The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  The Delegacia has a special shelter for women too afraid to go home. The abrigos, shelters, support homeless and vulnerable women and their children for up to three months. The details of such safe houses are kept secret, for fear that a violent husband would come to get revenge on his wife.

  At nine a.m. officer Marinelli is still at her desk.

  Sunlight is streaming in through the window. ‘All the drunks will be sobering up by now,’ she says weakly, ‘getting ready for another evening of drinking. At least ninety-nine per cent of the cases we deal with involve alcohol. Illegal cane liquor is cheap and strong. They should put a warning in the bottle: drinking it won’t just damage your health, but the health of your family.

  ‘We always try to reconcile the parties involved,’ continues Marinelli. ‘Slamming an abusive husband in jail may get rid of him, but it often leaves a family without a breadwinner.’

  When Governor Franco Montoro originally decreed that women-only police stations were to be built, the idea was met with a mixed reception. Pressure groups insisted that special treatment was necessary for women in such a macho society. But the powerful male lobby greeted the proposal with skepticism. Nowhere else in the world had women’s police stations, they said, so why did they need them?

  Brazil’s first all-woman police station was at Parque de San Pedro, a run-down area near São Paulo’s long distance bus terminal. From the first day, the office was over-flowing with female victims. In the years since, the Delegacia have spread like wildfire through Brazil’s major cities and beyond. Now they are not only found throughout Brazil, but across Latin America, from Argentina to Venezuela. Dozens of other countries around the world now are calling for their own forms of Delegacia as well.

  Inspector Maria Valente has been with the Delegacia project right from the start. From her spacious ninth floor office at the Public Security Headquarters Building in downtown São Paulo, she controls more than a hundred women’s police stations across the city and its state.

  São Paulo, which is regarded by the United Nations as one of the world’s most dangerous places to live, boasts an average of forty murders each weekend. The majority of the city’s twelve million inhabitants live below the poverty line. For many men, unemployment is a reality they bear uneasily. Large numbers turn to alcohol, drugs, and wife battering to alleviate the frustrations of poverty.

  Facing domestic violence head on, Inspector Valente and her team are used to the tales of savage attacks and stabbings, rape, and even incest.

  ‘Beating up women is as old as history and happens everywhere,’ says Valente sharply. ‘Of course we register more wife abuse amongst the poor, simply because there are more poor than rich in Brazil. Rich men do terrible things to women too, but they have money to pay good lawyers when a case gets to court. We had one case where a wealthy businessman smashed his wife’s head against a wall for dropping a plate of food; and another where a teenage girl came to us, made pregnant by her father – himself a pillar of society.’

  For Valente and her staff, the problem of getting women to come forward to testify in court against their spouses, is a vexing one. ‘Women are terrified that if the husband gets off, he’ll hunt them down and kill them. It’s that simple,’ she says.

  In a society where beating up your wife is sometimes almost seen as a man’s birthright, his prerogative, the challenge is breathtaking. To meet that challenge at hand, Inspector Valente and her colleagues look for female officers who have what it takes to deal with the traumas of the job. ‘Most of the officers we recruit are aged below thirty,’ says the Inspector, as she stares out across São Paulo’s rooftops. ‘They can empathize with the young mothers who seek our help. We need women who are patient, caring, and who are unlikely to be deterred by the sight of blood, or by the intimate details of a rape.’

  Officers working at the Delegacia encounter a wide range of frustrations every day. ‘One of our biggest problems,’ continues Valente, ‘is that when battered women arrive here, they’re often hysterical. They beg us to throw their violent husband in prison and throw away the key. Unfortunately, we have to act according to the law. That’s one reason why officers are advised to avoid striking personal friendships with the victims, even in the most heartbreaking cases.’

  With a view to reconciliation, the Delegacia often summon the husbands to explain themselves. ‘When men turn up to give their side of the story they can behave very arrogantly,’ explains Sandra Claro, a new officer at the 9th Precinct. ‘They swear and jeer at us, but soon they realize that although we’re women we are police officers, like any others. It’s then that they get nervous at the prospect of a spell in jail.’

