Jma el Fna

PLAYED OUT AGAINST a backdrop of vibrant cultural colour, the late Marrakech afternoon is like nothing else on Earth.

The souqs are packed with bargains, bustle, and with people cloaked in hooded jelaba robes. Stacked up are bundles of wool carpets from the High Atlas, dazzling brass trays inscribed with the names of God, baskets of dried damask roses, mounds of pungent incense and sulphur, and endless shops, each one crammed with treasure from the remotest reaches of the desert.

For all the wonders of the medina though, it’s the great square of Jma el Fna that I find the most tantalizing spot of all. It lies at the heart of real Marrakech, the city of snake charmers, the crème de la crème of the Exotic East.

Most people hurry across it fast. Pause too long and you’re sure to be sucked in deep. But to me that’s the true magic… being pulled down through the layers like a man floundering on the ocean waves. Allow yourself to be free, and you glimpse the many facets of this mesmerizing stew of humanity.

The Halka: A circle of people stands in the darkness, shoulders pressed together tight, necks craning forward for a view… a great green parasol looming over them, and me as I push in closer. The outside world gradually fades away and then…is shut out. The sense of anticipation growing, palpable and electric.

I’m being sucked in… through the rows of onlookers to the source of this frenzied, primal rhythm. I’m descending back through time… to when this place, Jma el Fna, was no more than an oasis in the desert. Suddenly, I break into the centre of the circle, walled by shadows and men’s faces, illuminated by the jolting, jarring flame of a gas-lamp. It’s like the meeting of a secret fraternity.

In the middle of the halka – the circle of souls – leaps the riotous silhouette of a man, a violin grasped tight in his hand, the crowd gripped by the wild strains of his instrument. As he turns into the light, I catch his features… bearded, tight curly hair, smiling eyes upturned to the stars. Raw, energetic, hypnotic… a Moroccan Jimi Hendrix, a Berber master musician.

First Impressions: Anyone who’s ever been to Marrakech remembers the first time they stepped onto the frenetic expanse of Jma el Fna. For me it was a searing afternoon back in June ’71. I was four years old. My fingers were pressed tight in my father’s hand, my eyes blinking in the dazzling light.

Despite the heat, the square was crowded beyond belief. There were snake charmers and tumbling acrobats, medicine men in Toureg robes, blind men and water-sellers, madmen and doped out hippies crouching in the shade.

Stumbling forward through the waves of people, I was mesmerized. It was as if every man, woman, and child on Earth was right there. A seething stew of humanity set in random motion.

Watching over it all like a sentinel – the minaret of Jma el Fna itself, the mosque of the annihilation, the mosque of eternity, the mosque at the end of the world.

Over the years, and especially since I moved to Morocco, I have returned to Marrakech again and again, and always find myself crisscrossing the square, usually heading for shade of the ancient medina, whose twisting lanes stretch out behind it in a great secret labyrinth.

Soaking it up: My father used to say that the only way to absorb the atmosphere was to close your eyes. ‘Listen to the sounds that go unnoticed,’ he would tell me, ‘and breathe in the smells that the nostrils try to filter out… concentrate, and the reality will reveal itself.’

It’s a lesson that’s never failed me. And whenever I venture into Jma el Fna, I do as he suggested, and find myself transported to a space on the edge of the imagination, a cross-section of medieval Morocco that’s as real today as it’s ever been… but one whose true form is truly elusive.

Facts and figures: My father, who was from Afghanistan, would scowl when I would ask for facts and figures… when I begged to be told how big the square was, or when it was laid out.

‘You’ve been brainwashed by the West,’ he would say. ‘To understand Jma el Fna you must cut away Occidental thinking, release your mind, and absorb the place from the inside out.’

Zigzag: For my father, the zigzag approach was the only way to understand something. ‘Throw yourself in at the deep end,’ he would say, ‘run free, bouncing around like a billiard ball on the baize, and you’ll build up an accurate picture, a little at a time.’

Forty years later, and I’m back in the middle of the square, ready to step out, to zigzag. I’m itching to feel the waves of energy, to seek out the invisible, and to hear the sounds that are muffled to even the sharpest ears.

Day/Night: Just like the halkas, the circles of joy and entertainment, which are born and die through the day and the night, Jma el Fna is a place without a beginning or an end. It’s a circle of life, with its peaks and lulls, enacted from the first rays of dawn to the last strains of night.

Every day. Every night.

