Chaouen

The story of Chefchaouen is hard to tell. It may have begun in the beeches of Southern Spain, where I watched the sun set behind dark rain clouds, and I ran along the coast barefoot, singing songs to myself and the dark, and I let the cold Atlantic ocean wash up to my ankles. Or, it may have begun before that, when I was in Seville and thinking that Spain is Spain and though Seville is nothing like Madrid it is at the same time exactly like Madrid. Or, it may have begun once actually in Morocco, after taking a ferry across the Gibraltar straight and standing on a vessel for my first time which was tossed with the torpid seas and rose and crashed and if I was not holding on to something or sitting securely, I was tossed like drunkard from side to side, which took me to Tangier where locals make livings by swindling tourists into giving them too much money for too easy of tasks and where I was prompted to pay 800 Durham for a taxi ride which, if I spoke Arabic, I would have gotten for 60. But, I didn’t take the cab, I like to think I have more common sense than that. But, for sake of narration, and finding a starting point for three days which have completely altered my mind and my thoughts of what it means to be alive and what it means to be human, this narration, will begin half way through the three hour bus ride from Tangier to Chefchaouen, Morocco, Africa.
The Bus itself was not an old bus. It was fairly modern but judging the actually year it was created was difficult because it was just so dirty. When choosing my seat it came down to which one did not have a layer of dust, or which one did not have a pool of stale water at the foot. And I do not mean this in a western sense of, “it was so disgusting,” but, it’s Morocco, wear things are dirty, and the importances of life are slightly different. The bus was entirely full of individuals heading south from Tangier, the doorway to Africa the locals call it, into the Rif mountains. Some of the peoples were conservative and traditional Muslims. Women where the head shalls and men wore the Gelops (I’m not certain how to spell it, but the white frocks). Others, wore old jeans and faded shirts. And a few, dressed modernly, very European in fashion. Looking out the window was a beautiful spectical. Along the roads were small villages with houses made of concrete and possibly slabs of plastic lashed together to form walls all lining dirt roads which lead into the mountains. The Rif mountains themselves are some of the most beautiful nature I have ever seen. They are not like mountains in the western US with green foliage and trees and shrubs forming an undefined façade. But, they are massive rock formations, very similar to what I’ve seen in Spain, except that they were the most lush green I have ever seen. Even in February. They had a vibrant glow to them in these winter months. And the land around them seemed unspoiled. The southern road from Tangier to Chefchaouen was nearly naked. If life was seen out the windows, it was a rancher herding sheep to another part of the land or possibly a car broken down along the side of the road.
At the first stop I was not sure if I was already in Chefchaouen, so I turned to the man behind me and asked, “esta Chefchaouen?” However, he did not speak Spanish and I did not pronounce the city name correct so he looked at me with utter confusion and I asked if he spoke Spanish or English. He said no, and he called forward on the bus, to where a girl, about my age, dressed in peacoat and scarf—a general European style, stood in the aisle reaching above to the luggage rack, and asked her, in Arabic, if she spoke English or Spanish. She spoke both.
Her name was Siham Ferfess. She asked me where I was going and I told her Chefchaouen, to which she responded, “Chaouen. Locals call it Chaouen.” She told me that was where she was headed, for that is where her parents lived and where she grew up, and that I should sit with her and she’d make sure I made it there safely. So I did. And I had a wonderful conversation with her. I must have sounded like the silliest uneducated foreigner, because I’d ask her basic questions about the muslim religion, or about the gov’t of Morocco, and she’d look back at me with a look of, “really, you don’t know that?” But, she was very kind and after a snicker or two she’d answer all my questions honestly. One thing I recall very well was our discussion of flying carpets in ancient Arabic cultures. She fully believed in them. Obviously, with my western rational mind I asked how, and essentially she defended them as such, “How did Christ heal the blind?”
“It was a miracle, a gift from god, I guess,” I responded.
“Flying carpets and magic were also a gift from god.”
And, to me, it made total sense. If I am going to allow and accept the ideas of Christ as a miracle worker it would be entirely hypocritical of me to say that flying carpets could not have existed. We talked more about Islamic religion and how most Muslims are middle ground Muslims. Like Siham herself. In the united States, I had the stereotypical view of all msulims wearing the head scarves and the robes and having huge burly beards. But, this is not true, as Siham explained to me, and as my own investigations proved to disprove. The muslim religion is no different, aside from theology (and really they do have a lot in common), in the sense of christanity. Most Muslims are “normal” people, who dress “normal,” listen to pop music, goes to movies. They are western in many ways that we are western. And the stereotypical Islamic individual I had in my head proved to be very false.
The bus ride seemed over far too quickly. I enjoyed my time with Siham and the discussions we had. And the seemingly close connection we seemed to make fairly promptly. Two minds, very far apart in orgin, which both lust and analyze the views of the other. Her stop came before mine, and she said she was taking the 3pm bus back to Tangier on Sunday. I said I was taking the Six am one. To which we she said, maybe I’ll see you at ten, and then we kissed (European kisses one on both check…not doing this when I get home will be odd…I even do it with my American friends) and she said, “Welcome to Chaouen,” as she walked away.
The next stop was the city center stop. The only road in Chaouen. When I got off I was immediately greeted by two men, one wearing a leather jacket and one wearing a gelop and holding an umbrella. Abdul, the man in the leather jacket, approached me and asked which hotel I was staying at. I told him I did not have one yet. He told me his family had on in the old part of town and I could see it if I liked, and that unlike Tangier, no one in Chaouen was going to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. He would take me there if I like and if I did not like the room I could freely go about my way.
