The Kindom of Morocco

There is an Eastern saying that he who travels much comes to know more than he who lives long. I can’t say that this proverb has held true on all my trips but my trip to Morocco opened the door to a whole new realm of cultural knowledge.

At the end of February I spent four days in Morocco with a non-profit organization for cross-cultural education for Americans studying abroad in Spain. The program begins in the port city of Algeciras, Spain, from where the group takes a Ferry across the straight of Gibraltar.

For me the cultural immersion started early with a 9 hour bus ride from Madrid to the meeting point in the south. As I boarded the bus in Madrid I might as well have stepped right into Morocco! With the exception of me, a Japanese couple, and a young French guy, everyone was Moroccan and speaking Arabic.

With a little preview of Moroccan culture, I got as comfortable as possible in my seat and tried to get some rest in before the true experience began. For a few hours I slipped in and out of restless sleep as the bus roared over the bumpy highways, and whipped its way around curving mountains. I had foolishly chosen to sit next to the broken bathroom door, which ended up being more of a billow for cigarette smoke, flapping open and shut with each shift of the bus. I was very eager to get off the bus.

Suddenly, there was a big rumble and the bus rolled to a stop. I could finally get out of the bus! But, instead of at 7 am, at the port, I was getting of the bus at 5 am, on the side of a cliff, in the middle of nowhere. The road we were on disappeared into mountain shaped shadows in the dark sky and left us with nothing but a moon half full and a flat tire.

When the bus driver said the repairman would take an hour to get there, my heart sank, I knew how time works in Spain. I was going to miss the ferry, loose my deposit, and miss out on the trip. I called home, and then I called my program leader, but there was nothing to do but wait.

An hour, and a half later, when the repairman finally arrived, I had already resigned myself to missing out on the cross-cultural education and was working on convincing myself that learning how to change a bus tire was worth the lost deposit and aimless bus rides. Shivering out in the cold next to all the Moroccan men, I watched the mechanic carefully, trying to get my money’s worth. In the end, all I learned was that it takes a VERY long time to change a bus tire. There was no way I would make my 9 am ferry.

But somehow I did!

After it took me 10 hours just to get from one point in Spain to another, the negative fifteen minute (if you factor the one hour time change in) ferry ride to Africa was unreal! We were greeted by men in long gowns and round hats. It was like walking into a world that I had only seen in movies.

Our first stop was a women’s center in Tangier. They gave us a tour of the workshop where women are able to use the weaving machines in exchange for a portion of the profits from their sales.

Then we went up to the roof for some sweet Moroccan tea while we waited for our first couscous lunch. We headed out right after lunch, so, we didn’t have much time to get to know the seedy gunrunner side of Tangier, but, from the rooftop terrace we got to see the entire city. Looking out at the vista of white buildings and palm trees accentuated by the mosque’s prominent minaret, I never would have guessed the dubious reputation that the city was famous for while under control of the international council from 1923 to 56. Drug trafficking and people smuggling aside, it was a very pretty city.

Before leaving, we made a quick stop at a traditional style market to get so chocolate, nuts, and TANGERines for snack and we were off.

Next we made a surprise stop on the beach to ride camels! It was very cool to see camels outside of a zoo. When one of the camel guides saw we were hesitant about patting a growling camel, he hugged and kissed “baby”, the camel to show what sweet affectionate animals they are. That was cute. But camels also regurgitate smelly yellow goo and chew it. So, when the camel man told the camel to kiss me, suddenly it wasn't so cute. I’m not sure I would make them my first choice of transportation but riding camels was very cool!

We patted the camels goodbye and headed down the Atlantic coast to Asilah a pretty seaside city. The narrow streets and white houses reminded me of the trendy Albacín in Granada. But it was even better because the white washed wall were covered in colorful murals.

After a little exploring, we left for Rabat. Established on the sight of a 10^th century ribat (fortress-monastery) that was later used as a base against the Christian Reconquest of Spain, Rabat has been the capital since Moroccan independence in 1956. We would be spending two nights living with Moroccan family in the Medina, the old center, where the all the houses have been passed down generation to generation.

When we arrived, my host sisters were already there waiting to walk me and two of the other girls home through the busy streets of the medina. They were sixteen and twenty-one, one in high school with ambitions to become Morocco's "6th" female police officer and the other studying become a nurse. Their house was beautiful. Everything about the layout was rectangular. Sunlight flooded in through the open rectangular center lighting up the glitter engraved walls of the rectangular hallway off which were rectangular rooms lined with couches that doubled as beds. The house was totally unlike any house in the US.

The mother and father were really welcoming and immediately sat us down to a snack of fried bread, honey, and tea. Afterwards, the girls took us on a walk through the markets of the Medina. The streets were packed with shops selling everything from puppies, to turtles, to spices, to converse sneakers. As we walked though town, we ran into the girl’s friends who stopped to talk until the call to prayer began to play like a tornado warning from speakers everywhere. We continued on with our sisters to the ville nouvelle where we sat and talked on the main boulevard until it was time for dinner.