Fishing for drinks: Every time I visit the square there’s something new, a display of fresh ingenuity. This time it’s the man over there with scarred hands and a limp. For the last half hour he’s been laying out spiraling rows of plastic bottles, warm fizzy drinks. Everyone’s wondering what’s going on. He’s already pulling a crowd and he’s not even begun.

Jma el Fna is all about picquing the crowd’s curiosity, and one way to do that is to keep them guessing. When they can’t stand it any longer, he unfurls a clutch of homemade fishing rods, long bamboo staves, dangling strings with what look like curtain rings on the ends. The local preoccupation with fizzy drinks, and eagerness for a bargain, has made it an instant success.

Secret Police: Everyone says that the square’s crawling with secret police. Like a separate group of invisible performers, they’re masters of disguise, watching every hand, purse and pocket. The entertainers, healers, and food sellers all claim to know who’s who. But they’re not telling me. It’s one of many secrets here, I suppose, I’ll have to decipher for myself.

Tourists: The tourists stick out because of their pasty white skin and their clothing, but most of all because of the way they reel forwards between the halkas, enthralled by it all. Some of them are grinning, others scowling, all clicking photos instead of watching what’s really going on.

It’s as if they’re desperate to penetrate what is a secret society. Some of them think they’ve actually done it, that they’ve been accepted into the folds. But they never quite manage. They’re oil on the water. And although they can get mixed up for a moment, they separate out as they’re washed forward through the crowds.

Earning Marrakech: These days it’s far too easy to get to Marrakech. Budget airlines touch down at the new international terminal day and night, from across Europe and beyond. Waves of tourists emerge and, like moths to a flame, they’re lured by the mythical reputation of Jma el Fna, the heart of Marrakech, the heart of Morocco.

Feel the fire: It’s all too easy in a way. Until quite recently you had to struggle through the desert to get here. Sweat, thirst, heat, and even delirium. But you arrived changed by the journey, ready to receive something so magical that language can hardly convey. If I had my way, you’d still have to reach Marrakech by foot, for there’s no better way to soak up its core than as a wayfarer, ripened by travel.

Cigarette sellers: Some square-dwellers are almost invisible as they slip nimbly through the crowds. But you hear them. A fistful of coins jangling as they approach, an open packet of cigarettes, sold one at a time to anyone needing a nicotine fix.

Medicine-man: As the afternoon light peaks in intensity, a row of healers lay out their stalls in a line on the ground in a corner of the square. Drawing a crowd, they reel off numbers and cures. Dressed in billowing indigo robes, embroidered with gold, turbans crowning their heads, they claim to heal any disorder – of body or mind.

Their dusty old quilts are packed with wares: ostrich eggs and stork feathers, tortoise shells, dried reptiles, great lumps of sulphur, antimony and chalk. Phials filled with murky grey liquids, dried damask roses, aromatic seeds, and swathes of shocking pink silk.

Of all those making their living here, it’s the magico-medicine men who are doing the briskest trade. Customers hurry up one by one. They spit out the name of an affliction, in no more than a whisper… a rash, an eruption of sores, a need for revenge on a neighbour, or the yearning for a son.

The healer nods, his fingers conjuring a cure from the treasure chest of ingredients before him. His sales’ patter is unbroken as clients and onlookers stand spellbound. He wraps the mixture in a twist of paper, hands it over fast, and snatches the customer’s coins into the voluminous folds of his robe.

A desert lizard emerges from under the same robe, head held high, a string around its waist attached to its master’s finger. It blinks, as if in approval of the transaction.

Dentist: Nearby, in the shade of the mosque, is a dentist, sitting on a stool… in front of him a platter overflowing with human teeth. He’s got small darting eyes, a checkerboard smile, and confidence in his skill at bringing even the most severe toothache to a swift end. Whatever the condition, the treatment appears to be the same… a quick open air operation with a pair of rusted iron pliers, and a plug of grubby cotton wool to stem the flow of blood.

Henna women: It’s true that most of those who make their living in Jma el Fna are men. But look around and you realize there are professions reserved exclusively for women. They are the sorceresses and fortune tellers. And cast an eye through the square during the quiet hours of the afternoon and you see the henna women perched on stools under parasols. As soon as they spot a pallid foreigner, they hold up their henna-filled syringe and grin.

A catalogue of pictures is at the ready… decorated hands and feet. Squat on a stool for a minute or two, hold still as the hand grasping the syringe weaves its magic, and you’ve been initiated into the ancient sisterhood of Marrakech.

