Marché Sandaga

Yesterday (le 19 septembre), Michelle, Pepsi, Emily and I ventured off into Marché Sandaga, on a quest for bijoux and Moroccan hand made sandals. We took a taxi to Place de l'Indépendence and walked to the marché from there. We were harassed by the usual barrage of people trying to sell us things, but continued on our way. We found the part of the market where the jewelry sellers are located, and began to browse. I felt the growing presence of men behind me, following me as I browsed the different vendors' jewelry. One of the men behind me pointed at things in the case, claiming he knew exactly what I liked—or rather, he could explain to the vendor better which ring I was actually pointing at. Each time I walked to another case, I felt the presence of another body behind me. I found nothing that struck my fancy, and Michelle, Pepsi, and Emily were all finished buying their bracelets and necklaces, so we decided to move on.

We continued to browse the market, with the same men tagging along. By that time, we had gathered an entourage of maybe five men. After a couple blocks of being followed, we decided to duck into the Palmeraie for a long lunch. We finished eating, and decided to browse some more, maybe look for Rue Mohammed V, where the Moroccan market is located. Along the way, we somehow acquired two the same men who were following us before.

At first, we tried to ward them off by just ignoring them. They kept following; we kept ignoring. One of the men, in a white shirt and brown cap, "artfully" splattered with white paint, started to call us racists for not speaking to them. Another man, in a maroon shirt, "defended" us, saying that no, we are not racists, "Elles sont gentilles."

I said repeatedly, "Laisse-moi! Laisse-moi! Nous voudrions chercher seul! Nous n'avons pas besoin d'un guide." When that didn't work, I walked faster. The man in the brown hat elbowed me to get my attention. No words came out of my mouth—I couldn't speak. He elbowed me again, pushing me into the street. I screamed, "Arr-rête!" He stopped harassing me for awhile and moved on to the other girls. When I told him to stop again, he grabbed my arm, right in the bicep, and gave it a good push.

After walking aimlessly as fast as we could in any promising-looking direction in order to escape, we happened upon a store Pepsi had wanted to go to. We felt safe in the sanctity of air conditioning and fixed prices. Pepsi bought a pillow and a towel and we developed our next plan of action. Pepsi and Emily would head back to SIT; Michelle and I would try to find some Moroccan sandals. We parted ways, and Michelle and I took a taxi to Rue Mohammed V and found ourselves at the very place that we had walked hurriedly past, in our quest to evade tailgaters. We found no Moroccan sandals in the Moroccan market, and hailed a taxi to go home.

We spaced out, basking in the tranquility of being alone in the backseat of a taxi. There was traffic, people trying to sell us phone cards, but we had a pane of glass separating us from them. Then we saw the same white shirt, brown capped man standing on the side of the street. We were stopped in traffic right before him. He yelled over the guard rail to us, saying that he would remember our faces from the market, we were American, and he would kill us.