#4 Citazioni

 The following  citations  shape the  material  reality  of  the city:

 ''We stopped for a cup of tea in a  little tearoom overlooking the edge of the square Jemaa el Fna and gazed down at the spectacle, storytellers and snake charmers, and native people coming and going on the errands of their daily lives. When we had drunk our tea, Rashid who had briefly disappeared ,led us down to wander in the thronged square. We stopped on the fringes of a crowd around a man telling a story, with a little drum  he used to emphasise the thrilling parts-of course, we couldn't understand it but Rashid whispered a translation''.

        Diane Johnson, Lulu in Marrakech, London: Penguin, 2009,pp 31

'' He led us into alleys  we'd just been in, to a little stall we probably had passed without noticing, lined with apothecary jars and hanging bunches of herbs and peppers. It exuded the fragrance of lavender or thyme, and ,if I was right - for I am beginning to take an interest in culinary things-some sort of anise concoction resembling the odour of pastis, a nasty French drink I'd never liked. Bottles of  rose water and fleur d'oranger lined the shelves, and little fragrant mountains of powdered cumin and turmeric were composed on a plank in front. Burlap sacks of pods and dried leaves were artfully opened to add to  the richness of the array. A wind would have wafted the whole of his treasure into the air, but there was no wind''

Diane Johnson, Lulu in Marrakech,London:Penguin,2009 ,pp 31

''The cotter's Riad, in the Medina, is an old and beautiful one dating from the eighteenth  century, three stories high, with carved shutters of dark wood, and dramatic palms in pots and floors of ruby mosaic tile. From the roof you see across the roofs of other buildings, shaded with canvas awnings or gauzy curtains, washing hang out, TV antennas, satellite  dishes, and deck chairs.''

Diane Johnson, Lulu in Marrakech,London:Penguin,2009 ,pp 74

''We had left the white roofs and minarets of Casablanca behind us, driving away from the bright blue Atlantic heading south into the heart of Morocco. We thought we knew what we were doing. We were going to spend a year in Marrakech-''Marrakech la rouge'' as the French had titled it-the rose-red city of poem and legend. Marrakech, oasis city at the foot of the High  Atlas Mountains. Marrakech, far-out place of modern nomads; Marrakech stop on the old Sahara caravan routes from Timbuktu to the Barbary coast.''

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, A street in Marrakech, Waveland: Waveland press,1988,pp21

The dots on the horizon ahead resolved themselves into palm trees, roofs, minarets. Besides us on the road two men in djellabas were shepherding flocks of goats and sheep aside with sticks so our car could pass. Closer, among the green trees,the walls and flat roofs  of the houses glowed red, with the river clay that is mixed into all Marrakech plaster and gives the city its distinctive coloration. We passed boys on donkeys, veiled women in djellabas riding motorcycles, a gas station and from a rocky promontory on our right onto a wide, paved boulevard centred and bounded with palms, orange trees and tickly spreading oleanders. The sun had set and the street lights were flashing  on ahead of us illuminating suddenly, at the end of the boulevard, the majestic square based minaret of the  Koutoubia mosque.''

Elizabeth Warnock  Fernea  , A street in Marrakech ,Waveland: Waveland press,1988,pp25