Morocco and the Summer

So last weekend I got back from a week or so in Marrakech, Morocco, a trip I made completely on my own, which was intimidating in its own respect.

After spending all day traveling, from the train to Marseilles, to the flight to Morocco, and finally to the bus ride into town, I was unprepared to be hit in the face with the the place where the bus dropped me off: right at the Djemma el Fna, the central square of Marrakech. The place was bustling with activity: charmers and their snakes, merchants and their wares, juicers and their orange juice, drummers and their drumming, storytellers and their incomprehensible (since I don't speak Arabic, or Berber, or any language they were speaking in) stories. Not to mention the Moroccans and the tourists who swarmed everywhere, many of the locals zipping by on motorbikes, since I guess that's way cheaper than buying a car.

I was thrown into this madness, this blend of colorful sights, incessant sounds, and exotic smells with the mission only to find my hotel where I'd made reservations by the recommendation of Colette and Christian, my (ex) host family. I had the address, which did me absolutely no good. The only other instructions I had were these: find the Toubkal restaurant on the Place Djemma el Fna. Take the street to its right.

The street to its right, it turns out, is a major roadway in the Medina, the medieval part of the city, but to me it looked more like an alleyway lined with intimidating shops and their owners, trying to get me to buy knock-off All-Star shoes or piles of myrr, or, as happened ever so frequently, some kif (Moroccan marijuana). I managed to keep my wits and not go crazy, but I'll admit I was a bit jumpy when someone offered to give me directions. I'd heard about the faux guides, which are guides that will get you lost, lead you nowhere, and demand your money, and I was in no mood to be harassed by such a character. Thankfully, however, I came across enough people who were actually just there to help and finally after several tries, I found my hotel.

The Hotel El Amal is nestled down a few twisty Medina streets in a relatively peaceful part of the Medina, but still close to the action. I walked into a beautiful, Moroccan-style home with a courtyard in the middle and a couple floors of rooms, and found my room, put down my stuff, and went to pay the nice man at the reception for the first night.

After getting dinner at the Toubkal, I immediately bee-lined back to the hotel and finally had a restful night sleep.

The next morning I undoubtedly got up way too early (I had no watch or clock or cellphone while in Morocco so I never knew what time it was) and after I'd gotten some breakfast, I went wandering around, trying to catch my bearings, and no sooner had a gone more than 50 yards down the main drag/alley near my hotel then I had a guy welcoming me to Morocco and telling me to come check out his store. I told him I'd come back later, with every intention to never see him again.

Well ... that's not how it works in Morocco ... I went back to my hotel and got some stuff together and figured out where I was going for the day, and I found myself walking down the same street. And, what do you know? The guy came up to me again, said that I'd promised I'd come and take a look at his store, that it wouldn't really take that long, and if I wasn't interested I could just leave.

Heh.

Well he sat me down, got me comfortable, and started trying to sell me some huge rugs, which I could by no means afford, haggling aside. So when we got to bargaining I gave him the most unreasonably low price I could come up with, without sounding like I had no money at all.

Well, of course he was insulted, told me I could by some little trinket/jewellry stuff that wards off evil spirits with that much money but certainly not a rug of that quality.

So he busted out some tiny little doormat-sized rugs. Fair enough.

I didn't really want a rug, nor do I particularly need one, but this guy was insistent. So I played the game, and started bargaining, figuring it was just part of the experience. I tried to stay in the unreasonably low price range, and it worked. We dropped the write-the-price-down-for-me game almost immediately, because I refused to budge and we got to the verbal bargaining, in which I haggled it down a few more price notches and got it for fairly cheap.

It's a nice looking thing and I'll have a good memory associated with it. And I helped some random Moroccan out with his business for the day, so whatever.

Then I headed off to my destination, the Palais El-Badi, a once magnificent palace built by an extravagant Moroccan dynasty which was then destroyed by the proceeding iconoclastic, Muslim fundamentalist dynasty (in the history section in the little Moroccan guidebook I had, I found that this was the usual swing of Moroccan politics). The ruins are still pretty nice, though.

Then I absorbed some culture at the museum of Moroccan Arts, which is in an old Moroccan nobleman's house. Very attractive courtyard.

That afternoon I found the CyberPark, where I met a security guard who later in the week invited me out for a night on the town, to see all the "little corners of Marrakech." However, the guy kinda freaked me out, and I didn't take him up on it. I still haven't decided if I should have ...

The next day I went to the Saadian Tombs, the tombs of that extravagant dynasty, which escaped destruction since that Muslim fundamentalist dynasty was superstitious about disturbing the dead. But I didn't get there without incident. On the road that leads to the Saadian Tombs, there's a false-sign designed to trap unsuspecting tourists such as myself. I fell for it, and was soon being led through a shop full of brass pots and pans to a little alleyway out back. The door closed behind me and I was soon greeted by a group of children who'd been playing the alleyway.

One of them introduced himself and shook my hand and whatnot and offered to lead me to the Saadian Tombs. Of course I was completely lost by then, so I couldn't say no. I needed him, and I grudgingly accepted. Well, when we got there, of course he demanded money, and I gave him some small change and he wanted more, but I refused to give him more, since, I mean, seriously, the kid led me for like a minute and a half. I can't dole out a pocket full of change every time a kid takes me on a two-minute walk.