The walk to the old part of town was a very foreign walk. Mohamed, the old man in the gelop, held the umbrella over my head the entire way. We walked along a dirt road passed old brick building with poor masonry work and some with ceilings and walls that were collapsing. We passed a stretch of modern white brick building with restaurants and tourist souvenir shops that Abdul told me was the “new part of town.” But the buildings were old and dirty and I was surprised to hear the term “new” and curious to know what the “old” part of town looked like. I was uneasy to trust Abdul, having just come from the criminals in Tangier, but he seemed honest, I can’t explain why, but I even with my doubts, I seemed to trust him. Along the walk he said he could tell I didn’t trust him, and that was okay, but that I’d discover soon enough he was a good man. He said that good and bad people existed everywhere, and good people attracted other good people. He told me, if I like, he’d take me to have a cup of tea once I checked into the hotel and show me around the town.
The old part of town was quite amazing. Tiny narrow streets paved with rock…but the rock was simply implanted into the clay earth. There was not cement bonding them. Just deep into the earth. The buildings too where brick and cement. And the masonary work on these buildings was even worse. The stacked bricks were uneven and potruted at different lengths and intervals. Everything was painted a light blue which mirrored the sky and white. Everything. Along the packed streets small vendors sold their wares. Some huts had house products like soap and air fresheners. Some sold clothes—modern and traditional. Some sold cigarettes and sodas and candy bars. Some sold bread and meats. And there were even some people sitting in chairs on a corner, not in a store at all, selling things like olives and bread and necklaces they had grown or made themselves. Children ran through the crowded streets, unsupervised, and played and laughed. Along the walls were drinking fountains, with mold and moss growing inside of them, where local children were drinking or local woman were filling buckets of water to clean their homes. The roads were not made for cars. Not in any fashion. There were no cars in the old part of town. The roads were steep and turned ended with no predictable patters. Sometimes a series of long stairs, painted blue, would appear, and sometimes the rock paved path would cease and one would have to walk through mud for twenty feet until the path started again. The streets were noisy and people called out in Arabic and spoke to the neighbors or the shopkeepers across the way.
We reached the hotel, Hotel Bab Lain. I saw my room, which could not be considered clean under any western view. The room smelled of sewage leaking from the bathroom. And the floors and walls looked filthy. And the shower was nothing more than a head protruding from the wall next to the toilet. Not tub or special area. You stood next to the toilet, soaked the toilet and the mirror and the sink when you showered…if you showered. There was no soap or toilet paper or towels offered in the room. But, I was eager to get along with the adventure and knew Abdul was waiting for me downstairs. So I took the room, paid six euro a night for it, and before heading down I had a moment where I asked myself I trusted Abdul, if I really wanted to follow him to god knows where, in a country that I knew shit about, other than Tangier is a place where people get fucked for trusting another human too quickly. But, the bus ride went well, and I had no other options for an in to the city. So I went downstairs and left with Abdul.
He led me through a labyrinth of city streets to what he called his families home. Walking into the home I knew I was in a completely different world. Abdul’s family, was a family of Berbers, and I quickly discovered family was used in a different sense. They were a communal family that lived in a traditional manner. They were all brothers, but not from the same mother. Their craft was weaving. They made blankets, carpets, sweaters, gelops, scarves, and many other traditional items of the Berber legacy.
They brought me into the house, which had two main rooms down stairs and a terrace upstairs. The walls of the room were lined with thousands of neatly folded blankets and carpets. On the walls ceiling they had hung their art over every square inch, which was later explained to me that was also tradition…in the mountains where there village was the blankets were used to insulate their homes. If a small section of wall was exposed it too was painted the same blue of Chaouen.
Once entering the room, they invited me to sit on one of the two long benches which lined the walls and was covered with one of their pieces. We began to talk and an old man named Abdulo, wearing a blue gelop (which at this point I still found very foreign and strange), told me about their family history. They were Berbers, decedents of the first tribes to inhabit northern Morocco, who have a great deal to do with Spanish history, and that his Berber tribe, there are 50 tribes still living traditionally in northern Africa, lived 30km from Chaouen and had a village in the mountains. They were self sustaining in the village. Each family had livestock and grew their own grains and vegetables. And each family depended heavily upon the other families in the village. He, lived in Chaouen, where he ran the store I was sitting in. At this point a man came in with a tray of tea and they asked if I would like one. Of course I said yes. It was wonderful tea, called Berber tea. It was made from some mix of roots and flowers that I had never heard of and after the tea was boiled they placed a handful of fresh mint into each glass and poured the tea on top of the mint. When ever my glass was empty, the same man who brought me my first glass took it away, went up to the terrace, and returned with a fresh glass of tea. This was his role in the commune. He cleaned the house and prepared tea for guests. Abdul told me they were very welcoming people, as I could already see, and that they had friends from all over the world. He showed me guest book travelers wrote comments in about their stay in, what I have started calling, “the Berber house.” He said to me, “if you are happy, than I am happy.”
After a while of conversation, he told Anis, another member of the family, who dressed very modernly in a brown sweater with a brown undershirt with brown corduroy jeans, began to remove blankets from the stacks and lay them out on the floor. Abdulo explained them to me. He told me that for many generations the Berbers did not have a written language and they used images to tell stories. He explained to me what the images on the blankets meant. Some where the tattoo of his tribe. Some where images of rivers and mountains where his tribe lived. Some of the blankets where traded with a Berber tribe from the Sahara and he explained to me the rolling images were representative of the sand dunes of the desert. Before I knew it, I was telling him which blankets I liked and which ones I didn’t like by saying, “Ishma” for I didn’t like it, and “Halla” for I did like it. The stack disappeared and three rugs laid before me and on a piece of paper Abdula wrote the price of each one. I had no intention of buying anything when I went in, but I was so fascinated with the hospitality, the communal living, the history of each other rugs that I genuinely wanted one. The price he wrote was very high. Which, I didn’t not have a problem with, the craftsmanship was very high, and I’m certain if sold in the states the rugs would bring a much higher price. But, I simply could not afford it. The process started all over with cheaper blankets and rugs and a fresh cup of Berber Tea and in the end I purchased rug and a blanket.
