Oct 2004
By Elizabeth Kelleher
Washington File Special Correspondent
McLean, Virginia -- A small patch of land outside Washington at the McLean Community Center was turned into a real Moroccan "souk," or marketplace, recently, as vendors hawked brightly colored Moroccan clothing, rugs, pottery, brass, jewelry, tile and ceramics.
The souk was the centerpiece of a daylong festival October 2 titled "Magical Morocco: Sahara to the Sea," a collaboration of the Washington Moroccan Club, Friends of Morocco and the community center.
Kader Rhanime, who planned the entertainment for the event, said, "A souk is not a marketplace literally, but a trading grounds -- a cluttery place, full of yelling and shouting." He said, in Morocco, it might be a place where even stories or poems are traded.
The scene near Washington was lively. More than 3,000 visitors came throughout the day to hear lively singing and thumping music, enjoy savory kabobs and couscous, buy vendors' goods and even see a camel up close.
"In Morocco, there is music at the souk, but not this loud!" laughed Amina Elaissami, a former employee of the Moroccan Embassy in Washington who was there to sell imported wares -- tangines, vessels to cook a dish of the same name over an open fire; pottery; colored-glass lanterns; and intricately decorated wooden chests.
Other vendors sold bright tunics and jackets, gold coin belts favored by belly dancers, rugs and painted furniture. An artisan demonstrated rug making as experts described the long tradition.
Musical acts included a group of drummers called "Sounds of Morocco," who played while roving through the crowds in traditional outfits -- tunics and pants called jabadoor. Much of the group's set was devoted to the joyous, lively musical style of Marrakesh, a city in the south of Morocco where the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert converge.
A Moroccan Jewish singer named Pinhas was the biggest hit with the crowd. Many in the audience left off eating lunches of kabobs, roasted vegetables, couscous, hummus and homemade bread, in order to sway and clap during his performance. Pinhas is well known in Morocco for his mix of flamenco sounds with Jewish and Muslim liturgical music and North African secular songs.
Pinhas was joined on stage by Muslim musicians for a finale. That fusion "focuses on what binds us," said Rhanime, noting that Moroccans are Muslim, Jewish and Christian and have lived in peace for centuries.
Organizers, intent on creating a bustling scene, staged a Moroccan wedding at midday. An engaged couple from Bethesda, Maryland, Christie Walser and Thomas Mullins, who will marry later in October in Fes, Morocco, were recruited. While not Moroccan, the couple happened to be arranging their "destination wedding" through a travel agency run by festival organizer Hassan Samrhouni, who is also president of the Washington Moroccan Club. He talked them into the "pre-wedding" at the festival.
Walser, dressed in a white dress, made her entrance carried on an amaria, an elegant, roofed platform supported by long poles held by four men. The men hoisted Walser on the amaria into the air, and they were followed by Mullins on foot, who was also dressed in white. The wedding cortege was accompanied by Pinhas and musicians from The Kasbah Band, who sang and played alongside the dancing amaria bearers. Atop her jostling amaria, Walser smiled and waved to the crowd, and expressed relief afterward that she had not eaten anything earlier.
In traditional weddings in Morocco, the bride is carried to her wedding this way, and sometimes the groom is too, from a different part of the city. Afterward they are lifted together to greet their guests as a married couple. "This shows the joy of her," said Samrhouni. "It is like flying to another place, just before the wedding."
In Morocco, brides have their hands and feet painted with henna, a natural dye that washes off in a few weeks. The festival featured a henna-painting station, which was quite popular with pre-teen girls. Today, in Morocco, Rhanime said, women paint their hands or feet with henna to celebrate any happy occasion.
The Peace Corps, which has roughly 100 volunteers working in Morocco on environmental and youth-related projects, showed a film inside the community center's meeting rooms that quoted Morocco's King Mohammed VI as saying his country is "a buffer zone, a melting pot." He said, "To the people of the West, Morocco is the Orient. To the people of the Orient, Morocco is the West."
The festival too was a melting pot of native Washingtonians, Moroccan immigrants and visitors. Rhanime estimates that 20,000 Moroccan immigrants live in the Washington area. A group of children gave a fashion show, with the emcee naming their local Washington area schools but often noting that a child's outfit was sent from a grandparent in Morocco.
Each year since 1990, the community center has held a cultural festival featuring a different country. Despite predictions of rainstorms on the day of the event, the Moroccan festival attracted the "largest attendance for our fall cultural festivals besides [that for] the Russian culture," said Sam Roberts, the center's events director.
Rhanime said he hopes the day set a precedent. He said he wants to take "Magical Morocco" on the road to Boston, Orlando and New York, which all have large Moroccan populations.
