when in...morocco

How to explain my weekend in Morocco…Filled with you had to be there kind of moments, yet I want nothing more than to share my experience with my readers. It is not an easy task I have set for myself, but I will give it my best shot.

So, as most of my travel posts begin, I took advantage of a day off from work. This time I actually had to take an extra day off because the holiday fell on a Wednesday, and I also work on Thursdays. But given that the holiday was Día del Trabajador AKA Labor Day, I found it appropriate to give myself an extra day to celebrate myself (or to have a long weekend in Morocco).

The fun began as soon as I stepped off the airplane in Casablanca. After the nightmare that was going through customs and security, I was greeted by my first-ever welcome sign. I’ve always been jealous of those passengers who have drivers holding up signs for them when they arrive (although the jumping up and down and screaming family members have been a decent substitution). This time I got the sign AND the jumping up and down mother. While I was enjoying my first hug with mom since January, I saw a Moroccan man in a suit walk over towards us. I could only assume he worked for the airport and was about to tell us to get out of the way and continue the reunion outside of the arrivals terminal. Little did I know, he would become our best friend over the next five days.

Abdou, aforementioned man in suit, was our personal driver and tour guide. My mom and step-dad had found him when they first arrived in Casablanca from Marrakesh. He was the only driver (apparently) who gave them a decent price for a ride from the train station to the hotel (in Morocco taxis don’t believe in using their meters). So, since he seemed to be a trustworthy man, he was hired to pick me up from the airport as well.

An important fact about Abdou is that he is Moroccan, and only speaks French and Moroccan Arabic. Well, we know approximately THREE words in Arabic so that wasn’t a viable option for communication. Luckily, Barry (step-dad) knows a bit of French, so we were able to get by. But when I say a bit of French I mean he studied it in high school and maybe college, not sure, and hasn’t gotten to practice it much since then. So, you had to be there moment number one: listening to Barry and Abdou trying to communicate.

best buddies

When we finally left the airport I was so caught up in talking to mom and Barry that I didn’t realize we were walking in circles around the parking lot. I suppose Abdou was excited to see me too? So excited that he forgot where he parked the car. Next thing I know, Abdou turns around and hands me his cell phone, saying something to me in French, which I assumed was related to the person on the other end of the phone. I was right. It was his daughter. Meryam (his daughter) is also an English teacher, same age as me, and teaches in a high school in Marrakech. Since we are the same age and have the same profession, Abdou decided that we should…no, we WILL, be friends. But I’ll get to back to that later on.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, after spending 35 minutes in the taxi praying for our lives (did I mention Abdou likes to talk with his hands, so more often than not he has no hands on the wheel), I was exhausted. The first night was relaxing; we ate in the Moroccan restaurant in the hotel. The first of many meals at which I would stuff myself silly. But when you are normally eating food cooked by me, meaning its gross, it makes sense that you want to take advantage of food that actually tastes good. I ate the most amazing tagine with chicken and noodles and lots of really yummy spices. I thought it was the best meal I ever had, until I ate again the next day.

this isn't something I was lucky enough to eat myself but for some reason it's the only food picture i have from the entire trip. tagine

On Thursday, we visited the third largest mosque in the world, supposedly. Some sources call it the largest, others the seventh largest, I don’t know. But what I do know is that it was really, really big. What was unique about this mosque compared to other ones I have visited is how modern it is. Built only twenty something years ago, it has a retractable roof, heated floors, escalators, which I thought was pretty cool. It also has a lot of other amenities like a hammam and a lounge that apparently to this day no one has ever used.

big mosque

hard to tell from these pictures how ginormous it really is

After our visit, our trusty friend Abdou picked us up in his bigger taxi since we were going to take a longer ride to a city south of Casablanca, El Jadida. Not a super touristy place in Morocco, so it was really neat to be able to see how Moroccans really live without trying to impress tourists. On the way there we rode along the coast, which was beautiful (what I saw of it before I fell asleep). Before we arrived in El Jadida, Abdou asked us if we wanted to take a tour around a neighboring town. Despite saying no, we saw the town anyway. Abdou pretty much does what he wants.

Which leads me to my next had to be there moment. After a long stretch of highway, before entering El Jadida, there is a roundabout. There was a police officer directing traffic at the roundabout. He had his hand up in the universal stop position facing towards our car. Well, Abdou saw no reason to stop (no cars threatening our lives) so he continued through the rotunda even though he was told to stop. The police officer blew his whistle after us, suggesting that we had to pull over. We were sure the policeman was going to give us a ticket for disobeying his orders.