And that was the sale. That is why they escorted me from the bus and took me to a hotel and served me tea and told me their history. But, not entirely. After I had paid and my goods were all packed they invited me to come to the backroom and relax with them. I spent the entire evening there. And it was amazing. A group of guys my age from Barcelona came to visit the Berbers and we sat in the back room and made jokes and drank tea and watched television. A man from croatia came in who spoke English and he and i talked for a few hours and this summer I am going to go and stay with him. Members of the commune would get up at random points to do their work. Which, surprisingly to me, they never ever seemed upset about. Anis would rise and display blankets and then fold them up with precision and restack them along the walls. Yussef, the “house made” would clean the table of sunflower shells and empty water bottles and return with a wash rag and wipe the table down. Abdulo would get up and sell blankets. Everyone had a role. And everyone was very pleased to do their share of the work.
I learned a valuable lesson about tradition that night when meeting a younger Berber named Abdul (yes, there were three). He was 28 and weaver in the commune. He wore a traditional gelop, but underneath it he wore modern clothes and if I saw him in the streets I would be certain he was American. But he was not. He very much believed in the practices of his family and was very happy with his lifestyle. He asked me to tell him American jokes and told me the ones he knew. WE talked about pop culture and music. But, he was wearing a Gelop, right? This is tradition, and something we do not have in the united states. We are far too young of a nation. Before when looking at a traditional Arabic outfit I would have a distant feeling. A feeling of them being foreign and absolutely unrelatable to me. But this is false false false. They were what they were because they are proud of who they are. But, they are people IDENTICAL to me. The conversations were fluid and easy and relaxed. I can’t express fully how profound this discovery was to me. I came this far to discover nothing really. There is no grand difference, sure there are idealistic differences, but at the core humans are humans. Period.
The night passed well and I sat content. At points anis or abdul or Yussef would turn to me and ask, “are you happy?”
“Yes, I am very happy,” I would respond. “Then we are happy.”
And they meant it. They truly did. Being hospitable. Welcoming people into their homes truly made them happy. I know this. Because after I bought what I bought they no longer tried to sell me anything. I was their guest and they were proud to have me.
Later, Anis explained to me that they saw all people as equals. Which, is a fundamental belief of the Islamic religion. Muslims do believe their god is the one true god, like any other religion, but written in their Koran, it tells them to love and respect all people of all religions. And this is something they truly uphold. Anis also explained to me that they respected Americans more than any other nationality. Which, to me, made no sense, but be it what it was, I was very very very happy to have such friendly people being so friendly to me.
That night I rose at one point and said I was hungry and I was going to go and find some dinner. Everyone around me made a motion for me to sit. The young Abdul said, “tanquillo.” In Chaouen there is never a rush to do anything. It is the most relaxing environment on the planet. Abdul said that I could join them for dinner, I just needed to pitch in on the food, which I was more than glad to do. I paid them 20 Durhams, Two Euro and had one of the best meals of my life…partly because of the experience.
After I gave one fellow whose roll it was to shop and prepare the meals, I don’t recall his name, unfortunately, my money we sat longer and after an hour or so the food was brought down. It was a stewish concoction. With Chicken, tomato, rice, cilantro, and cheese. It was prepared and served in a large iron skillet. The Skillet was place on the coffee table of the back room and bread was broken and past around the table. We all gathered around the table and we did not have forks or knives or plates. We simply took the bread and dipped it directly into the iron skillet and ate in that manner. It was awesome. An experience like no other. A water bottle was placed on the table as well and when thirsty you took a drink directly from it. In Chaouen it is truly communal living. Everything for everyone and nothing for yourself.
After dinner I put my pack of cigarettes on the table and Anis poured me a rum and coke. The rum was a gift from another traveler who had poured the liquor into an empty water bottle for them. My cigarettes were open to everyone and we smoked and drank and again and again they’d ask me, “are you happy? Then we are happy.”
That night, when I was ready to return home, it was raining heavily out. And Yussef followed me to my hotel holding an umbrella over my head ensuring me that I would not get wet.

And that’s day one.

Day two began wonderfully and ended wonderfully. I started the day writing in my journal while eating breakfast, toast with marmalade, café con leche, and freshly squeezed orange juice, in the dinning room of the hotel. Afterward I went to the main tourist attraction of Chaouen. At one point in history, long ago, the entire water supply of Chaouen was sourced from the streams that flow down the mountain and were channeled throughout the city. Now, at the base of the mountain where the river meets the valley, there are two huts made that were/are used for cleaning clothes. The huts channel water off the river and the water flows directly through the houses and through a series of wash basins with wooden rivets used to scrub clothes, rugs, and whatever house hold items need cleaned. I had to hike through the city, up steep streets, still through narrow streets with many ends and beginnings, until I happened upon the area. There is a lovely waterfall there as well and the lush green Rif mountains surrounded the area. Woman were in the huts scrubbing their clothes with natural soap along the rivets of the flowing river.
At this location there is a trail that leads up into the mountains which I, of course, had to hike up. The trail at first was paved like the rest of the city, rocks embedded deep into the clay, and had a short stone wall with mud for mortar that ran along side it. The trail did not last long and soon I was hiking on a muddy trail. It rose steeply and soon I was high above the entire city and could see the blue and whites of Chaouen, and the steep incline of the city built within a gorge very clearly. I stopped at a place where two mountains met and formed a passageway that lead deep into the wilderness. The two mountains nearly formed a passageway or a gate, which looked so inviting. I hike up the narrow trail between the two mountains as far as I could. But, it had been raining and the mud and stone was very slick and I reached a point where it became too steep to go any further. Here, I stopped and wrote more. And I sat high and again was awed by the beauty of the Rif mountains and the lush green hills of Africa. The city was so high up that clouds formed above the houses. Not fog, actually clouds. It was bizarre. I could see lines of clouds sporadically throughout the valley. I wish I would have taken a picture from my perch before the more clouds rolled in, but I did not, and while I was writing, a cold breeze blew through and in moments I was in a white haze of clouds and could no longer see through the mountain gateway which I had sat admiring for some time before. I knew that if it began to ran it would be dangerous climbing down so I packed up my things and began the hike down.
