morning. Feeling sad about leaving all these connections and routines. I wonder if they wonder where people go. I’m grateful for this place and I will miss it.
