Chapter 4: True Motives Revealed

        We finally arrive in Essouaria around 9 at night.  As we pull into the lot, we are greeted by a handful of youths - all with the self-assurance of future real-estate moguls - who immediately try to get us to rent an apartment from them.  Knowing virtually no Arabic, I sit off to the side and gamely strum the guembri while Chafiq bargains with them.  After each party has walked away from the other in mock disgust a few times, they settled on a price of 150 dirham per night (about $20) and led us to our apartment..

        Smelling slightly rank, the main room covered in sad red couches, the apartment was depressing in a strangely Russian way - like I was at Raskolnikov's mother's house.  I ask, "Who gets the bedroom?".  Chafiq answers, "It doesn't matter.  I could sleep in the bed with you".  That's rather strange, I thought..  Instinctively, I take the bedroom, which has privacy. 

        After we eat, drink and smoke for a while, Chafiq pulls out the guembri and starts playing. I had my recording equipment available, and my digital camera can take a few low-fi videos as you can see below:

      
          Press the play button to hear Chafiq play Gnawa music

        I was happy to get some footage, but as Chafiq seemed to have no intention of actually going out to experience the local culture, and instead just kept encouraging me to drink more, I began to feel a little impatient.  Watching T.V., drinking and smoking,  the inevitable happened.  Stripped to his undershirt, very calm and relaxed, Chafiq offered to kiss me.  I told him no thanks.  "Pas de probleme", he said nonchalantly - no problem. 

        Five minutes later he repeated his offer.  Upon my further refusal, he made some other, more involved offers which do not need to be repeated explicitly.  Philosophically, I wondered, what if I took him up on it?  I was miles away from home. Nobody would know (of course, I have a very lovely girlfriend in the States, but just for the sake of argument).  It could be a very new experience, a chance I might never get again. But I looked at him with my full anger and skepticism, in his undershirt and gnawa pants, with his missing tooth, his pale face already growing saggy with dissipation.  I realized why he had chosen to accompany me, why he proposed the apartment, and  how he had manipulated events to get into this exact situation.  I felt used and cheated and a little angry.  I said "I'm tired.  Goodnight". 

        He begged me not to go, and, not wishing to be rude but feeling extremely uncomfortable, we sat in silence for a minute.  Finally, not able to pretend everything was okay, I got up and said good night.  He stood and rushed over to me.  I immediately tried to leave but he got in front of me, blocking my path.  He then bent over and pulled down his pants.  I slipped around him, said "Good Night", got into my bedroom, closed the door, and positioned my suitcase in front of the door.  He came softly knocking a few minutes later, trying to convince me to come out again, trying to open the door but blocked by the suitcase.  "No thanks", I said cheerfully.  "I'll see you tommorrow."

        I thought about a Taoist tale that goes like this:
        Once there was an old woman who had a little hut outside her house.  She allowed an old Taoist monk to live there and meditate, bringing him food three times a day.   One day, curious about the monk's progress, she sent a comely young servant girl to arouse him and ask, "What now?"
. 
        She did so.  "An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter," replied the monk somewhat poetically. "Nowhere is there any warmth."

        Returning to her mistress, the young girl related what had happened.

        "And to think I fed that fellow for twenty years", she exclaimed.  "He expressed no understanding, no kindness, and no compassion for you at all!" 

        And she burned the hut down.

        From one angle, Chafiq was a creep.  He invited himself along on my trip, prevented me from hanging out with the ma'alem for longer (although he also introduced me to him in the first place), got me to pay for this smelly apartment, lied to me about knowing his way around, and didn't get the picture when I told him "no" the first time.  I realized what a lot of girls probably feel like when guys lie to get in their pants.  It makes you feel dirty, and angry.

        On the other hand, he was a musician, he played well, and he had a soul.  No doubt his dead father was a psychological burden.  He still lived with his mom, didn't really have a job, drank and smoked constantly.  I expect he was lonely and he had hoped to score with a foreigner and have another bawdy story to tell his friends.  But what can I do but be gracious and let us go on our separate ways?

        He apologized the next morning by saying he was drunk - but I knew that he had intended to seduce me from the get-go - otherwise, why the apartment, the deceptions?   Things were tense.  He sold me his guembri - I knew he was overcharging me but I think both of us wanted the experience not to be a total loss.  As we walked towards the bus station, Chafiq purchased a large bag of fish for his mother to cook up once he got back to Marrakech, packing a little ice in the bag for the journey.  Taking a bag of fresh fish on a five-hour ride on a crowded bus - that was Chafiq's style.  I turned and left before he even got on.  I was glad to be on my own again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5: Eureka

    I resume my search - alone.  I wander through Essouaria.  Along the way I meet various characters - the restaurant owner who spies me reading a novel, pontificates about literature, and offers to introduce me to a ma'alem for 500 bucks - to "translate", although my French is good.  Or Hassan, the beautiful dreadlocked kid who was so excited to introduce me to his "ma'alem" - who turned out to have a busted-up guembri and a weak voice ; Zacharias, the drum store owner who offered to sell me hash instead.