Once back on the trail and headed for the city, I crossed a group of five boys, my age, sitting on the rock wall that lined the paved trail. Their names were, Houssam, Larbi, Mohamed, Omar, and Khalil. They were playing guitar. I did not initially try to stop but nodded at them as I passed and once my back was to them one, Houssam) shouted out, “Guetentag.” I turned and told them I was American and not German and then asked, with a series of hand motions if I could join them and listen to them play guitar. They were more than welcoming and I sat at the end of the line and listened to Larbi play traditional Moroccan songs on a nylon string guitar. The music was wonderful, and had American pop elements of verse and chorus and hook, but used different chords and transitions I was not accustomed to. While Larbi played, the other boys all sang the words to the songs together. It was awesome. The rain had just started at this point, and the air was so fresh and clean and crisp and the view of the valley mixed with the beautiful songs was nearly overwhelming. I was very happy. I sat and smoked cigarettes and I began to beat rhythms with my hands upon my legs.
After a some time of all the boys singing songs to Larbi’s playing, Khalil rose and began to take pictures with his cellphone. At this point Houssam said, “Friend, come.” And he pated with his hand the open space next to him. I sat next to him and he looked me in the eye and smiled. I was certain of his honesty, and after the prior evening I was nearly certain of all in the city.
Larbi quit playing after some time and they gestured the guitar towards me, in the manner of asking, “do you play.” I took the guitar and began to strum the songs I know and then Larbi said with very poor English, “sing in English.” I told them I don’t sing well in Spanish and Houssam understood and told me it didn’t matter. So, I sat, again in the beautiful setting of nearly pristine Africa, high in the mountains on a rock wall in the freshening rain, and began to sing the songs I knew. It was transcendent to say the very least. A beautiful feeling and I had no self awareness. It was me and the guitar and new friends. After each song they’d pat me on the back and clap their hands. It was fucking bizarre. They were very kind and very sincere people.
They invited me to have coffee with them afterward. I followed them back down the mountain and Houssam and I spoke in Spanish. Though, Spanish is hard enough for me already, but an Arabic fellow speaking Spanish with an accent so bizarre, made I nearly impossible for me to understand. But, like the berbers the night before. He had so much patience. When I would say, “no entiendo,” he would stop and think of a new way to explain it and speak slower and clearer until I understood. It was awesome. He had no frustration what so ever. And our conversation was pleasant. It was basic getting to know you stuff. All five of the guys worked one day a week in Tangier at a VW plant as electricians. One day a week is all they needed to live happily in Chaouen. I repeat, in Chaouen, there is only simplicity, and never a rush or worry.
The café was splendid. We sat under the covered terrace and the rain began to fall very hard. And, all five of us sat in silence and watched it. And after a awhile Khalil simply said, “es bonita.” True words had never been spoken.
I asked Houssam to order me something good to eat and he did and soon I had a Moroccan salad which was sliced onions, peppers, tomatoes, with cilantro that I scooped onto a piece of bread. And for my main course I had kebabs of steak and chicken. We drank Berber tea and when I asked how to say mint in Arabic, Houssam rose and went inside the café and returned with a sprig of mint and said, “Nah Nah,” (def. not the correct spelling), and handed me the mint. Later, Larbi took out the guitar again and he played songs and no one sang and we all listened to the guitar and watched the rain.
I explained to them about Sahim, and how I needed to call her but my mobile didn’t work in chaouen and asked how I could call her. They told me I could easily buy a sim card for my mobile in the city. I rose as though I would go and do it then, and all of them, just like the Berbers, motioned for me to sit down and Khalil looked at me and said, “tranquillo.” Like I said, there is never a rush in Chaouen.
We played more songs on the guitar. And Larbi played old American pop songs by the beatles and the eagles and asked me to sing them. So I quietly sang hotel California and let it be. And the others hummed and mimicked the English words to the songs they knew but did not understand.
Around five a melodic and hypnotic prayer rang throughout the city. It was the daily prayer that one elder of the city gave into a microphone which was connected to old speakers that stood ontop of a building. Larbi quit playing the guitar. The people in the streets and cafes quit talking. The entire city went silent and for a few minutes we all listened to the prayer. It was beautiful. The voice of the man reminded me of something dying unnaturally. He wailed and the prayer had a very melodic ring to it that one could not ignore, that entered into the body and filled me with a feeling of grand spirituality. It was very much unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Afterward Houssam began to talk about religion with me. He asked what faith I belong to, and when I told him none, he did not understand. The same thing happened with the berbers the night before. Not having a religion is very odd to them, and nearly uncomprehendable. The American agnostic is more rare than I had thought…even in spain nearly everyone still claims to be catholic, whether they go to church or not. Houssam told me there is only one god and one day I would want to get in touch with him. It was really quite funny to me. Because they way he handled talking to me about religion reminded me so much of how the Christians of my childhood would talk about faith with me. But I tried to explain to him that I had my own spirituality and that what I had seen of the Islamic religion I liked very much and that they seemed to be the nicest people I had ever met. This satisfied him and the conversation died and we all went back to watching the rain.
After some time Houssam asked me if I still needed the card for my phone and I said yes. He and Khalil rose and so I rose as well, and once again, all five of them motioned for me to sit and once again I was told, “tranquillo.” Larbi looked at me and smiled and he pulled out the guitar and he began to play hotel California for a second time. I smiled and told the others thank and I watched them depart in the rain.