Abdou went out to talk to him, came back a few seconds later to grab his ID. Normal. Policeman needed to take down his information. Just as we were chatting away about how we expected this to happen sooner or later, we turn around to see Abdou high-fiving the policeman. Not a normal reaction after getting a ticket. He gets in the car and says OK, OK, one of the few things he knows how to say in English. And then he repeats “secretary general de petite taxi”. It was then that we found out that Abdou is highly ranked in the taxi world. In fact, he is so important that he has many friends in the police department (I don’t really see the connection either). He took out a notebook and showed us the names and phone numbers of all his friends in the police department; there were about 3 pages of it. Then he added one more.

We spent two lovely days in this small beachfront Moroccan town. The city of El Jadida was controlled by the Portuguese for around 250 years so it doesn’t have a particularly “Arab” appearance, although the market place and all the conservatively dressed Muslims give it more of a Moroccan than western European feel.

cistern

me and mamacita on the ramparts

In the city we visited a really big old cistern and the old city ramparts. We walked around the market and bought spices and typical Moroccan sandals and…converse sneakers. We bought jewelry and scarves and leather purses and candles. I love the shopping in Morocco. It’s fun and the shop assistants are usually so friendly. They invite you to sit down and join them for a cup of tea, and some offer your mother 150,000 camels to have your hand in marriage. Maybe another you had to be there moment. Or the man in the shop dresses you up as a Berber (indigenous group of north Africa) and then you show the picture to another man and he says that you are not dressed as a Berber but in fact as a Tuareg. But I think there is a relationship between the two groups so that could be the source of the confusion.

me as a berber, or maybe a tuareg

man who offered camels to marry me

Besides shopping and meeting my future husbands (if only they knew I was Jewish), we did a lot of walking around and eating in Morocco. Both in Casablanca and El Jadida we had waiters who kindly listened to us when we ordered the food we wanted but still decided for us what it was we would eat.

I also got a really cool henna tattoo (matching with mommy) that was probably the most you had to be there moment of them all (followed closely by me using the Turkish toilet). Barry (our French expert) decided he didn’t want to wait for us while we had the hennas done. So he took us to the spot on the side of the road where the ladies were painting henna and left us to communicate on our own. We sat down on buckets that look like the one where we store our dogs’ food and they gave us a book to look through with all the possible designs and places they could do the henna.

Mother and I sat for approximately 10 minutes deciding which design we liked best and which would be the most appropriate for two extremely white, clearly not Moroccan women. We finally decided (decision making is NOT my forte) and tried to explain to the women what we wanted. The head lady seemed to understand because she shook her head saying ‘oui’ . She seemed to be copying from the book for the first two minutes, while the other woman sitting next to her seemed to be free styling the henna. The head lady caught on a few seconds later and decided to go with her own design too. So instead of getting matching hennas that we spent, no joke, ten minutes trying to pick out, mom and I got two similar but slightly different beautiful without stencil done hennas. Take a look…

after it dried

Since none of us could communicate we sat awkwardly for a while waiting for the henna to dry (can’t put a sandal on until it dries in the sun a little bit). We were miming to each other trying to find out more about one another, but after a while we just started giggling together. Finally, the little side of the road henna business got crowded and the ladies needed their stools back. Let me try to explain to you the conversation of how we determined the cost of the henna, since Mom and I do not know our French numbers. After we had the whole town trying to tell us the number (saying it louder when we don’t speak French isn’t helpful).  Someone tried to write it in the air and I guessed, but was wrong. Finally, a smart young gentleman typed the number into his phone so we could look at it. We thought he worked with the henna ladies but turns out he was just a passerby. After that whole magillah (saga), the ladies put plastic baggies on our feet so the henna wouldn’t rub off against our shoes and smudge. For some reason, that caused me to waddle down the streets in this small Moroccan city, with people pointing and laughing as they saw me. Glad I was able to provide a little entertainment…

Later on, our loyal driver came to pick us up in El Jadida and take us back to Casablanca where I had to fly out from the following day, back to Spain. We were ready to go to the hotel and relax in the luxuries of a modern city (sort of) but Abdou had other plans for us. He wanted to take us to his home to meet his family since his daughter was in from Marrakech and he wanted us to be friends. It turned out to be a great experience, despite the language barrier (his poor daughter had to translate the whole time). We sat in a beautifully decorated living room while sipping Moroccan tea and eating pastries; I can’t complain. It was great to be able to sit for a while and talk to a family that comes from such a different background and different culture than we do and I’ve come to the conclusion that we really aren’t all that different after all!

our new moroccan friends :)

So I will leave you with that concluding food for thought. I could go on and on with more you had to be theres, like when the six of us squeezed in the 5-person taxi or putting our suitcases on the top of the petite taxi without bungees and driving around the city, but I won’t. My work here is done.

little taxi with bags on top

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my trip as much as I enjoyed experiencing it!