Marrakech Express by Peter Millar

Author:Peter Millar [Peter Millar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9781909807778
Google: oa5CEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Published: 2014-10-15T23:23:40.067971+00:00

6

Croquet with Our Man in Morocco

MY TRAIN ROLLS INTO RABAT AGDAL, the capital’s southern suburban station, dead on time. It is a short, hourly shuttle service reminiscent of that between New York and Washington DC; there as here, linking the nation’s commercial capital with its political one.

On the outskirts of Casa, more bidonvilles line the tracks, the polythene sheeting of their makeshift roofs all but concealed behind three-metre-high concrete walls, as if they were gated communities, but the satellite dishes give the lie to the attempt to conceal their existence. As the line curves along the coast to the coastal commuter town of Mohammadia and beyond, the seaward view offers a vision of Moroccan society’s past, present and maybe future. Tanker terminals and power stations line the coast along with a sprawl of modern apartment complexes and the occasional shopping mall, while in between them wander herds of goats, guarded by their Obi Wan Kenobi figures, the hoods of their woollen jellabas pulled up though it is still over 20 degrees. A horseman gallops as if across the savannah towards a shanty town of tents and lean-to shacks only identifiable as living accommodation by the inevitable cluster of satellite dishes. Next to them, the occasional cow wanders and a few women pull a cart by hand. Here and there vast stretches of rubble can be seen where a bidonville has been razed, the policy here as it is in the cities: do not repair or restore what cannot be fixed – raze and redevelop.

It is a less than appealing vision of the future: faceless white blocks with no amenities save the obligatory mosque, no corner bar in which to exchange banter or gossip with a drink, if only tea or coffee, to loosen the tongue, just the battery cages for the workers. It is not surprising that some of Casa’s poorest prefer to remain in their bidonvilles. But this sprawling, faceless urban development is not confined to Morocco; it is a gloomily growing global phenomenon as the buzz words ‘housing’ and ‘accommodation’ replace such outworn ancient terms as ‘village’ and ‘community’. In so many cases, the only difference is the quality of the cages.

I emerge from Rabat Aqdal station, which serves the smart residential suburb and diplomatic quarter to the south of the city centre, to see the grinning face of an old friend who is to be my host for the next two days, and who, for reasons of modesty and discretion, will be referred to in these pages simply as Our Man in Morocco, or Omim for short (in this case, I hasten to add, not a pseudonym for the ambassador).

I bundle into his smart French people-carrier and am given a whirlwind tour of the broad streets and boulevards that immediately mark out Rabat as a much more European city than even Casablanca, where the metropolitan aspirations to modernity are repeatedly blunted by the intake of an impoverished conservative rural labour force. If Casablanca could be Marseille, Rabat could (almost) be Lyon.

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