The Saadian Tombs were pretty sweet, though, despite being a little small. The decoration is absolutely gorgeous.

From there, I went on out to the Ensemble Artisanal, where you can watch artisans doing their traditional work (and potentially buy it) without haggling, since the place is sponsored by the government. It was there where I saw the most hilarious mistranslation I've come across so far. It's not incredible, but it's pretty good. Check out the pictures for more detail.

That night, eating at the Toubkal restaurant, I finally ran into some people who I made temporary friends with. Duncan, a Londoner from Guinea who lives in Tangier seven months out of the year, his Moroccan wife, whose name I forget, and his Tangerine merchant friend Mohammed. Kinda weird people, I won't lie, but also kinda really cool. Duncan used to run a psychiatric ward and was possibly a police officer at some point in his life. He was extremely generous with money, which is what made me trust him. He bought me a mint tea at the restaurant, and then we walked around Marrakech a little bit, during which time he got me a glass of sugar cane juice, which is just what it sounds like. There's a big machine that they feed the sugar cane into, and then out comes this juice. Sugar cane juice. Very sweet.

At this point, I'd pretty much seen all the major tourist attractions I cared to see, leaving me only with the souqs left. The souqs are the traditional shopping area part of the Medina, where all the old traditional shops and workshops are. And every piece of literature I've read about them always uses the work "souqs" in conjunction with the adjective "labyrinthine." In any case, I was intimidated to go in, but I braved it, and it wasn't that bad, and pretty cool to see. This is where Morocco can be really cool, even though it's incredibly shady. I avoided making any more unnecessary purchases.

After spending a day wandering through the souqs, I decided to take a day trip the next day to Essaouria, which turned out to be a disaster. I got on the bus around 9:30 in the morning, sat there for the three-and-a-half hour long bus ride, got off the bus in Essaouira, and proceeded to be lost for a further three hours, wandering through what I knew, with no doubt in my mind, were the slums of the city. Finally, I turned around and found the bus depot again and got back on the bus for another three and a half hour long ride back to Marrakech.

The next day was the day to leave, and though Morocco was fun, I had a lot waiting for me back in Montpellier.

Just before I'd left, I'd gotten the keys to and moved in my stuff to my apartment for the summer, which is the same building as the study abroad program office.

So I went through the process again of sitting in the airport, flying to France, landing in Marseilles, and waiting up all night in the Marseilles airport for the train station to open so I could catch the train back to Montpellier.

It was super nice to get back, though, and this week Krista and I have been working on getting jobs for the summer, and we've just hit our first bit of luck just tonight.

Francoise, the director of the Montpellier study abroad program, has a couple oddjobs for us. Tonight, Krista is babysitting her kid, and on Monday, I'm going to be helping to move some furniture. Though the payoff for my furniture moving job isn't quite determined yet, Krista is getting some pretty good cash tonight, which should pay for some two weeks of groceries at least.

For pictures from Morocco and of the new apartment, go here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2492527&l=659cf&id=13930402

I have to admit that Morocco is drastically different from any of the other places I've visited while I've been here in France and, well, in my life. It's eye-opening just to see another culture, and even more so to see another culture in this light.

Morocco is an impoverished country, whatever the historical/economic reasons may be, and Marrakech especially represents how this poverty is dealt with. Duncan described Marrakech pretty accurately when we were chatting over dinner as a Disneyfied version of Morocco. It's great for the tourists so that they can see the crazy snake charmers (whose snakes have their mouths sewn shut, by the way) and the Barbary apes and the all that stereotypical orientalist stuff.

And it's true, Marrakech revolves around the tourist. Traditional culture is alive and well in Marrakech partially because of all the white people that come to visit and buy carpets and kif and take pictures with monkeys and ride on camels. But at the same time, this tourist centrism breeds a slimy, filmy culture where people will haggle, hassle, and beg YOU for money simply because you're white. The subtle fact that I'm a student and don't have that kind of money doesn't make any difference, and why should it? I've been living an advantaged lifestyle for the past twenty-one years and I haven't done a thing for it except be born in the right place with the right skin color.

I may be proud of my wiles for having avoided the ploys and schemes of Moroccans who were after my money, but I can't help but feel guilty about the fact that the people there could have a better life if mine wasn't so nice.

And it's not necessarily just that I have the privilege of money. The greatest privilege that I enjoy is my American citizenship. It's not just the mobility that this entitles me to, but also it's the fact that I'm entitled to participation in one of the wealthiest societies in existence, with a land mass in its possession that could support it even if it wasn't. And furthermore, the U.S. isn't caught up in a such a tangle of trade deals which take away any real wealth to feed to higher ups. We are the higher ups in the world.

And I can sorta see now why people who live in the third world would want to take the risk and swim, climb, jump, run, or whatever to get to the first world, even if that means living their illegally. It beats being stuck on a piece of land tied up by foreign investors or otherwise stuck in subsistence mode because it came late to the game.

Also, I find it hard to complain about immigrants taking jobs away from hard-working Americans when there are people working just as hard in the third world just to be undercut by American corporations.

Well that's my rant for now.