Tangier Diaries: In the medina
Making friends and getting lost in the streets of Tangier
A quick bit of housekeeping before we start today. I’d like to tell you about The Musette, my new cycling Substack. Even if cycling isn’t for you, it’s written with my usual snark and sarcasm, so if you like that, you’ll like The Musette. I’d be really grateful if you checked it out. Here’s a recent post.
In the medina in Tangier, it’s easy to make friends. I drop my bag off at a hostel, head out into the windy, narrow streets and within seconds a man has dropped in beside me.
“Do you speak Arabic?” he asks.
“No.”
“I can teach you.” He proceeds to teach me how to say hello, ask how you are, say goodbye, and, most importantly, how to say thank you.
“Shukran.”
Arabic lesson over, he tells me he could be my guide around Tangier. I tell him I don’t need one but that doesn’t seem to trouble him. He simply moves onto his next attempt to extract some dirhams from me. There’s a Berber market in the next street down, he says, it’s only on this day every week. He can take me there. That’s okay, I say, I’m going this way. He gives me a look that tells me he thinks I’m taking leave of my senses by taking leave of him, but I head off nonetheless.
A few days later, as I prepare to leave Tangier, I hear a different man, no doubt a friend of my Arabic teacher, tell an American woman about the local Berber market, on today, the only day this week. Only three days have passed.
Having shaken off my new friend I walk straight up the wrong street and find myself at the tomb of Ibn Battuta. The irony of getting lost and ending up at the tomb of one of history’s great travellers is not lost on me, but I turn back around and try to get to where I’m going - a barbecue place called Chez Hassan on the Rue d’Italie - without going back on myself.
No luck. In seconds I’m back where I started and my new friend is waiting for his next victim. He waves me over and points down towards the Berber market. No, no, I laugh and shake my head and try to pretend like I know where I’m going. I’m going this way.
Only a few minutes later I’m back again and quickly dart away down another side street. Whether it’s the right side street is irrelevant, I’ve done enough Arabic lessons for one day and if I have to be guided around another traditional market I might scream. A week and a half in Morocco and it’s been wall-to-wall traditional markets. There are so many traditional markets I wonder where all the non-traditional markets are and whether their wares all look suspiciously bulk made too.
Chez Hassan comes recommended by the owner of my hostel. He asks if I want something that isn’t tagine and I almost kiss his feet. I want anything but tagine. I’ve been a week in Morocco and all I’ve eaten is tagine. At Chez Hassan you can get tagine but they’re better known for their barbecue.
Barbecue it is! I’m greeted with a plate of assorted fish that could feed a family of four. It isn’t served in a tagine, with sauce and olives and spices. It’s served as it is, with a little lemon and fries and spicy sauces. Hassan, I decide, is my new best friend.
There are plenty of Americans in Tangier. There are plenty of people from plenty of places in Tangier, given its history as an international zone, a hotspot for writers and bohemians. But there are plenty of Americans at one specific place in Tangier: the American Legation Museum.
Formerly the building that housed the American diplomatic mission it is now a museum to all things American in Morocco. I go to visit the Paul Bowles exhibit, the writer and bohemian Tangier is most associated with in the West. I wander through exhibitions about wars and peace and presidential visits, but no Paul Bowles.
I find his wing in the courtyard, closed for renovations. Bowles or his artefacts may no longer be here but the museum is like a reunion party for any American who happens to find himself in Morocco. Every room is full of Americans of about retirement age trundling through the exhibitions. Kathy and Phyllis and Wanda seem to be having a lovely time and they don’t seem too bothered that Paul Bowles is unavailable.
Westerners of a more Anglo-Saxon persuasion find a home just off the Grand Socco at St. Andrew’s Church. If the Legation Museum feels like stepping into a little bit of Washington D.C. then stepping into the garden surrounding St. Andrew’s feels like stepping into a tiny bit of Buckinghamshire.
The large white tower almost hides amongst the trees and the foliage from outside the gates and in the evening the church is surrounded by Tangier natives selling their wares on the pavements. The morning I visit these men are gone and only another Englishman and I amble through the gravestones. The names are British to match the flag that flies above the tower.
I think about staying for the service but time and other plans prevent me. It’s probably for the best. At university I fell in with the Christian Union for a while, only to spend most of my time at their meetings scanning the room for the other reluctant attendees. It was only when my Christian friend Jay pointed out that since we were at university, those reluctant Christians tended to stay at home and drink these days. There’s no chance of a drink in Tangier, unless you look really hard, but I leave the peace and quiet for the English expats all the same.
I need to buy a fez. It’s L’s one request. I am going to Morocco and so she wants a fez. I may not be going to Fes, but I cannot return without a fez. I drop into a shop up from Chez Hassan. This is the place. Lots of hats sit wrapped in paper and eventually a man appears from a back room.
I should probably haggle but I don’t. It’s my last night in Morocco and dirhams won’t do me much good in north London. Plus the price is less than £4, which, even if this is expensive for Tangier, I feel like the man doing the swindling.
I hand over the money and decide to put my Arabic lesson to use.
“Shukran.”
The man’s eyes light up.
“You speak Arabic?” he asks. Ah.
“Well, just Shukran,” I say with an apologetic shrug. It doesn’t matter. He grasps my hand and shakes it, “shukran,” he says back, with feeling.
In the medina in Tangier, it’s easy to make friends.
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*insert photo wearing Fez and wide grin*
This is brilliant writing as always Tom. But what do you think happened to Paul? Maybe he was hiding under The Sheltering Sky??? 😂 sorry, couldn’t resist. Sounds like a fun trip.