When they returned they handed me the card and I began to pull out my wallet and all five, in unison again, said “no no no no.” They refused to let me pay. I insisted and they said no and I could see, that just like the Berbers, it made them endlessly happy to make me happy. I thanked them as sincere as I could, which was incredibly sincere and accepted the gift. Then, when the check came, Omar grabbed it immidetely and handed the waiter a 100 durhams and when I said I needed to get change to pay my share they again told me no. I did not try to fit with them. I accepted the gift humbly. And was absolutely dumfounded with what had just happened. They had to have known I had much more money then them. An American studying in Spain on vacation in Africa. And them, five boys who lived together and worked one day a week. They knew, and yet it did not matter to them at all.
After the café they were headed back to Tangier. Of course, they invited me with them. When I told them I wanted to stay in Chaouen they actually nearly begged me to come. Not beg in the sense of pleading, but just a sincere desire to continue hanging out. But, I was not ready to leave Chaouen and I was already certain I would be returning and I told them I would return soon, which made them very happy. I walked with them down to the main road where they were to catch a cab and we all got together and took a photo. One on my camera, and one on Khalil’s phone. We exchanged numbers and email addresses and I am certain I will see them again.
That evening I went back to the berber house, drank more tea, stood on the terrace in the rain, and had a wonderful dinner of mashed potatoes seasoned with salt and cumin and olive oil substituted for milk. When I told them in the states we use milk they all concurred that olive oil tasted better. We ate with our hands from the dish in the center of the room. I told them the story of houssam and friends and showed them the picture. Anis looked at it and said he could tell that they were good people and that I found them because good people find good people. That night when I went to leave it was still raining and Yussef followed me out the front door with an umbrella and I told him I wanted to walk in the rain and he smiled and we shook hands and I walked back to the hotel in the cool African rain.

I met Sahim at the bus station the next morning. And we had a wonderful ride back to tangier together. I had a million questions to ask her about the muslims, the berbers, the lifestyles, and the utter friendliness of all I encountered. When I told her that after I parted from Houssam and his friends I still had my wallet and passport and nothing was missing she confusedly asked, “you expected them to steal from you.” And in a subtle western mindset I had expected them to steal from me. No one is that friendly without expecting something in return, right? But no, people in the world that friendly do exist. And they exist in a small village in morocco.
I asked her about the lack of woman in the streets. And she explained to me the culture of the muslims and that the woman were in the homes doing house work and raising families and that they were truly happy doing it and one day she wanted to do it as well. We talked more about her life. She is the only girl studying engineering in her entire university, which many of her friends do not agree with. She speak four languages and two of them, English and Spanish, she taught herself via the internet. And she spoke each very well. We debated briefly over the rationality of having Islamic woman cover their bodies. She said it was logical because it came them pure. And I said it was illogical because sex is a basic human instinct and hiding it is illogical. We did not come to an agreement but we both clearly understood the different mindsets of being raised in such foreign environments and we both respected the other very much. AT times we quite talking and simply watched the beautiful countryside out the window of the bus. We became close and our legs were intertwined and we relaxed into each others bodies and took very lazy naps.
The bus ride ended far too soon and I would have been glad to stay on it all the way across the Gibraltar straight and all the way back to Madrid. But, clearly, that isn’t how things work. Once off the bus she offered to take me to the port and when we got to the line of taxis we both wanted to walk some more so we continued walking, both with luggage towards the port. At one point when we passed another line of taxis and she asked if I wanted to keep walking, she said to me in Spanish, “Quiero ser contigo.” Which, because of her accent and my terrible Spanish, I didn’t understand and had to ask her three times to repeat herself, which completely ruined a very romantic sentiment.
Eventually we made it to the port and we said goodbye, temporarily, and she invited me back to morocco anytime, which I will undoubtedly take her up on.
Once out to sea, standing on the observation deck, I let the strong winds blow into my hair. And I leaned back into the winds which supported my weight and nearly toppled me forward. And I let the salty ocean mist collide with and sting into my face. And I contemplated, from the highest mast head, my time spent in Africa.

huzza!
jake.

feria de san blas

disclaimer. this turned out epic. In word it is 12 pages double spaced. longer than any essay i've had to write for college in quite awhile. it's not really all that coherent. So, if you dare, dive into the mind of jake. take it in sessions if you are really intersted. Otherwise, i enjoyed writing for only myself.


I’m way past due for an online journal entry, aka, a blog. But, it’s been a few weeks of transition. A few weeks of finding my place in Madrid. Of finding what it means to survive in a city of six million were you never see a familiar face in the streets even when you take the same train every day at the same time. But, I assure you I am finding it, and even may jump the gun and say have found it. While, it isn’t as I had imagined, it’s certainly not with Spanish friends, the language barrier sees to that, but currently it is with other foreigners like myself. Others who have run to Madrid from their home countries all for the sake of finding whatever is to be found when removed from a comfort zone, removed from familiar culture. Some of them are world travelers. My friend Lindy has spent the past two years moving from country to country. She’s as much of a vagabond as they come. She embraces the fact that she’s spent many winter nights sleeping in the streets and finding dinner in the dumpster. Embraces the fact that friends are the highest form of love and that one can never expect more than a good conversation and a shared solitude in the warm sun. Of the group, I believe I’m the only first timer. Most are experienced travelers. Been to many places, used to existing on the outside. It’s a very accepting culture. One that recognizes the individual worth of all peoples. All peoples have talents hopes dreams even when they are the simplest forms.
