market – Eating Research

pomegranates

I have moved to Thursday. When the taxi was going to the town I was going to, and was going to Thursday, I thought nothing of it. Then, on the first Thursday I was in my new flat, my landlady said that the landlord had gone to Thursday. Right. Then I heard my lovely new Moroccan friend here tell some people that no, I didn’t live in the city anymore, I’d rented a place here in Thusday. So, the case is settled, I live in Thursday.

What I had been told that helped me make sense of this was that in each of the towns there is a big market one day of the week, and in this town, that day of the week is Thursday. So although I didn’t realise I was moving to Thursday when I moved here, because the town has a proper name too, I was able to work out (and I’ve checked this with people) that the town is known as Thursday because the market is on Thursday. Needless to say that the market is a big deal.

So if you are outside of Thursday and you go to Thursday that means that you are going to my town. If you are in my town and you say you’re going to Thursday that means you’re going to the market. Everyone goes to the market. So everything seems to revolve around Thursdays, and the market. It’s the day that people get off work (if they work in agriculture which most people do), it’s the day that they buy their food for the rest of the week. I should say we. It’s the day we buy our food, because I live in Thursday now.

Food isn’t the only thing at the market, but I think it is the main event. You have to go through the clothes and the stationary and the pots and pans to get to the food and everyone is headed for the food. Let’s take fruit for example. At the moment you can get apples and bananas (grown in greenhouses too nearby), the last of the grapes, the odd melon, and oranges and pomegranates. The oranges are small and green so I would have thought they were limes if I hadn’t eaten one the other day. Very nice. My taste-buds feared the acid of a lime but got the sweetness of a small orange. Not even the bland taste of a nectarine. Orange it was called and orange it was.

What else do we need to know about Thursdays? Well, there is no water. I think this is quite an important detail. On my second day here last week I mentioned that the water had been off for several hours and my landlady said (you guessed it), “yes, that’s because it’s Thursday”. Whenever too many people are trying to use the water at once it cuts off, but on Thursdays it seems everyone higher up the water-chain is using the water because it doesn’t come back until about 10pm.

Things have changed now I’ve moved to Thursday. I am now the only foreigner in town and so getting extra special care and attention, in both good and annoying ways. Although I haven’t changed, the Morocco around me has, and that’s changed me in it. While the me in Morocco in Rabat was comfortable walking around with a modest pony-tail, and covering my hair would have made me feel like a fraud, the me here fits in a bit better with the pony-tail under a scarf. There doesn’t seem to be anything fraudulent about it. Apparently the baby downstairs was afraid of my hair. So covering it doesn’t feel like wearing a cross if you’re not a Christian any more. It feels more like taking your shoes off in someone’s house when that’s what they do. Things have shifted a little and I need to fit in a bit more here in order to be comfortable, and for others to be comfortable with me.

What was that I heard someone in some seminar say? Meaning is subjective. Maybe that’s the research moral I’m dragging out of this…. What does Thursday mean? Well it looks like it depends where you are, doesn’t it? And the headscarf? Well, right now for me it means I get a few less cat-calls and the baby downstairs looks slightly less frightened.

It bleats, it pants, it kicks, it smells, it is: ‘l hawli’. As I pass by the market with my clearly French face, this is helpfully (and without my asking) translated for me as: ‘le mouton’. L hawli, le mouton, the sheep, has arrived in central Rabat.

The holy festival of Eid l’Kbir (big Eid), officially known as ‘Eid al-Adha’ is this Monday. The celebration remembers Ibrahim’s sacrifice and is a major festival in Islam. The exact date is determined every year according to the lunar calendar, and in Morocco the feast is accompanied by two days of public holiday. Public transport is packed as everyone goes to join their families. The festival seems to be a joyous time for everyone and I’ve never seen some of my teachers looking happier. It’s just the horned protagonists who don’t get to join in with the smiles and celebrations.

For me, the festivities started when the taxi ride to school suddenly got more interesting. Normally you hail down a little blue cab, see whether it’s going in your direction, and whether your journey is compatible with the journeys of anyone else already in it. Then, like taxis anywhere, there will be a speedy journey with strange music or chat about the weather.

This week though, as the empty land which hosted an international music festival in the Spring was turned into a different kind of living hubbub. As we pass by the market the conversations change: ‘have you bought your hawli yet?’, ‘no, not yet!’, or, ‘l hawli, no! In the market they’re too expensive! We have them in the countryside, my uncle buys him cheaper’.

At the language school where I’ve been trying to remember my (Moroccan) Arabic, hawli is clearly the word of the week. I have never seen so many sheep impressions. My first curiosity and question (to a taxi driver) was, ‘do people buy their hawli dead or alive’. The question worked better after I’d actually learnt the words for dead and alive, but by the end of the week I didn’t really need a verbal answer. These sheep were going home in-tact. My teacher confirmed my conclusion: the hawli goes home, it lives in the garden or on the balcony, the children feed it grass, and then a few days later, ta da! The adults have done their work, and no need for any more grass.

I don’t want to romanticise the hawli market. The sheep going home on hand-pushed carts are the lucky ones. A lot of them get a cord around their legs and are then instead headed for a car boot. Be that car a swanky brand new white four by four, or the boot of a small taxi.

Nor do I want to make it sound unreasonable. Perhaps if in Europe we went to the effort of going and choosing a live bird for Christmas, we would value more the life and sacrifice of that animal. Perhaps. In any case, the reality of the provenance of meat is being made painfully clear in the streets of the capital this week.

Unfortunately, I’m going to let you down at the end of this post with no actual food (again!). As an outsider, on this occasion, not wishing to impose on any families and their quality time together, I am not sharing in the festivities and the sacrifices of Eid. Instead I will do what’s expected of me as a French, white, Christian tourist and have a couple of days off too, on the beach. The sea is one thing that doesn’t close for Eid.

Pop-up hawli market

Hawli goes home, I catch a taxi

Men sit and watch over the animals they have bought to market

I wasn’t the only window-shopper

A woman takes a reluctant hawli home