Chair person: Hassan Samrhouni
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By Elizabeth Kelleher
Washington File Special Correspondent
McLean, Virginia -- A small patch of land outside Washington at the McLean Community Center was turned into a real Moroccan "souk," or marketplace, recently, as vendors hawked brightly colored Moroccan clothing, rugs, pottery, brass, jewelry, tile and ceramics.
The souk was the centerpiece of a daylong festival October 2 titled "Magical Morocco: Sahara to the Sea," a collaboration of the Washington Moroccan Club, Friends of Morocco and the community center.
Kader Rhanime, who planned the entertainment for the event, said, "A souk is not a marketplace literally, but a trading grounds -- a cluttery place, full of yelling and shouting." He said, in Morocco, it might be a place where even stories or poems are traded.
The scene near Washington was lively. More than 3,000 visitors came throughout the day to hear lively singing and thumping music, enjoy savory kabobs and couscous, buy vendors' goods and even see a camel up close.
"In Morocco, there is music at the souk, but not this loud!" laughed Amina Elaissami, a former employee of the Moroccan Embassy in Washington who was there to sell imported wares -- tangines, vessels to cook a dish of the same name over an open fire; pottery; colored-glass lanterns; and intricately decorated wooden chests.
Other vendors sold bright tunics and jackets, gold coin belts favored by belly dancers, rugs and painted furniture. An artisan demonstrated rug making as experts described the long tradition.
Musical acts included a group of drummers called "Sounds of Morocco," who played while roving through the crowds in traditional outfits -- tunics and pants called jabadoor. Much of the group's set was devoted to the joyous, lively musical style of Marrakesh, a city in the south of Morocco where the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert converge.
A Moroccan Jewish singer named Pinhas was the biggest hit with the crowd. Many in the audience left off eating lunches of kabobs, roasted vegetables, couscous, hummus and homemade bread, in order to sway and clap during his performance. Pinhas is well known in Morocco for his mix of flamenco sounds with Jewish and Muslim liturgical music and North African secular songs.
Pinhas was joined on stage by Muslim musicians for a finale. That fusion "focuses on what binds us," said Rhanime, noting that Moroccans are Muslim, Jewish and Christian and have lived in peace for centuries.
Organizers, intent on creating a bustling scene, staged a Moroccan wedding at midday. An engaged couple from Bethesda, Maryland, Christie Walser and Thomas Mullins, who will marry later in October in Fes, Morocco, were recruited. While not Moroccan, the couple happened to be arranging their "destination wedding" through a travel agency run by festival organizer Hassan Samrhouni, who is also president of the Washington Moroccan Club. He talked them into the "pre-wedding" at the festival.
Walser, dressed in a white dress, made her entrance carried on an amaria, an elegant, roofed platform supported by long poles held by four men. The men hoisted Walser on the amaria into the air, and they were followed by Mullins on foot, who was also dressed in white. The wedding cortege was accompanied by Pinhas and musicians from The Kasbah Band, who sang and played alongside the dancing amaria bearers. Atop her jostling amaria, Walser smiled and waved to the crowd, and expressed relief afterward that she had not eaten anything earlier.
In traditional weddings in Morocco, the bride is carried to her wedding this way, and sometimes the groom is too, from a different part of the city. Afterward they are lifted together to greet their guests as a married couple. "This shows the joy of her," said Samrhouni. "It is like flying to another place, just before the wedding."
In Morocco, brides have their hands and feet painted with henna, a natural dye that washes off in a few weeks. The festival featured a henna-painting station, which was quite popular with pre-teen girls. Today, in Morocco, Rhanime said, women paint their hands or feet with henna to celebrate any happy occasion.
The Peace Corps, which has roughly 100 volunteers working in Morocco on environmental and youth-related projects, showed a film inside the community center's meeting rooms that quoted Morocco's King Mohammed VI as saying his country is "a buffer zone, a melting pot." He said, "To the people of the West, Morocco is the Orient. To the people of the Orient, Morocco is the West."
The festival too was a melting pot of native Washingtonians, Moroccan immigrants and visitors. Rhanime estimates that 20,000 Moroccan immigrants live in the Washington area. A group of children gave a fashion show, with the emcee naming their local Washington area schools but often noting that a child's outfit was sent from a grandparent in Morocco.
Each year since 1990, the community center has held a cultural festival featuring a different country. Despite predictions of rainstorms on the day of the event, the Moroccan festival attracted the "largest attendance for our fall cultural festivals besides [that for] the Russian culture," said Sam Roberts, the center's events director.
Rhanime said he hopes the day set a precedent. He said he wants to take "Magical Morocco" on the road to Boston, Orlando and New York, which all have large Moroccan populations.
Chair person: Hassan Samrhouni
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