My intention of this blog is to write about the Feria de Sans Blas, and the effect bullfights have had on my mind, that I went to this weekend in Valdemorrila, a very small pueblo (village or small town) 40km north of Madrid. The experience was phenomenal and it was hands down the best three days I’ve spent in Spain to date. But my mind is wondering and I’ll get there eventually. First though I feel I must give some thoughts on Madrid to fully understand the grandeur of my fin de semana en Valdemorrila.
Madrid is a city of jaded individuals. It’s comparable to that of New York City, or I’m told, seeing how I’ve never been. But I imagine all huge cities must be this way. When every face you see is a face of a stranger. When one cannot leave the house and go anywhere outside of their barrio (neighborhood) and possibly recognize anyone. In this circumstance one always has a feeling of insignificance and irrelevance. Whether they realize it or not. Locals I imagine do not. In order to feel like one matter in a city of strangers one must rely on one self. One must put credence, and too often in Madrid it is an overwhelming belief of self, in order to feel like they do matter. When I go to cafes, and not just me, it’s locals as well, the camereras (bartenders or waiter, there is no distinction between the two, verbally anyway) are short. They spit out, “digame” which roughly means “talk to me.” It’s short and curt and they expect a short and curt response. Do not try to be polite in Madrid, you’ll only piss people off. And, being an American who is learning Spanish pissing people off is what I do often. Though it’s occurring less as my knowledge of the language grows. But still, this is a city with an influxed ideal of self worth. But, that’s okay. That’s how it exists. That how the people here survive the feelings of insignificance. And it’s becoming very beautiful to me.
In order to survive in Madrid one must have a niche. All people have them. It occurs in the barrios. Do not expect to come to Madrid and make friends with the camerero on a first visit. Do not expect to go to Sol or Plaza Mayor or Chueca and befriend anyone. These are the cosmopolitan areas. These are the areas where self worth swells the highest. But in your barrio, the place you dwell and shop and spend a few hours in the plazas you’ll begin to be accepted. It’s happening for me. It’s how the locals survive. When walking down the calle (street) at six pm and looking through the windows of store fronts I see the same faces in the same bars each night. It’s really beautiful. The bars and cafes and restaurants—there is hardly a difference in any of them, bars are places for families, not like in the states—are filled with friends who joke and laugh with the staff and joke and laugh with each other. I frequent a café called Obador where I like the café and the pasterillas (pastries, which are nothing like American pastries, super sweet things here hardly exist) and the camerara talked with an old couple at the bar and they laughed together. And tonight must have been my seventh time going there and for the first time one camerera spoke English to me. She’s waited on me many times allowed me to look foolish and now she speaks English! This is Madrid in a nutshell. Once accepted, once becoming a part of a community, then one can really begin to feel like they are at home. I’m glad I’m settling. The first month, as noted in one blog, was very hard. But my niche and settling has begun. Even in Madrid, a city far from my ideals of what makes humanity humane.
So Madrid, gave me a sour taste for Spain initially. Culture shock my grand uncle Maurice would call it. And he’s right, definitely culture shock. But (now we are getting there), Valdemorilla has shown me a side of Spain I love. I absolutely love. The Spain of Hemingway romances. It was a weekend where I lived as though I was a character from a Kerouac novel, or under the ideals of Thoreau and Whitman and Emerson. It was a weekend that reminded me of who I am. What I love. And if I could live like this eternally I’d be a very happy man. But, realistically it does not seem plausible. Even Lindy, the closest person I’ve ever met to existing like a beatnik in true from has to have a job for a year at a time. She has had many hardships and scary instances and times of desperate poverty. Which, all are romantic. All are life. All are a part of an accepted existence. One, I am not sure I could give up my schooling for. But, one day would love to try.
Feria Sans Blas. The week long festival of the patron saint of Valdemorilla, whose population is nearly 8,000. Where to begin? Chronologically? Grouping events? Or just pick a moment and write? That seems good.
I feel in “love” with my first Spanish woman. Obviously lover here is used as about as loosely as it can be. But, my lord, what a beautiful and kind woman. When I first exited the bus west of the city center on the outskirts, not sure of where to go, or where I was, I walked north towards the buildings, it seemed logical. I found a hostel near a very old inglesia (catholic church…well, church, but all churches are catholic here…nearly). I walked into the hostel expecting the same struggles I deal with in Madrid but found such a warm welcoming. My Spanish beauty smiled immediately and stood up from the bar where she was reading book and said “beinvenidos,” and I requested a room. The hostel was owned and operated by one family, who were sitting across the room gathered at a table eating dinner and drinking wine. Quickly the girl, whose name I never learned, realized I didn’t speak Spanish too well and she began to speak to me in English, though her English is on a par with my Spanish. We talked briefly, but warmly, and she escorted me to my room and opened the door and asked if she could do anything else. I removed the few non essential items from my bag, a pair of underwear, a change of socks, and school text book, and went back down to the bar. I ordered a glass of wine and when the daughter, my Spanish queen (haha), went to pour me a glass from the bottle behind the bar, her father shouted from the table and she put the bottle back on the backbar and walked over to the table and took the bottle the family was drinking from. She told me it was a better wine and the father wanted me to have some. It was so awesome. The act that is. The wine was good too. And then her and I sat and talked for an hour, her in English, I in Spanish (we both seized the opportunity to practice a foreign tongue). It was a simple conversation, but it was so pleasant. They had two bulldogs and one had a cone one its head and bandage on its leg. And she told me he was too fat and his knee was giving out and he had to have an operation. We both laughed at the fat thing sitting crumpled upon itself looking helplessly around the room. She told me about the fiesta and what was occurring and the events that would take place. At point in our conversation she would say excuse me, and turn from the bar and yell, I mean really yell (“mama!”) to her family across the room about me and what I just told her about myself and they would laugh or nod their heads, and she would turn back and tell me what they had said. Then I left, went and explored. But, when I returned, every time, the family, be it the brother the sister or either of the two parents, I was always greeted with, “Que tal?” and they expected, no were generally interested in a response. It was great. Absolutely great.
