XI. The Old City and More Figs

1 October 2009

Wednesday's sessions at the conference were about genetics and biotechnology, not my interest at all, so I didn’t attend. Instead I spent the day exploring Meknès old city and historical monuments with Maxwell Norton, another UC Farm Advisor and his wife, Diane. We walked our feet off, but it was very interesting, and a nice break.

We started at Bab Mansour…a huge tiled gate leading into one of the three walled cities of Meknès, and very near the Riad where I am staying. We explored the streets in that section then went over to the old city. Streets are narrow with multiple alleys leading off them, and most doorways are decorated, and it is utterly charming.

The old medinas are, however, a real maze…You have to pick out landmarks, and try to remember which direction to turn at each one. Maxwell had a compass and he got us out of a few places when we didn't know which way to go, but getting lost is part of the experience. Like a maze, often you have to backtrack in order to find your way out.

We spent the morning walking through and around the old city, including a beautifully decorated Madrassa (Koranic School) and mosque (from the outside, non- Muslims not allowed.) The decorative arts are really developed here…the detail and artistry involved is incredible, and it is everywhere. Sometimes the decoration is modern painted tiles, but mostly it is 1-2" tiles or sometimes tiny bits of those tiles cut into interlocking geometric shapes...amazing!

Minarets are visible from everywhere and are tiled with different colors of small tiles...many green, turquoise or blue, but I have also seen reddish brown.

We watched a man hand-painting a carved wooden ceiling panel. Typically the panels have geometric and floral designs, all incredibly detailed, and labor consuming, not only to carve, but even more labor to paint. Later in the day we watched wood carvers carving panels and the front of the benches that, along with big cushions serve as the furniture in most Moroccan homes. Even considering that average wages are low, the panels must be incredibly expensive. Like many Moroccans, the workmen did not want to be photographed, but the fellow varnishing the decorative front of the bench agreed.

We then walked through a vegetable & fruit market, where every kind of fruit and vegetable was available. Clouds of flies also come with it, but it's part of the atmosphere. I certainly didn't let them stop me from buying some mandarins. They were not as sweet as the ones in Taroudannt, but they were good enough. The golden delicious-type apples were really good.

The light bulb finally came on about prices...vendors give prices in old terms, not modern dirhams...so when the vendor said one sixty, I finally understood that it meant 16 dirhams (a kilo)...about $1 a pound. I had not been misunderstanding prices...I just didn't understand the system!

We walked through the “flea market” area - everything under the sun for sale...used phones, burnt frying pans, used clothes, you name it. The mattress stuffers' section was a landmark on the walk described in the guidebook, and we found it...There were lots of "mattress stuffer" stalls. They had huge plastic bags of stuffing...some of it was wool or cotton, and some looked like dryer lint, but was probably leftovers from rug making. I wonder which is the primo Moroccan mattress? We found a wool and cotton store later in the day, so we knew where they got some of the stuffing.

Many Moroccans do not like to have their picture taken, so you kind of have to take the pictures from afar so they don't notice..like the man in the shadows of the archways of the wool sellers.

Remember me wondering about where the leftover bread from lunch went? We found out! There is a whole section near the food souq (pronounced sookk, it means market) where there was dried bread for sale…it goes into animal feed. We were pleased to know that it would be used.

In one tiny square, I followed an odd mechanical whirring noise and happened on a shop that sold only spools of silk thread…presumably for embroidery on djellabas. Now that’s a specialty store! There was a man in the back supervising what looked like a 19th century machine that took the thread off a big roll and wrapped it on the small spools. When I asked to take a picture, he said yes, but then shut himself behind the door.

Later we visited the Dar Jamai Museum, a collection of Moroccan arts housed in a 19th century palace. The palace was beautifully tiled and had numerous ornately painted ceiling, as well as furniture, especially cupboards, trunks and doors painted similarly to the panels. As with anywhere here, there were lots of cats about. The workers obviously fed them and took care of them, as they looked much healthier than many we’ve seen. One climbed way up in a tree in the courtyard and settled down like it was her place.

Today we are back at the conference again, the agenda is focusing on production and pest management. However, we are again on a slow motion program. There are a lot of talks listed in the program, but fortunately a number of the people didn’t show up, otherwise, we would be here until midnight as we started at least 45 minutes late. I think we will have the coffee break with lunch again, as we seem to have skipped it again. I’m writing this because there have been several speakers whose presentation slides are not legible due to small text size. They are speaking in English, but their English is very limited, so I’ve gotten very little out of the presentations.

Eventually we got to pest management presentations, which were very interesting. It seems that Fig Mosaic is endemic everywhere, there is no clean stock, and it is a very complex problem. It is not a single virus, but they have recently identified at least four viruses, two viroids, and possibly a phytoplasma associated with the symptoms. Some are spread by aphids, some by mealybugs, and some by mites. We did talk about how the appearance of symptoms seems stress related, however, so the hypothesis is that most fig plant material has one or more viruses in it, and they manifest when the plants are stressed. We visited two fig nurseries and each had some plants exhibiting symptoms. The conclusion is that if you take good care of the fig trees, they will still be productive. They did show a few pictures of figs affected by the disease. The Turkish contingent, who are way ahead of the rest of us, said that fruit symptoms are not common, and if they appear, are often on a single branch, which is then pruned out.
n.b. Viroids are transmitted on pruning tools…so be aware when pruning figs, and use appropriate sanitary measures.

More figs tomorrow, but out in the field, thank heavens. I’m not cut out for sitting and listening all day, even if it is interesting, and the people are great!