Entrance to the market

Asni suq entrance, High Atlas Mountains

Markets (suqs) in the mountains are busy places, but only once a week!

You are looking here at the entrance to a country market in the small town of Asni, about 45 miles from Marrakech at the foot of the High Atlas mountains.

Note that the market, like a mimic of a traditional Islamic town (medina), is walled with a gate providing access. Buyers and sellers both pass through this gateway into the market but sellers will stop and pay a market tax for the right to sell today.

The Asni market is held Thursday and only Thursday. Other days of the week, this place is empty. So it is that Asni is called a "periodic market," and Asni's Thursday suq composes one in a round of like suqs in a radius of 50-70 miles. On Monday, there'll be a suq in one town; on Tuesday, in another, and so on through the week. The only day there are no periodic markets in Morocco is Friday, since that is the Islamic sabbath.

A merchant with a truck may be able to visit six markets a week, making the sortie out to Asni once a week and five other markets elsewhere just about like Asni on the other days. Other merchants are not so navigational, and maybe go to two close-by markets. Many other sellers are just local people, who have just enough wherewithal and wares to sell in their local suq once a week, or perhaps only a few times a year.

A suq, even a small country suq like Asni's, has an entertainment component. People come from miles around and share the news. Musicians play for a few pennies. People take time to congregate, spend some money, and maybe make some money too.

-Does the Moroccan suq remind you of any institution in American life?