Now what? Hmmm…let’s continue with the niceties of the peoples in Valdemorilla. The streets of the small pueblo were lined with booths and vendors selling all sorts of random things. Children’s toys. Hand made leather bags and wallets and bracelets. T-shirts. Spanish souvenirs. Tons of food, comparable to food at the state carnival, only Spanish. And walking along the calle and looking at merchandise the proprietor would nearly always asked “de donde eres?” (where are you from). Which in Madrid is unheard of, people don’t care. And we’d tell them we were from the states (here the we is lindy and I, and I’ll have to take a whole section to write about the awesome time I had with her) and people were receptive to it. Again, unlike Madrid.
Another example (I have two more I’ll type though I could go on and on) of incredibly friendliness of the Spanish: We were at a café, El Fronton (which has amazingly huge and delicious plates for super cheap) and I wanted a wineskin (you know those leather bags that you put wine in and are commonly passed around at a bullfight…and yes they were passed around at the bullfights) and I didn’t know the word for one and I didn’t know where to buy one. So I asked our camerero as best I could where I could get one. It took some creativity, “Sabes donde yo puedo comprar un…uh…bolso para vino…” and then some hand actions, and then, “son de piel.” Eventually we got there. He began to draw me a map before throwing it away and grabbing me by the arm and saying, “Vienes (you come).” He led me out the store down the street and to a store which sold them. He picked one out for me said, “esta bein?” and smiling and saying he’d see me back at the café. It was so incredibly nice. I loved it. Really really did. I tipped him five euro, which is unheard of here…tips aren’t common in Spain, and five percent is a huge tip.
Finally, at the end of our adventure while lindy and I were waiting for the bus back to Madrid, a man approached us and said, “tienes fuego (do you have a light)?” we started talking to him and, obviously, he asked where we were from and why we had come to such a small and untouristic destination (valdemorillo has no grand historical relevance, just a small village). We told him we had come for the bullfights and he immediately assumed, as we were American, we had found the event grotesque. But once we told him how much we enjoyed it, how much fun we had, a whole line of dialogue was opened. Angel, the Spaniard, was an older retired man. And his thing, as all retired peoples have a thing, was he traveled city to city during the bullfighting season and ran with the bulls (I was unaware that there are fifty pueblos in Spain that have a running, valdemorillo included…I’ll get there…). He said he runs 120 times a year. The runnings usually occur during the pueblos ferias (festivals celebrating patron saints) and they usually have three or four during the week. And he runs at many. He told us the basics, what was expected, how well the best runners could do. Nobody runs start to finish in one go…the best runners (yes there’s a whole league of people who travel and run at all the cities) can run 150-200 meters at a time (they release one or two or three bulls at a time, each being set off with a loud firework shot into the air, and there is about five sessions to try and make it all the way to the plaza). Anyway, point being, cool man very friendly. We exchanged numbers with him, and he told me to call him in the middle of march, for that is when the season truly begins, valdemorilla begins very early, and we are going to give us information on all the runnings in all the cities, and, hopefully, we are going to meet him in some pueblo, somewhere, and run with him and then go to the fights with him. It was a very cool experience and one I’m very glad occurred.
K, lets give credence to the romantic side of the weekend with Lindy. And not romantic like boy girl kissy kissy…tiene un novio, so there was none of that. But, romantic in the sense of Whitman and Snyder. Romantic in the sense of aimless wonderings which fill the soul with such joyous pleasure of the simplicity man seems to forget. Lindy and I did nothing spectacular in the sense of my other adventures here. It wasn’t possible, there’s nothing grand to see in Voldemorillo. The basis of our weekend was drinking wine, which costs all of two dollars for entire day!, and walking and enjoying nothing but observations and awesome conversations. At one point, after desayunar (breakfast), I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said let’s go nap in the park. Which is one of the best times I had in the pueblo. We laid down between the shadows of the tree in the sun whose rays were warming and mixed perfectly with the wine in our bellies. There was a light breeze which swayed the grass gently and on blew onto my face like the feeling of soft felt embracing my skin. We fell asleep in the sun and occasionally one would stir and then the other would stir and we’d both know the other was awake, and someone would ask a quiet question and the other would respond and when the conversation had settled and had been finished we would close our eyes without any transition and fall back asleep until one would stir and repeat the whole process. We laid in the park for four hours. With no anxiety or desire to anything but simply exist. At points I’d pull out my journal and write a poem or make an entry and she’d wonder and pick a flower and investigate the trees, and then we’d return lie back down and enjoy the solitude which each of us has learned to embrace in our lives, learned to fully love, and also, embrace the perfect shared solitude. The understanding of silence and allowing ones self to feel the emotion the world creates if one is willing to perceive it.
On the last night we were there we snuck onto a roof of building under construction. We watched the stars and she told me tales of her travels and her life of wondering. And I shared stories of my domestic life, which the morals one pulls from each are the exact same but the experiences are different. We drank more wine and smoked cigarettes and could see the lights and rooftops of the entire pueblo. We played harmonica, though neither really know how, and the songs from each sounded perfectly sorrowful and full of the beauty of solitude. After leaving the roof we headed back to the park and we stopped at a frutaria, and I bought an orange and she bought some pickles. And we sat in same place and talked more, and smoked more, and drank more, and I ate the finest orange I’ve ever ever had. Oh god, to live like this always would be the pinnacle of my existence. To be so happy with so little. For one weekend I was Japhy Ryder, I was a dharma bum, and I did not need anything more than shared solitude with another who understands it so finely and an orange and some wine and tobacco.