Snake charmers: There’s no noise so alluring, so utterly hypnotic as the rhaita, the snake charmer’s flute. A cliché maybe, but a mainstay of Jma el Fna, a backbone of sound and sight that bewitches tourists and locals alike.

Long before you reach the square, you hear its piercing tone. Riotous, fearful, yet somehow tamed, it cuts like a laser beam through the interminable din of the traffic, and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.

Draw near, enchanted by the rawest streak of sound, and the serpents are knocked from their rest beneath a clutch of circular drums. Dazzled by the sudden blast of light, a pair of spitting cobras rear up, poised to strike. Despite the heat, the snake charmer’s wearing a thick woolen jelaba, a ragged strand of calico wrapped around his head. And around his neck a water snake, its tongue licking the afternoon heat, a desert accessory.

Food Stalls: Just after the muezzin calls the afternoon prayer, dozens of iron carts are propelled forward from all corners of the square. Like gun carriages made ready for war, they’re positioned precisely on the east side of Jma el Fna, and unloaded. Cast iron struts and staves, pots, pans, tables, benches and stools, are knocked into place.

These days the food stalls are fed by electricity, illuminated by bare bulbs, bathing the diners in platinum light. As soon as you draw near to the battery of stalls, the hustlers galvanize into action. They’re paid to entice anyone with a few coins going spare, to eat at their stall.

Fingers jabbing at the hodge-podge of dishes on offer, they can recount the menu in any language you chose – there’s sheep brains and lamb on skewers, octopus, squid, and fried slabs of fish, tripe, goat’s head, snails, all of it washed down with miniature glasses of hot sweet tea.

Denzil Washington: King of the Hustlers is a burly fresh-faced man of about thirty, who goes by the nickname ‘Denzil Washington’. Venture anywhere near his food-stall, Number 117, and he careens forward with a laminated plastic menu at the ready. Like the other hustlers, he’s skilled in working out where you’re from, long before you utter a word. This sixth sense, which must have evolved over centuries, makes the difference between survival and extinction.

Change: Travel back and forth to a place you love and it’s the change you notice first. It hits you side on, blurring your memories. Sometimes when I visit the square, I cry out in rage at the creeping gentrification. For me, Jma el Fna should be stuck in time, unaltered ever… a Peter Pan destination.

But the wonderful thing about the square is that change is quickly assimilated or undone. Here, nothing is set in stone. Efforts to introduce boundaries of any kind are thwarted by an ancient system far more powerful than the authorities who clamour for change.

A few years ago the orange juice sellers were corralled into a row of mock calèche carriages. I jumped up and down in ire when I saw them for the first time. But these days I realize that they have a place, and that it’s the content which is important, rather than the container itself.

Boxers: Another halka is forming. In the middle stands a rough-looking man with a woolly blue hat, a week’s growth of beard on his cheeks, and the end of a cigarette screwed into the corner of his mouth. He’s got a heap of third-hand boxing gloves beside him, and he’s cajoling anyone to come forward and try their luck.

As soon as the crowd senses action, their numbers swell. More and more people are turning up, the atmosphere stoked by a hardened accomplice in a flame-red tracksuit. He’s coaxing people to throw coins down onto the ground. He’ll let the fight start when there’s enough cash in the ring. The dirhams come slowly.

In one corner there’s a desperate looking contender, with a broken nose, ragged jelaba, and back-to-front baseball cap. In the other, a handsome teenager in a Barcelona football shirt. He’s got curly greased back hair. They raise their gloves, spar for a moment, but the fight’s short-lived. The youngster dodges a few swipes, then quickly abandons his hopes and his gloves.

But now, a young woman steps forward, puts on the gloves. I can’t believe it. Neither can the audience.

The secrets of Jma el Fna are only revealed to the patient, and to the observant. Turn up day after day and you’ll find the same girl stepping forward into the ring and strapping on the gloves. She’s the ring-master’s daughter and, like the other boxers, she’s in on the deal.

Gnaoua: The roots of Jma el Fna sink deep down into the sand beneath the entertainers’ feet. The place may now be paved over but it’s a square of desert, an oasis with a sacred soul. Most of all, it’s African, the vast expanse of sky above, boiling with cumulus clouds, a reminder to anyone who doubts it.

