A Cultural Scavenger Hunt in the Souk

This post was co-authored by Julia Queale and Alex Mickler

This morning, we gathered at Dar Si-Hmad to find out about our challenge for the morning: a scavenger hunt for traditional and modern Moroccan clothing in the souk. The souk is a traveling market, similar to the farmer’s markets back in the States, but it is much more expansive with the items being sold - the souk contains not only produce but many types of household items and clothing. Its location changes to a different city each day of the week, every week, and on Sunday, it came to Sidi Ifni. Hidden with select vendors were the items of clothing, and we were split up into groups and had to solve riddles to find them—a task that sounded easier than it actually was!

​The souk was located in a large, empty plot of land that used to belong to an airport; however, now it is left open in case of emergency landings (rare, but still apparent with surprise to the town citizens). The entire town seemed to be at the souk—shopping for their weekly groceries, clothing, and goods. It was very lively and accompanied by a variety of sights, sounds, and especially smells. My group was able to figure out 2 of our 3 clues: we knew we had to find a vendor selling chicken or eggs and another selling vegetables, but the third clue stumped us for a while. Thankfully, another group hinted to us to look at a newspaper stand. Chicken and vegetables? Should be pretty easy to spot, right? Well, unfortunately, there were not only about 4 stands with eggs and chicken, but over half the souk it seemed was selling produce!

All of the fruits and vegetables were so colorful. If you wanted poultry, you picked your own chicken out—nice and fresh!

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​Our speaking partners helped us tell the vendors that we were playing a game; however, they could not direct us toward the correct vendor as they did not know the answer to the riddles, either! At points, we all looked like lost tourists. During the hunt, we were responsible for trying to communicate with them—a task that was not only confusing, but challenging. By the end of the day, it seemed that all the vendors knew what we were up to, since multiple groups of Americans were wandering the souk looking for these bags of clothing, hidden with a number on the bag for each scavenging group.

Sienna, Alex, Dr. McLaren, Dr. Newcomb, and Mary Kate discover the souk. 

​After spending about three hours in the souk, we found all our clothing and dressed our mannequins. Even though the scavenger hunt was a bit exhausting, it was a great cultural interaction. We observed how the souk was laid out, how people bargained with one another, and who was doing the shopping. We also observed the type of items being sold by the vendors. Typically men ran the booths, while women shopped for their family. An interesting point, which we noticed, was the quality of the clothing and household items - they were of various origins, and all used. The souk was definitely a community gathering and appeared to be something that all the residents looked forward to each week, particularly when this was the opportunity to buy items of much higher quality than the "made in China" items sold in stores around the country.

​After lunch, Nour helped organize a trip to the Legzira beach, where absolutely astounding rock formations awaited us. We had a crazy ride in the grand taxis—basically, lines on the road, speed limits, and the number of people squished in the backs seat don’t matter here—and then we hiked down to the beach. Our first sight of the beach involved men playing futbal, individuals praying, and kids building sand castles. The futbal game was surprisingly interrupted by one of our students, Sarah, who joined in with the rough housing. After a few nudges and fearless face offs, the guys realized that even the girl in the skirt could rock the field. We continued our walk down the beach to the rocks, and they definitely didn’t disappoint - our pictures hardly do their beauty justice. It is amazing how the wind, sand, and water can create such natural masterpieces.

​For our last bit of free time afterwards, Julia and I decided to take a walk over to the hospital next to our hotel. As pre-med and public health students, we were very interested in seeing not only what other countries hospitals look like, but also understanding how their healthcare system works. A doctor was waiting out front, and he knew Spanish better than English so I was able to communicate with him to ask if we could take a tour of the hospital. He willingly obliged and seemed excited to have something to do on this slow Sunday. Through broken Spanish, French, Arabic, and English cognates, I was able to translate the tour. The doctor we met was a general physician, but for the entire hospital, they only have one OB-GYN, one pediatrician, and one surgeon! We saw a patient with a scorpion sting, who was given antibiotics, and left to ride out the pain in an examination room. What Julia seemed to notice, as soon we we observed the treatment of the sting, was the level of patient-doctor security of the medical system for a public hospital. If this were an ER in The States, neither one of us would have been able to observe an accident to the detail we observed the sting. The room in which the patient laid was particularly barren, with only the minimal medical supplies necessary, and hardly compared to our hospitals back home. This particular hospital is very poor, and he explained that as a public hospital, all the healthcare is free to people here.

​We ventured to the maternity ward and the expecting mother’s room, which was the most populated area of the hospital. I wish I could’ve gotten more than a glimpse here, but from what I did see, the room seemed quite unsanitary. The doctor showed us radiology and surgical areas, and then we discussed some of the most frequent maladies in children—jaundis and cleft palates. Unfortunately, our tour was cut short by an emergency coming in, but what we did get to see left lasting impressions on both Julia and me. Although it appeared that this hospital was able to cover its patients’ most basic needs and was fairly well-equipped for a rural area, it also exemplified some of the faults of a developing country’s healthcare system. Public, and free care, is not as good as private care, which only the very, very wealthy people in Morocco can afford (a small portion of the population.)  Even though this is somewhat similar to our healthcare system, the medicine we are equipped with is much better overall.

​Although our healthcare system is arguably not without it’s own faults, this visit made me grateful for the modern medicine we have back home, yet the lack of infrastructure in Morocco saddened me. For both Julia and I, this experience really helped validate our interests and what we foresee ourselves doing in the future!

​After all of this excitement, our professors held a debriefing session to discuss our impressions and experiences thus far. Dr. Newcomb opened up the floor to discuss veiling, Islam, and Arabic society. Although I tried to come into this trip without any preconceived notion about Arab society, the media back home oftentimes makes it difficult to do so. When I told people back home that I’d be traveling to Morocco, many people were shocked and kept telling me to “be careful”—moreso than any other trip I’ve been on, which surprised me. However, Morocco has been nothing but welcoming and loving to us Americans, and it’s a shame that radical and extremist groups exist and can taint the image of Islam. The media seems to shift the blame solely on the religion, not the individuals, and making dangerous generalizations like these can be harmful to everyone involved.

Our experiences thus far have reminded us to always keep an open mind about other cultures and people, and to form opinions and judgments ourselves, not necessarily based off others preconceived notions.