Now what? There was the church, where I accidentally walked in on a funeral and did not know it was a funeral until the grand doors to rear were swung open and line of pallbearers walked forward and picked up the casket hidden from my view and the funeral line that proceeded past me while I knelt and prayed hoping they wouldn’t think I was a complete asshole for crashing their funeral, hoping they’d think I was a devote catholic weary from travel finding sanctuary in the chapel, which isn’t entirely false, but certainly not based upon the catholic notions. There was the church itself constructed long ago of solely stone and mortar, and the ground too was paved with old granite stone. And there was its high arched roof which hung omnisciently 100 meters above our heads and the fine paintings from artists that hung on the walls. There was the pastors voice who spoke through a microphone and his voice through the speakers echoed off the walls and returned and reverberated in such a manner that I could not tell where the voice was coming from, it only seemed to come from up high, from god himself and the feeling the huge church and the pastors voice like god’s, which was a feeling of punity and irrelevance, which to me was amazing a feeling which inspired self–reliance and the recognition that when I die I will die and be forgotten within a few generations, granting I do have children and they have children. And the only solution to this is to live each day and moment and enjoy all the world has to offer. There was the graveyard the meditation on death that one must go through in order to fully understand a bullfight. And the Spanish views of death which are far from Americans. Death is not ignored. The dead are buried in sarcophaguses above the ground where the dead’s bones rest right in front of you, not hidden deep within the ground. Death here is something accepted, as far as I can tell. And I went to the catacombs of a monastery where all the kings of spain are buried with the usac group a few weeks ago. Most of them were very uneasy being so close to the dead. Knowing their bodies lay hidden but their caskets fully visible. This is a difference of Spain. Death is something confronted, feared still, but confronted, which is the true meaning of a bullfight. The bull symbolized death and the matador man kind. The even is not a barbaric one. It is not cruel. It is no more cruel than in nature when mother bear eats her cubs, or when I pack of dogs gang up on another dog. Cruelty is a notion created by man, for man, based upon their own insecurities and the feeling of uneasiness created by a bullfight. A Bullfight is man striking back at mortality. For one afternoon a group of mortals come to feel vicariously immortal through the bravery (if the fight is good) of the matador. Bullfights are rich in tradition which still exist to this day. They are far from cruel, if one is willing to realize that man is an animal of nature just like the bull and that we have the ability to separate ourselves from nature as though we are not apart of it. Carlos Fuentes said of bullfights, “Spain rips off the mask of our puritanical hypocrisy in relation to nature.” The bull is our brother, the spainards know this. When a bull is killed cowardly they boo the matador and comment on the unjustness of the death of the bull. These events are not for the simple minded. Sure, simple minded people do attend, but they do not understand the brilliance of what they are seeing. A bullfight, when truly amazing, leave all who witnessed it sure of the inner power, sure that they are alive, that they do matter, that their life is no apology, but a feat and triumphant victory. Man is an animal, which has evolved, to its place of power but still recognizes its utter weakness. Through bullfights, for one afternoon, everyone feels alive.
I guess I really have nothing more to say of a bullfight. It’s pointless to try and explain the stages, I read them before I went, I read Hemingway’s memoir on them, and still I could not comprehend them until I saw them. And if Hemingway can’t make me understand than I cannot make you all understand either. It’s a very complicated event. With three stages, and any one of the stages that does not go perfectly can ruin the rest of the fight. I saw it happen nearly every time. Hemingway said one in ever twenty fights you see will be mundane and will not give an individual a true understanding of what bullfight can be, or should be. And this proved to be true. I saw eighteen fights total. One was unbelievably brilliant. Unbelievably. I had witnessed fourteen fights before seeing a brilliant fight. And I had a notion of what a bullfight could be from the prior fourteen. I had a glimpse into the feeling of immortality, into the artistic genius of matadors. But once seeing Daniel Loque fight, I was overwhelmed with a feeling indescribable. It was powerful, beautiful. Bullfighting is an art. It truly is. And it takes an artist, with inherit artistic talent to create the event as art. There are many good bullfighters who are not artists, who are athletes. And these fights are the ones that become mundane. But bullfighting is an art, if you see a bullfight with an open mind, you will understand how true this statement is.
I will give slight homage to Daniel Loque. He is seventeen, incredibly young for a matador, and he faced the bravest bull I had seen that night. The way to judge a bull is not by how fierce he is while entering the ring, but by how well he handles the first wound he receives. If when first picked the bull fights back he is brave. This bull immediately went after the banderillos and showed amazing bravery throughout the entire fight. And do not kid yourself, that bullfights are a science and a simple minded event where a man calmly tricks a bull. Matadors and members of the cuadrillo die every year. They are facing a very dangerous animal. The matadors have great fear. I saw them sweat with anxiety, I saw them run from the bull, I saw them hurt the bull cheaply out of fear. There is a very real danger in bullfighting, and the best matadors are the bravest ones. Or the ones who are able to control their fear the most. Daniel was ambitiously, possibly naively brave. He worked so close to the bull he was covered in the bull’s blood, which is not that common. He hypnotized the bull with his muleta (the scarlet cape), and he did not allow the picadors or banderillos to hurt the bull in the way other matadors do. He wanted the bull strong. He wanted the bull healthy. And this is precisely how he faced the bull. And, he showed no fear. His proximity to the bull was outstanding, his calm and collective presence is unbelievable considering the circumstances. He killed the bull very soon too. Long before the other matadors would have. He did not tire the bull to the point of exhaustion. He killed the bull when the bull was very likely to do much damage to him. Witnessing all of this was unlike anything I have ever seen. And I will look for Daniel to fight in las ventas (the Madrid plaza de toros) while I’m here. I will travel to see him again. He was truly an artist who has no fear. However, of characters such as himself, Hemingway says there are many. Many young and ambitious matadors will fight brilliantly for a season, and maybe two, until they receive their first coranado (gorging) and then they have fear, and then they work far from the bull. But, I’m glad to have seen him with his youth and his bravery intact.

Huzza!
Jake.