  Back at the reception of the 9th Precinct a steady stream of assaulted women have wandered in during the day. As usual, the waiting-room is full to capacity. Some of the tired, frail figures sitting there refuse to file complaints. Too fearful to formally document the crimes, they come in to have a chat with the officers, and to pause for breath in the security of the station.

  Deputy Sandra Claro is dealing with a typical case in interview room Number Three. A young woman called Olivia is sitting across from her. Married just three weeks before, Olivia, who’s only nineteen, has seen her husband’s true character revealed for the first time. ‘On Friday night he went out with his friends. At two in the morning he came back… and he brought another woman with him. I found him with her on the couch,’ she says. ‘When I asked him what was going on he slapped me on the face and said that he’d bite off my nose if I didn’t leave him alone.’

  Olivia’s statement is typed out and presented for her signature. An illiterate, she whispers for an ink pad. Then, almost ceremonially, she adds her thumbprint at the end of the document and bursts into tears.

  Two doors down, in another interview suite, Marcia is telling her tale. ‘My husband doesn’t drink much,’ she explains. ‘But he’s addicted to heroin. It’s always in the morning when he’s craving the drug he gets so violent. We have no money. We can’t pay the rent. And now he threatens to pour gasoline over me when I’m asleep and set me alight, unless I go out and steal to pay for his addiction. I don’t know what to do.’

  Marcia stares at the young female officer beside her, tears rolling down her face. ‘I’m so frightened, can you please, please help me?’

  When an abusive husband refuses to make an appearance at the Delegacia Precinct, officers are sent on a mobile patrol to investigate the situation. The 9th Precinct’s territory covers all kinds of areas, ranging from millionaires’ mansions to the perilous shanty-towns of south São Paulo.

  Silvia Rodrigues has been with the all-female police force for six years. Carefully checking her .38 calibre black service revolver, she prepares for an investigation along with her partner, Vera Lucia. ‘Most men don’t believe it when we turn up and ask them to accompany us to the Precinct,’ she says. ‘For archetypal Brazilian macho males, the ultimate humiliation is to be arrested by a woman. When we handcuff the suspect and lead him away, a crowd often gathers. Then the gossip spreads – everyone recognizes us and our vehicle. They know why we’ve come.’

  ‘We do get shot at from time to time,’ says Vera Lucia. ‘We’ve had to wrestle men to the ground so many times. I’d never go on patrol without my .38. You see, especially in the slums some men think they’re gods. They’re worshipped by everyone. Our job is to make it known that there’s only one God, and it’s not them. We want to increase the equality level between men and women. Equality between the sexes is something that just doesn’t exist in Brazil. When we enter poor neighbourhoods we’re greeted by the women and children with great respect.’

  It’s evening again at the 9th Precinct. The waiting-room is packed with familiar faces. Detective Marinelli is in a sombre mood. Her worst nightmare has been realized – the Corinthians have just lost their game.

  ‘You better put some extra chairs in the waiting-room,’ she says to her assistant. ‘It looks as if things will get really bus
y here tonight.’

  SIX

  Buying A Home in Morocco

  THE SMELL OF PAPRIKA, cardamom, rose water, of freshly tanned leather; the braying of donkeys and the shrill echo of the muezzin’s call to prayer ringing over the high flat roofs, are seared into my memory. In a childhood of conventional English life, our journeys to Morocco were a time to escape, to dream, and to slip into the Arabian Nights.

  Three decades passed and I found myself living in a microscopic London flat, with a toddler and an expectant wife. I felt deceived, bitter at myself for not achieving more. Then I remembered Morocco. I thought back to the scent of spices, to the blazing light, to the intoxicating blend of cultural colour. In a moment of high drama, I stood on a chair, punched the air, and yelled:

  ‘We’re moving to Morocco!’

  Sometimes the best way to realize your dream is to go at it headlong, without thinking about it very much. That was my approach to buying a riad, a traditional home, in Morocco. I knew that if I listened too much to my family or friends, the momentum would be lost and I would never break free. I had heard that Marrakech was the place to go, and so I flew down and had a look.

