ESSAOUIRA FLEA MARKET
It was the feast day of Mohammed’s birthday today and we were told that the weekly Sunday Flea Market might not happen this week. We walked through the Medina gate to where we expected to see the market and it wasn’t there. We almost turned around, but when we asked a person who spoke English where it was he said to go straight ahead. We did. We walked and walked seeing a few signs that people were selling stuff along the road and then, finally it appeared.
There were a great number of vegetable stands and clothing laid out on plastic sheets and a few people selling old things. I bought an old Jewish coin.
And then we encountered sellers of old doors and windows leaning against a wall stretching into the distance.
But then, in the middle of all of this discarded junk we happened on the ramshackle tented workshop of Mustapha Asmah, naive primitive painter of dreams who would have fit into the exhibit of American Folk Art at the Asheville Museum that I was so struck by a month ago and the dreamlike paintings of our friend Peruvio (September 1 & 5 posts).
In honor of Peruvio we each bought a painting on a board, one for $50 and one for $20 which we will now have to find a way to pack to bring home. But that is all we found before the long walk back to Casa Rosa.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 