Laugh Loud and Often

Boujad is a holy town with a marabout [either a saint or his tomb] on every corner¹. Though mosques can be seen in any village, town or city in Morocco, marabouts are only in some places. In general, non-Muslims are forbidden to enter these sacred grounds. There are many marabout-towns in Morocco, and some well-known marabout-towns include Rabat, Moulay Idriss, Meknes, Fez, and Casablanca.

LS-the-Peace-Corps-Volunteer²-assigned-to-Boujad is a gracious hostess, but her pet cat is from hell³. According to LS, my multi-day visit with just a few scratches is a record low!

With the mercury climbing and hovering around 50° C mid-day, we decided to go to the souk [weekly outdoors market] at the break of day. Waking up at 5:30am, we arrived at the souk by horse-drawn cart; coincidentally, it was the same driver and his horse-drawn cart to take us to the fantasia field the next day.

Arriving at the dawn-light souk, we first walked over to the carpet souk before shopping for vegetables. Carpet weavers from the bled [country-side] formed a big circle to show off their carpets, and the middle-men arrive to inspect and buy the carpets. My hostess and I were neither, but I'm sure the weavers and middle-men were staring at us for different reasons. By the time the carpet souk finished, around 6:30am, we walked over to vegetable tents that were set up for shopping.

Click on image for a better experience.


Carpet souk in Boujad at dawn.


The same cart-driver who took us to the souk also took us to the fantasia area.


The green-garbed fantasia rider!


The fantasia war exercise: riders on their mounts with rifles in hand preparing to charge across the field.

1. Slight exaggeration. There's probably a marabout on every other corner.
2. Due to safety and security, no names! However she agreed to have her picture posted here.
3. Just like other supernatural creatures, every attempt at taking a pictures of the hell-cat came out blurry or distorted; so just like Count Dracula, there's no picture of the cat. You'll have to take my words for it, he [the cat] exists.