Every Monday, I have been going with my CBT group and language teacher to my nearby souq to buy fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the week. Souq is basically a weekly farmer’s market, Moroccan style. You can find every fruit and veggie in season, tons of spices, any household item you’d ever want (except, of course, for what you’re actually looking for), livestock. If you looked hard enough, I’m sure there would be children for sell too. It’s dirty, it’s packed with not only people, but also donkeys, loud, usually a little smelly. Souq can be quite a scary thing for Americans who are used to calm shopping experiences, but it’s one of my favorite parts of Morocco so far. My CBT usually walks an hour and a half to get to our souq town. We fetch our fruits and veggies, usually rest for 15-20 minutes at a café, laugh at French tourists walking around in tank-tops and shorts, and then head back to our training village.
Instead of walking back to our village, we always take a tranzit back to town. An old minivan with a missing first gear usually hauls the 7 Americans and our teacher back to town. The van is also stuffed with anywhere from 10-20 other people, depending on how many are willing to ride on the roof. The dirt/sand road that gets us back to our village is a bumpy little path, ready to surrender only to the strongest automobiles. Our minivan fits the bill, and crosses through two rivers with as much ease as you might except from a shabby 25 year old automobile.
As atrocious as the experience may sound, I actually enjoy riding in tranzits and going to souq, mostly because I get to practice my language skills on unexpecting Moroccans. I really enjoy their surprise when a foreigner speaks Arabic, or even English, as compared to French. Souq is also an excellent time to discover how to make friendly conversation with the many friendly Moroccans.
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