Morocco

 

So we finally got to Morocco, about one day late. My trip met in the Union at 7:30, and we received our passports which were stamped (we got no stamp in Spain!). We al boarded mini buses, 3 buses of 15 people each. My friends Matt, Chris, and Yaisel were on my trip so it was good to know people. The port where the shipped docked was extremely shady. Casablanca is an industrial city, and the port was mainly used for this purpose: cranes, shipping containers, endless pieces of equipment. The entrance to the port was actually about 1.5 miles from our ship! As we drove through Casablanca I was drawn back in disbelief. It was not what I was expecting. Everything was covered in dirt and mud, cars, streets, buildings, businesses, everything. Casablanca is not a very nice city. The one thing that amazed me was the variety of clothing. Some women wore very traditional Islamic garb and covered every part of their bodies, while some women wore mid-calf length skirts and didn’t cover their head. The same went for men, too. Our first rest stop on our 3 hour ride to Marrakech was very clean, and definitely stood out amongst the dirt and dust that surrounded it. As we drove father the land opened up in to rolling green fields. Once in a while we passed a small village built of brick and mud. While the villages at first look like a deserted bombing zone, a closer look reveals freshly washed colorful clothing hanging to dry. It is very sad. There are lots of cattle and lamb, and men in the field attending to their livestock. It was a weird feeling that was shared between all of us at that moment, an unstated sensation of unreality. The surroundings could easily be those of Virginia or even the mid-west at times, but they were not, and we were really in Morocco. I think in the states Africa is portrayed unfairly. We are taught about AIDS and the poor traditional tribes, but no one bothers to look at how similar many aspects of the continent are to every other. Don’t always get that “I feel bad for Africa”feeling.  Yes, there are many issues here, but now, not everyone here is the same. As the sun started coming up I was surprised at how much warmer the sun was here than in Spain, even though their latitudes aren’t that different. When we passed through Marrakech I was amazed. It reminded me of Arizona in some richer areas. We passed by the market where we were to return the next day. There are tones of people and animals in extremely close quarters. There are also tons of orange trees here, like the ones I saw in Sevilla. The threes, evidentially, were taken to Sevilla from Morocco. Driving towards Ozouratate, our destination, we passed through The High Atlas Mountains. These mountains are the tallest in North Afria, and are indeed impressive. The mountains were snowier than those in Alaska! I can’t describe how beautiful they were . . . We ate lunch at 4pm at a touristy “authentic”restaurant before heading to Ozouratate (population 1200). We saw the most beautiful sunset of pink, purple, and orange. The clouds reflected the light perfectly . . . the sky looked like a painting. When we arrived to the Nomad/Berber village it was dark so we couldn’t see the surroundings but we knew that we were 10km off-road away from everything. Right before we went off-road we passed CLA studios, the setting for lots of American-made films such as Gladiator, and Bable (which happened to be filmed in the village where I stayed!). At the village we had tents of 6 people with mattresses, heavy blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags. There was also a toilet and a sink, with no toilet paper of course. We ate a dinner f bread, soup, a meat dish, and amazing Moroccan oranges, followed by the most amazing mint tea I will most likely ever have. The campsite played music and dancing started, but I was disappointed that it was American music. A group of about 8 Berber men came out of the village and began to interact with us. We sang and danced to their music around a fire they built. They only spoke broken English, what they had learned for previous tourists. One Berber, who called himself Kamel (because Kamel was his last name) had his eye on me. He took his head wrap and made me a turban, leaving only my eyes uncovered. “Beautiful,”he said, and he gave me the nickname Fatima Couscous. So, for the rest of the night, he called me Fatima. Also, using palm leaves he weaved me a camel (and later another, 2 humped camel), and called them my GPS’s to find my way back to the village. Kamel was 21 years old. After taking a picture he wanted me to send him a copy, so I gave him a pen and paper to write down his address. He gave me an email address . . . go figure (I think he goes into town to get the internet). After brushing my teeth with bottled water we all went to sleep. We ended up having eight people in our tent, not six, because there was not enough beds for everyone. So it was me, Trish, Faith, Matt (who is in my group on the ship), Derek, and 3 other boys who I didn’t know. We all slept in what we were wearing and woke up and stayed in our clothes because it was so so cold, probably about 30 degrees. We smelled yummy. After having bread with honey and mint tea for breakfast we left the village. The surroundings were beautiful,. The village was in an oasis in the Sahara with the high Atlas mountains in the background. My experience with the Berbers was a life changing experience, We always fear the different and unknown, but through community and broken English we shared culture, political, and religious ideas, and felt like were were all the same for one night. I am looking forward to keeping in contact with Kamel. Although he wanted to marry me and told me his mom would make me great couscous, I’m sure having a pen-pal will be fine. The Berbers really make you realize how the simple life, yet hard-working life, may lead to more happiness than what we perceive in the US. Although far fetched I would love to someday move back and learn the language and culture of this beautiful group of individuals. Oh, and for the record, my camels from Kamel are my favorite souvenirs so far, and I’m sure they will always remain special. When we got back to Marrakech we ate lunch and then wandered around one of the largest bizarres in North Africa. It was called Jemma Lel Fna. There were so many vendors, snake charmers, monkeys on shoulders, fresh fruit, every type of produce, everything. You had to keep your money close, however. We also heard the mosque call to prayer twice. After making a few purchases we went to our hotel . . .. interesting. You had to press a light switch to light the hallway and you had to insert a card in the wall to get light for your room! I was roomed with Danielle, a girl from Alaska who works at Coldstone too, perfect! After checking in we went to dinner and a horst fantasia at this extremely toursity Disneyland type place. The food was amazing (soup, bread, couscous with pumpkin, cabbage, chicken, oranges, and mint tea), but way to overdone was the whole production. I didn’t appreciate how my can of coke was DHR 25,00 or about $3 US. Rip off city. Overall prices here are good, but they try to get the tourists. After the show we all came back to the hotel. The majority of people went to waste their money in extremely shady bars, but a few of us, my roommate and myself included, went to go to sleep.  We when went to take our shower the water was shut off, and they wouldn’t turn it back on until the morning. So, we went to sleep in our same gross clothes, because, well, why not. The next day, our last day in Maroc (Morocco), a small group of us went to free breakfast at the hotel. They had olives, tomatoes, pastries, “pancakes,”fresh jams, honey, and fresh orange juice. The pancakes were amazing . . . thin squares of fried flat dough. Amazing. After breakfast we wandered around town for a while and spend the rest of our Durham at a grocery store. You could get Moroccan candy/wafer type bars for DHR 0,95, or about ten cents US. The American food, like Oreos and such, were very expensive however. We bought bread and a chunk of gouda cheese for lunch for only DHR 20,00. Split between three people it was less than a dollar each. The buses then took us back to Casablanca where we boarded the ship . . . and so ends Morocco. I wish we had more time tin Morocco, it really flew by.  There is so much here left to explore, and so much culture, this is one place where I definitely want to get back to.