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.
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.
