Morocco
my heart aches for you
We were led in to the Old City, to our Riad, by an old man and his donkey, our backpacks bouncing in the cart behind them. It was somehow perfect. Marrakech was hot - so hot, dry, noisy, crowded, mysterious and magical. Due to a mix-up, our host had not reserved our room, so she offered us a large bedouin tent on the roof of her house. The ancient tent housed three cots, a tiny washroom and one sad fan. It was almost impossibly hot in there, but the night on the roof was deliciously dark, and the morning call to prayer coming from loudspeakers around the city spoke of tradition spanning centuries.
We spent three days there, wandering the narrow streets, losing ourselves in the Souks. Night-time in Jemaa-el-Fnaa was like something out of a Spielberg movie - men with snakes or monkeys, women doing henna art on arms and legs, traditional water sellers with metal cups jangling off their costumes, fires everywhere. All of Marrakech seemed to gather in the square with the now-damaged Koutoubia mosque looking down on the festivities.
To escape the heat, we spent an afternoon in the glorious Majorelle Gardens, conceived by the French painter Jacques Majorelle, then purchased in the mid-sixties by Yves Saint Laurent, who, along with Pièrre Bergé, restored it into the calm, cool, colourful oasis it is today. Oh, the colours! The walls, the pillars, the pots all blazed in brilliant shades of primaries, contrasting the soft greens of many of the giant succulents that call that place home.
We also did a trip south of the city, to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, very near to the epicentre of this week’s tragic earthquake. A taxi took us to a drop-off spot where guides waited to take tourists up the jagged trail to a beautiful, cooling waterfall. On the way we passed ancient villages carved into the rocks, watched a woman in one home, milling grain for flour. I think of those villagers now, that woman, and worry for their safety.
These people, most scrabbling each day to make a living, often with the love/hate relationships with tourists one sees in most poverty-stricken tourist-attraction locations. So very many confirmed dead or injured. So many more still buried under the rubble of mud and clay structures. So much grief.
Governments around the world are offering help. The Moroccan government and military are doing all they can. But the task of searching for survivors and the dead is arduous. The job of rehousing so many will be slow. People need food, clothing, a safe roof over their heads. I understand that there are so many tugs on our purse-strings, but if you can share even just a little…
GlobalGiving has created a Morocco Earthquake Relief Fund and is accepting donations.
UNICEF has stated that it’s ready to help Moroccans in need and is currently accepting donations.
The Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal and is accepting donations for any with immediate or severe needs.
Doctors Without Borders, a well known non-profit, is reportedly sending medical teams to Morocco.
Till next time.
Sandy