  It seemed that most Moroccans living in the old city had the same ambition – to sell their ancestral home and to move to the new town. I could find no formal estate agents, but every second barber’s shop and fruit stall seemed to double as a makeshift one.

  My advice to anyone searching for a Moroccan dream home is firstly to look at dozens of houses. That way you get a feeling for what is good and what is questionable or downright rotten. And look at houses that have been renovated as well, as they’ll boost your morale. Secondly, talk to people who have bought and renovated homes of their own. Learn from the communal melting pot of mistakes.

  Living in the medina is like living in the corner of a great sprawling honeycomb. So when you look at a house, you must take into account what else is around it. Is there an abattoir uncomfortably near, or a leather tannery (both of which stink in the summer heat), or is the local mosque’s loudspeaker poking into your bedroom window? How far is the house from a road which is accessible by car? It can be expensive to cart rubble and bricks to and from a main road. Another downer is that a riad four centuries old may have its walls inside covered with modern factory-made tiles, or its floor concealed in lino. It can make for a depressing sight. But the great joy of Morocco is that the same work is being done today as it was five hundred years ago – which means you can renovate (and affordably so) with the very finest crafts. Better still is that the current boom in restoration has kick-started and strengthened workshops producing exquisite mosaic, terracotta tiles, carved plaster and wood.

  Early on my quest for a Moroccan home I was fortunate to meet a local businessman named Abel Damoussi, who had spent twenty years in London, before returning to his native Marrakech. His dream was to buy and then restore a kasbah, a fortress home, outside the city. Looking back at the ‘before’ photos of his now magnificent luxury hotel Kasbah Agafay, you can only admire the man.

  The fortress was being used as a barn for livestock when he found it. To look beyond what was a derelict building, took indefatigable willpower and the ability to dream. Abel was a fountain of advice. He told me to look beyond what was obviously apparent, and to concentrate on what you could not see.

  ‘When you buy a place in the medina,’ he said, ‘you have to ask yourself first what shape the houses around you are in – they’re more than just neighbours. Their houses are a part of your home. Look after their houses before you even think about your own.’ Abel’s shrewdest advice was on the subject of sewers. ‘Don’t start working on the house itself,’ he warned, ‘until you’ve opened up the sewers and shored them up.’

  Traditionally, most riads had a single toilet, if they had one at all. The modern craze of renovating medina homes has meant that luxury-hungry foreigners want each bedroom to have an en suite bathroom. The sheer number of toilets and baths, coupled with the fact that Marrakech’s sewers were designed before the invention of toilet paper, can lead to an overwhelming stench, especially in the blazing summer heat.

  On my own quest for a home in Morocco, I started by looking at about seventy Marrakech riads – some no more than a crumbling shell, others palatial, and way beyond my budget. And I toured houses which had been restored to a high standard, to get an idea of what work could be done. Prices in the medina have risen sharply over the last few years and well exceed traditional homes elsewhere in the country.

  It so happened that I was eventually offered a magnificent rambling villa in Casablanca. The house had been empty for almost a decade and was in need of tremendous repairs. I decided to use traditional Moroccan crafts, and to source the majority of the artisans from Marrakech and from Fès.

  Dozens of workmen arrived, and most of them lived in the house. They would sleep in the sitting-room, and cook their meals on a small brazier there. The advantage was that while they were there they worked hard and as fast as they could. You have to remember that traditional Moroccan crafts are executed almost entirely by hand. You never hear the whirr of a Black & Decker drill, or an electric saw. The downside is that, as a result, the work can seem to take forever.

  But as with anything else Moroccan – a little faith and, with time, even the most exacting of problems melts away.

  SEVEN

  Café Clock Cookbook

  MY EARLIEST MEMORIES are tinged with the scent of Moroccan cuisine.