And of all the life-forces that pour through you in the square, the truest and most vibrant of all is surely the Gnaoua. A brotherhood of African troubadours, dressed in brightly-coloured desert robes with cowrie-shell hats, they’re forming a semi-circle now.

Great iron castanets, clattering like cymbals. Their rhythm gives the square its endless beating pulse, day and night. The sound is more like a cohort of warriors heading to battle, than a troupe of musicians touting for tourists’ change.

Appeal of Jma el Fna: Pass a little time in the square, and you begin to see that it’s peopled by ordinary Moroccans. It’s not a place for the bling bling set or the nouveau riche. They steer well clear, preferring the fashionable cafés of the new town.

Yet Jma el Fna’s great enduring appeal is that it turns no one away. It’s an ancient entertaining machine, a healer, a listener, a giver of sustenance, and a friend.

Flautist: A flautist has entered the square and sits without fuss in the centre, playing his wooden pipe, as at ease here as a shepherd on a mountainside. Hunched in his dark blue jelaba, the crowds move around him, unsure whether to dwell or linger, the cacophonous nature of the space pulling them in different directions, looking for other circles to join.

He plays, oblivious to the surrounding throng, his cap on the ground, upturned and coinless. He plays a tune which, to my ears, could have been played here a thousand years ago… as the camel caravans paused en route for sustenance and entertainment. A timeless witness, he plays and plays but no coins come.

Blind Musician: It’s true that some of the entertainers rely on their hustling skills to get by. But there are players with extraordinary talent as well. As evening slips into night, an old blind musician, with a microphone strapped around his neck, twists up the volume knob on his amplifier, and begins to play. He’s not doing it for the money, but because the square is his sweetheart, his theatre, his home.

Pin-striped Healer: The business of a specific halka tends to be clear from a distance. Glance at the faces of the audience and you see it right away, reflected like candlelight in a mirror. Most of the time entertainers keep the atmosphere jovial, because humour leads to laughter, and laughter leads to generosity.

But some performers have a far graver message. The darkest of all on this night is a man in a black wool pinstripe suit. He has a huge beard, like a great black inverted candyfloss. He’s missing his front teeth, and his creased face is gripped with an almost maniacal expression.

He’s ranting on about Jinn, the spirits that Muslims believe exist in a parallel world laid atop of our own. The subject is greeted with terrified looks, especially when the pin-stripe healer starts spewing numbers – the alphanumeric Abjad system, linchpin in a magician’s repertoire.

Row of Blindmen: Jma el Fna has its own telegraphy. It knows about you long before you know about it. A row of blind men begging for alms are alerted of my presence by a woman sitting on a stool nearby.

She calls to them, explaining that I’m recording them. They stand up and, staring directly at me with wide glassy eyes, wave their sticks. Commotion ensues and suddenly confusion and ill temper reign in a corner of the square. But the pervasive natural rhythm of el Fna soon restores order.

Bike Boy: Fleeting moments in the dark: a boy before me is suddenly pushed down to the ground on his bicycle by an older girl. She makes sure she hurts him, and is then gone, away into the night.

Storyteller: The storytellers (or hakawatis), draw the largest of all the crowds even if their own numbers are dwindling … when they are out, their halkas are lined with listeners, both old and young.

Recounting tales from Alf Layla wa Layla,A Thousand and One Nights, and other favourite collections like Antar wa Abla, they tap into a communal obsession for the fantastic.

The best storytellers are good businessmen as well. They know when to stop their tale on a cliffhanger, appealing for a few coins before they go on.

Like so much of what takes place at Jma el Fna, the stories are understood by few foreigners, as they’re recounted in Darija, the Moroccan dialect. The tourists might take pictures of the crowd, but they don’t penetrate… or receive the ancient message being passed on.

Order: Spend some time soaking up the atmosphere through all the senses, and patterns begin to emerge. It’s part of Jma el Fna’s own form of magic, an alchemy that transforms disorder into order.

Fears for the Future: I used to worry that the square would one day be destroyed, built over, its revelers disbanded. But now I see how impossible that would be. As a cornerstone of life, Jma el Fna is somehow indispensible to Marrakchis, as vital to them as the air they breathe.

Zigzag Conclusions: Standing in the ocean of people, circles forming, flourishing, and dissipating likes ripples all around, I’m reminded of my father’s words, that the best way to understand the square, and to experience it, is the zigzag way… zigzag back and forth for long enough, and you’re touched by the sorcery of the place… from the inside out.

Pass through it long enough and it begins to pass through you.