The souk seems to defy time. It stands defiantly like an ancient monument. Peasants travel up to a hundred kilometres to get there. One finds traders and artisans who have come to offer their services, but also peddlers, fortune tellers, pickpockets whose agile fingers surreptitiously feel your pockets, etc.
People come here because you can find everything: old books, video cassettes and CDs, bicycle wheels, televisions thirty years old, plants, new or old furniture, clothes, and other kitchen utensils, including lots of spoons or forks stamped Air France or Royal Air Maroc. But the reality of the souk is there: all these worn and damaged items will always find a taker.
The souk is divided into neighbourhoods and boulevards by "specialisation". A "boulevard" of the souk counts no less than five mobile food stalls sheltered under makeshift tents. They serve popular small dishes, from fritters to chickpea porridge, to snacks, slices of liver grilled over embers, skewers, soft drinks, coffee, and mint tea.
Whether it is windy or raining, the souk is always full. All year round, the spectacle is impressive. Charlatans illegally practise medicine there. In a corner of the souk, an old man recommends a medicine for kidney failure. He explains how the remedy acts on the kidneys and makes them more functional. However, on the transparent packaging, there is no writing or notification on the instructions for use, but an indication showing its origin: China. The old man offers a sachet of ten tablets for the sum of 20 DH. To make his business work, he is discreetly supported by two to three people who play the role of onlookers interested in his product. And it works! People, out of curiosity or need, bite the hook.
The problem is that this open-air bazaar is in the middle of a built-up area. It houses a slaughterhouse and, moreover, it is located near a "scrap yard". Every Tuesday and Saturday, the Doukkalis are tirelessly confronted with the total anarchy caused by the massive invasion of a true army of vehicles: trucks, tractors, carts, wagons, and livestock. A formidable horde of people, coming from everywhere and nowhere, causing disorder, pollution, traffic jams, and disorder in the city by their passage. Sellers of bovine, ovine, caprine, and camel meat intermingle in this market where hygiene has no place.
The animals, slaughtered in the slaughterhouse which is a few metres from the place of sale, still lie in their blood. The rinsing water from the offal and other tripe is thrown right in front of the entrance to the butcher shops. And when it does not flow towards other parts of the souk, it forms puddles in the ruts.
Tuesday afternoon, between 3 and 4 p.m., the trucks and merchants leave and leave behind excrement, rotten vegetables, and packaging of all kinds. Mounds of refuse and all kinds of domestic, human, and animal waste mixed with wastewater and mud form here and there. The stench and foul odours emanate from the scattered refuse, worsening the state of the environment. Although the situation is alarming and presents a real danger to health, no cleaning action has ever been carried out in the souk.
The "Atlat" souk thus becomes a true public dump and a nest for microbes. Children come to play there. Sheep and cows wander there, stray dogs try to find something to eat. The wind carries plastic bags and cardboard packaging in all directions. A spectacle worthy of an 18th-century market!
The souks in the Doukkala region allow, of course, for the purchase of products, but they are also important places where social relations are woven. It is at the souk that disputes are settled, loans are contracted, and also marriage plans. The Doukkala souks are also places of social contact, places of meeting with the civil registry administration. Justice, the post office, and medical care are also often services that one finds at the souk. For all these reasons, the Doukkala souks are important elements of life and regional organisation in the Sidi Bennour province.
-* The most well-known souks:
-* Khémis Zemamra,
-* Had Ouled Frej
-* Tnine Gharbia,
-* Aounate,
-* Oulad Amran,
-* Jemaa Bni Hlal,
-* Jemaa M’tal,
-* Sebt Maarif.
