Complexe des Potiers, Salé

What a great day.  We had planned to visit the potters’ complex in Oulja on this trip, but we hadn’t gotten around to it and I was afraid it was going to be put off until our next trip to Morocco.  It seems like we’ve been doing a lot of shopping but there were still a bunch of gifts I wanted to buy and I REALLY wanted to shop in Oulja.  It’s not hectic like shopping in the souks, and you don’t have to haggle much.  Plus I LOVE pottery.

Uncle Abdullah got wind of our plan to take the train, and he showed up this morning to drive us.  It was a good thing he did because we came home with a trunk-full and we’d have to set some limits if we were traveling by train (I’m not good at limits).  I found out at breakfast that I needed to go try on one of the shirts that the seamstress is working on, so we made a quick trip to her house and then headed to Salé.

Nothing is easy to find in Morocco – the signage is really bad and I don’t know if you can use a GPS here.  The maps are useless since there are no signs to tell us what road we’re on, so we basically get around by asking people which way to go.  I know the words for left, right, and straight in Arabic, and I’m Uncle Abdullah’s co-pilot which isn’t the most efficient plan since I have no navigational tools whatsoever.  We drove to the general vicinity of the potters’ complex and then asked someone in the median when we were stopped at a roundabout.  We found it pretty easily and saw fields full of farm animals and storks (an interesting combination) on the way.

The complex has A LOT of pottery stores.  We went into at least 25.  Adlani was sick and kept falling asleep wherever he sat down so that put a slight damper on things until we sent him to the car with Uncle Abdullah.  Out of sight, out of mind, and I didn’t have to worry about him puking in a pottery shop.

A lot of the potters have similar styles of pottery, so the ones that had something different drew me in.  After a while I was completely overwhelmed with the beauty of the stacks and stacks of plates, cups, bowls, vases, tagines…all precariously balanced and ready for Norah to pull out the bottom cup and send everything crashing down.  The prices are really inexpensive…I felt guilty about some of the purchases because of the hours of work that have to go into each piece.  My favorite designs were the ones that remind me of henna, but there weren’t a lot of pieces available.  I also went into what looked like a run-of-the-mill pottery store and found a back room with the lights off that had very simple but beautiful designs.  I’m already wishing I could have bought more but I have no idea how we’re going to pack what we did buy so we don’t end up with everything in little pieces.  Bubble wrap has not made it to Morocco yet but I’m thinking about starting a business importing it and selling to to tourists.

The last store we went to was one that Ben remembered from our previous trip – Mohammed El Rhalmi.  He uses a distinctive mustard-yellow color, and he is the only potter to use this style.  Aliya, Norah, and I ended up in his store without Ben at first, and he communicated with hand gestures and encouraging noises that we should come through the back door of his shop into the area where they make everything.  He gave the girls some clay and started sculpting his own chunk of clay.  He made a cowboy and Norah insisted on a gun, which she then used to shoot Mohammed.  Anyway, he took us INSIDE the giant kiln, where they can push in a cart full of items to be fired.  It was probably around 6′ x 8′ inside.

When Ben caught up with us he chatted with Mohammed for a long time and it turns out that the potter has traveled all over the world because his pottery is so special.  He had photos of a bunch of dignitaries and exhibitions he had done in other countries.  We had a great time with him.

Here are some photos from our shopping trip…

The business card of our favorite guy:

I love this platter but it was too big to try to get home to the US along with all of the other stuff.

This tagine is GIGANTIC!

One part of Mohammed’s store:

Another part:

Moroccans are drawn to Norah.  They seem to like her feistyness, and the language barrier is actually a plus because they don’t know how fresh and naughty she is.

Mohammed gave each of the girls a mini tagine as a gift.

I may have nightmares about this pile of tagines tonight:

These are the simple pieces I found in the dark back room:

Working on their clay creations:

I don’t remember seeing purple pottery in Salé before:

This is the design that reminds me of henna, although henna is much more intricate.  I bet real henna designs on pottery would sell like hotcakes.

This pot had a door on it but I didn’t like it enough to buy it.  There were some beautiful things in this shop but I was getting potteried out at this point.

Sick boy (He has now recovered, and actually thanked me for taking him to the pottery complex.  On second thought, maybe he’s still sick.)…

We thought tomorrow might be the first day of Ramadan (they have to wait until the moon is seen before they will commit), but it’s not, so we have an unexpected extra day that everyone won’t be fasting.  Yay!