Their native language was Darija, Moroccan Arabic. And although I’ve been studying Arabic since September, all I’ve learned to say is: “It is told that the dog was accustomed to hearing the sound of the drum”, and that is in classical, not Moroccan dialect. So that was no use at all. Me and the other Americans tried to use the list of basic words they gave us when talking to the parents. But I couldn't remember any word long enough to use it if my life depended on it. So with absolutely nothing to show for five months of intro Arabic, I was totally amazed by with how much English our host sisters could speak with little and no formal teaching. One had learned from watching TV and the other had had only thirty days worth of English classes! But we were able to communicate with each other easily, sticking almost completely to English with a little French here and there to sort out misunderstandings or explain really random things. It really inspired be to spend more time watching Spanish TV!

Overall, the homestay was awesome! They really made us feel at home. In fact, the first night I was surprised by how Americanized they seemed. The girls were both dressed in typical American clothes, they wore their shoes on the rugs, no one seemed to pray, and weirdest of all, they watched Spiderman in English with no subtitles during dinner. As I enjoyed my traditional Moroccan diner, watching a violent fight scene, it made me wonder what they think America is really like.

The next morning we went to a meeting with a Moroccan professor where we got the chance to discuss cultural differences, like, Spiderman, sexism, and religion. He gave a pretty interesting presentation focused on the idea that we must separate the things that people do in the name of religion from the ideas professed in sacred texts, because people have always manipulated religion to their benefit. Although he claimed to be atheist, he seemed proud of the incorporation of new more progressive interpretations of the Koran into Moroccan law.

Later, we went to Chellah, the site of an ancient roman ruin where Muslims had later built a mosque. It was surrounded by beautiful scenery and pretty gardens and at the top of every tree and the minaret were white storks.

We also tossed hard boiled eggs into a well, to see if the eel in it would eat the eggs and bring us good fertility
.

From there we drove by the huge Mausolleum of Mohammed V.

With a busy morning behind us, we went home for lunch with our families. Eating in Morocco was a great change of pace and a special experience. In Morocco meals and drinks are taken straight from out of a communal bowl and jug because in Islamic culture there is no sense of “mine”. Another unique Islamic tradition is that it is terribly rude to use your left hand at the table because that that is the hand one uses in the bathroom.
Also, the food was great! My favorite meal was a meatball tagine that I had in a restaurant the last night but I also loved the couscous. In Morocco it’s traditional to eat couscous on Fridays and special occasions, but since we were there, everyday was a special occasion!

So we ended up having couscous like four times! But the best time by far was, at lunch on the second day with our family, because our host mother taught us to eat it like “Vraies Moroccaines”… with our hands! Neither of us really mastered the true Moroccan technique, but we tried our best at scooping up handfuls and shaking them gently until it formed the perfect ball. Either way it was a fun way to eat, delicious, and they fed us so much that the only Arabic phrases that I learned by the end were:

Salam uuaalikum = hello (peace be upon you)

Kool = eat

And most importantly,

Shbaat, lhmdullah = I am full, thank God.

Once - thank God - we were full, we went out in small groups with Moroccan university students. Three really nice guys took us to see the river, showed us through the markets, and went out for tea with us. It was a great because they were excited to meet us and as interested in sharing their culture as they were learning about ours.

At the end of the day, filthy, the group, went to one more beyond authentic experience: the Hammans, arab baths. It was a very very different but cool thing to do and even though I felt pretty clean afterwards I think I’ll stick to showers from now on.

All clean, it was time to go back to the house for dinner. The second night at the house was a lot more Moroccan. Instead of Spiderman, the dad was watching a Spanish soccer game. We had great Moroccan soup, and afterwards, our host mother’s friend did henna for us. It was amazing how fast she applied the intricate design. When she was done, they wrapped our arms in paper towel and slide a tube sock over so we could let the ink set overnight.

The next morning, our host mother scraped the henna paste of our arms, and we said goodbye, leaving with a souvenir right on our arms. Our next stop was a tiny village of only 800 people in the Rift Mountains.

It was a pretty nice village, however, it was facing three to five years of economic trouble as it shifted from the hash to the fruit industry per government mandate. We had couscous with a family there and talked with one of the few men in the village who had gone to university and learned English. After lunch, we got to play with their adorable little kids who helped lead us up a hill to take in the view from the top of the village. It was amazing how much we could enjoy everyone 's company with no common language, beside the nine year old who knew a little French. Meeting these people was a privilege that really made me glad I had gone to Morocco with the program rather than as a regular tourist. Being welcomed so warmly into their humble home was an unforgettable experience.

We spent the rest of the day in Chefchaouen, a city in the north that had been settled by Jewish and Muslim refugees of the Spanish reconquista in 1492, some of whom still speak a medieval Spanish dialect. The Jewish inhabitants had introduced a blue paint to the typical white wash, and every building in town glowed blue and white like a cloudy sky. We spent the afternoon shopping. There was lots of cool stuff to buy and you could haggle over the price. But I was awful at it so I didn’t get any especially good deals.

That night, we had one last delicious Moroccan meal. Then, we all climbed onto the roof of our hostel to share our favorite stories from the trip because. The next morning after a quick hike to a hill that looked out on the city, we drove straight to the border, and walked right across to the Spanish territory of Ceuta and we were back in Spain. The bus ride back to Madrid went much more smoothly with plenty of sweet dreams about Morocco.