    I tried using a contact supplied to me by Caroline, the cafe owner in Marrakech.  I dropped in on a beautiful shop called Chez Makki to find a guy named Hussein.  After his cousin had
blended no fewer
than sixteen different
herbs and spices to
prepare a delicious
cup of sweet mint tea
"A la Berbere",
Hussein arrived.  He
was a tall, shy, swarthy Morroccan with limited French.  We spoke only briefly, but he drew me a little map with an "X" near the Cafe de France, the address of a famous ma'alem who had toured internationally and spoke good French.  I thanked him profusely and left.

    I tarried that day, used the internet cafe, and waited till dusk.   I followed the map down a dark alley.  I followed the map and knocked on the door where the "X" indicated but was greeted with silence.  I knocked again.  And again.  Nothing.  Finally giving up, I turned back down the alley when I heard a voice say,

    "Excuse moi!"  Accustomed to merchants trying to get my attention all day, I did not turn.

    "Excuse moi!", it rang again.  A rich, woody voice.  I turned to see a figure at the other end of the alleyway.  He was a  short, curly-haired, dark-skinned man of about fifty with a moustache and a bag of groceries.  If I had arrived a second earlier he never would have seen me. 

    "I'm looking for the ma'alem", I said. 

    "That's me", he said.  I introduced myself and told him a little about myself.  When I mentioned I was a jazz pianist, I could see a ripple of understanding cross his face.

    "Come upstairs", he said. 

    We ascended a short flight of stairs  to a  small musty, bare little  workroom.  There were a few tools scattered about.  It reminded me a little bit of the first Ma'alem's shop in Marrakech - dark, dusty, a place where there are more important things than neatness.

    He offered me tea, as per the local custom.  I accepted.  My sixth cup of the day.  I waited a long while.  As I grew accustomed to my surroundings, I appreciated the large room to my right, lined with comfortable-looking cushions, a low table, and decorated with rock 'n roll posters in English and French.

 

    The ma'alem arrived
with tea, set it down on
the makeshift table
 between us, and poured
 in silence.  As happens
so often, I wondered
what was the right thing
to say or do, what was the
right attitude to take.  I
took a deep breath and
resolved to not try to do
or be anything but myself. 
While we talked, he took
out a whittled-down cutting board and a knife, upon which he placed his "groceries" - bundles of stalks of kif (dried cannabis flower) and tobacco.

    As he chopped, I explained that I had studied ethnomusicology in school, that I had come to Casablanca with a band, and that I had stayed behind to find the Gnawa.  I told him I was curious why so many Moroccans call gnawa music "jazz".  I also wanted to know the history of the music, where it came from.

        His name was Seddik Laarch.  He was the guembri player and singer with an internationally known group called Gnawa Njoum (the link here goes to a recently recorded collaboration with a Parisian DJ ).  One poster, probably about fifteen years old, showed him with a group, all dressed in gnawa costume, his guembri in hand, looking handsome and young - not too different from the man who now sat across from me.  He also made and repaired guembris for a living.  He was quiet, patient, but with a slight edge.  Perhaps he carried the burden of a worldly man?

    He told me that Gnawa was a type of Sufi music which originated with Bilal, Muhhamed's slave and Islam's first muezzin - the title of the person who performs the adhan, or call to prayer.  Blessed with a melodious voice, Bilal was thought to be able to heal the sick with his music . Hence, Gnawa music is thought to have healing properties, still called upon in special all-night healing ceremonies known as lila.  Gnawa music mixed with popular music such as jazz or rock is called Gnawa Diffusion, or less commonly, Ganwa-jazz.  These types of fusions are more common in Marrakech, he said - but the roots and the masters of true traditional Gnawa are in Essouaira.  Apparently, the Gnawa of Essouaira also sing in a different language from their Marrakech counterparts.  There is evidently a bit of a rivalry between the gnawa of these two cities.

    The ma'alem invited me to return in nighttime for an informal jam session.  I gave him a few dirham to thank him for his hospitality, descended the stairs, and wandered the sunny, wind-blown, quiet streets of Essouaira.  I had found the Gnawa.  Now my job was to listen.

 

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Seddik Laarch
Courtesy of www.cmtra.org

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