  I was born in England and subjected to a childhood of grey school uniforms, even greyer skies, and to food so bland that it tasted of almost nothing at all. But, unlike my friends in the playground, I was certain the real world was out there – somewhere. It was a fantasy, a Promised Land, a realm of rich textures and dazzling light, a place where the air was fragrant with spices, and the kitchens abundant with the most magical ingredients.

  This secret knowledge came about because of my family’s love affair with Morocco. My first journeys there were made as a small child in the early ’seventies – a time when the kingdom was awash with stoned-out hippies, tie-dye and bongo drums, VW Combis, and Rolling Stones’ songs. I didn’t quite understand how a place could be so different from the world in which I lived. It was so utterly mesmerising, vibrant, and so culturally colourful.

  I can remember the pungent, intoxicating scent of orange blossom on Tangier’s rue de la Plage, and the taste of summer melons in Marrakech. My tongue still tingles at the thought of the warm almond pastry passed to me one balmy September afternoon in Chefchaouen. And, as for my first sugar-sprinkled pastilla – it stole my heart.

  Then decades passed.

  My feet traipsed through forgotten corners of the world, but never found their way back to my first true love – Morocco. Sometimes on my journeys I would close my eyes and be transported back – to the windswept sea wall of Essaouira, or to Marrakech’s Jma el Fna square, or to the twisting, labyrinthine streets of medieval Fès. With eyes closed as if in a dream, I would breathe in deep and sigh, feasting on the smells and on the memories.

  Then, one morning, living in an East End flat no bigger than a postage stamp, I had a Eureka! moment. It was so obvious. We would embrace the land of my fantasy: we’d go and live in Morocco.

  And we did.

  It was like stepping through a keyhole into a world touched by a magician’s wand. In the years we have lived here, we have glimpsed an unbroken circle of life that’s been eroded and disjointed elsewhere. It’s a world dominated by values – by chivalry and honesty, by charity and, above all, by a sense of family.

  And at the same time, it’s a world dominated by food.

  Anyone who has ever spent time in Morocco has been charmed from the first meal by the kingdom’s astonishing range of cuisine. Through succulent flavours, textures, ingredients, and through sheer artistry – they go together to form an ancient kind of alchemy all of their own.

  One of the first things I learned while living here is t
hat most Moroccans prefer eating their own cuisine at home. A meal, especially one prepared for guests, is a sumptuous blend of hospitality and abundance, and is about honouring the invited as much as it is about feeding them. The dishes presented tend to be enjoyed communally, eaten from a central platter or tagine. And, of course, each home has its own carefully-guarded recipes, passed on through centuries from mother to daughter.

  Like most of my Moroccan friends, I too am sometimes reluctant at eating in restaurants. As with them, I know that what we have at home is superior to almost anything found outside.

  But there are exceptions.

  When I first heard that an Englishman had given up a promising culinary career in London’s West End, swapping it for the Fès medina – where he planned to start afresh – I rolled my eyes. Then I put my head in my hands. It sounded like a recipe for catastrophe.

  But, stepping across the threshold of the Café Clock, I was utterly enthralled. Not only was its founder, Mike Richardson, a man of magnetic charm, but he had conjured a spellbinding ambience in the heart of a city I hold so dear.

  And, as for the food… it’s the exception to the rule. At last there is a restaurant that equals the cuisine found in Moroccan homes.

  Café Clock’s success lies in the subtle flavours of a culinary tradition which itself stands at a crossroads of geography and culture. It’s made possible by seasonal foods, by spices, and by raw ingredients that have found their way to the medieval city through centuries, along the pilgrimage routes. After all, for more than a thousand years, Fès has been connected to the farthest reaches of the Islamic world, to destinations as variant as Seville, Cairo, and Timbuktu, Bokhara, Kabul, and Samarkand.

  With time, Café Clock has become far more than a place to dine well. In the tradition of the ancient caravanserais, once found in every town and city between it and Mecca, and beyond, it’s a place where people gather. Some are locals, while many more are travellers, gorging themselves on the intensity of Fès for the first time. Together, they swap stories, talk, listen, laugh, and learn from the endless range of cultural events laid on in the crucible that is Café Clock.