Does a String a Toy Make?

In Morocco, the answer is a definitive Yes! A string, a paper bag, a metal door – all of these things are fashioned into toys, providing hours of amusement for the packs of kids that litter the streets of the Medina throughout the day, and for that matter, much of the night.

As we’ve said, our relationship with the neighborhood kids has been a delicate balance. Sometimes they are all smiles and “Bonjour Madame, bonjour Monsieur. Ca va?” During these moments, we pause on our way home to kick a soccer ball back and forth, or watch them play a hand of cards, squatting in a circle like a group of old men around a smoke-clouded poker table. Like the sudden and torrential rainstorms we experienced on July afternoons, where a sunny blue sky turns black and the dry air fills with incongruous sheets of rain, the kids’ humors can shift from friendly to sour, and sometimes downright combative. There are days when we get chased, arms grabbing at our bags and groceries, and once we even were pelted with stones when we refused to hand over our camera.

Anyway, it makes the walk home past the pockets of kids grouped around each corner a bit stressful. Today, returning from the market, we heard ahead the scramble of feet and shouts of Zidane and Ronaldino, two of the kids’ favorite World Cup players. Clearly Zidane’s poor sportsmanship left little impression on these pick-up players. At any rate, we’re relieved to hear that they’re involved in a game instead of lying in wait for the hapless Americans. As we round the corner to the square near our house, about fifteen boys ranging in ages from five to fifteen are engaged in a serious soccer match. Instead of a ball, however, they are kicking a discarded paper grocery bag. It’s been folded over like the cuff of a pant to make it a bit stiffer. In between the mad patter of feet jockeying for position and the occasional whap of a flip-flopped foot connecting with the bag are seconds of quiet as the bag floats upwards in a slow arc and then tumbles back into the foot fray.

Girls and boys tend to form unique gender-specific playgroups rather early, boys engage in soccer and tourist pestering, while commerce (fruit and candy stands), card and role play occupy the girls’ domain. From time to time, one of the smaller boys gets coerced into the girls’ games, inevitably playing the baby, the one that needs feeding and then a spanking, or some mistreated animal. The other day, we watched as two eight-year-old girls used their imaginations and a simple, dirty length of string to create a chariot with their younger brothers posing as loyal steeds – or perhaps cantankerous mules. Later, the same string was used for rope skipping and then for a complicated twister-type game.

And I wish we’d had a recording device to capture our favorite case of simple toys, big imaginations, great game. Close your eyes and imagine deep, hollow African drumming. Now add some tinny percussion. Next some throaty ululations. Lay a final track of hand clapping and foot stomping. The resulting cacophony, at once beautiful and evocative, would have Peter Gabriel doing somersaults. Its source? The same troupe of neighborhood kids creating a riotous racket by beating their hands against metal doors and electric boxes, singing at the tops of their lungs, dancing, clapping and making the most of what they’ve got.



It makes us nostalgic for summer games of hide-and-seek, tag and charades – good fun without complicated or expensive accoutrements. Before we left for Morocco, we caught an episode of the British reality show, SUPER NANNY, in which a disciplined nanny is called in to help families with whiny, coddled kids and their parent enablers. In the episode we caught, super nanny forces two spoiled lads of about five and seven to choose just three toys each from their romper room piled to the ceiling with every imaginable plaything. They wail at the injustice and sniffle morosely as they choose their three toys. In the days that follow, the boys, of course, learn how to have fun with fewer props and learn to appreciate and be creative with what they have left. What the British boys were left with represents more toys than we’ve seen since we arrived in Morocco. Despite the economics behind it, we can’t help but think that in some ways the Moroccan kids have it better. At least they are learning ingenuity at an early age.