Welcome to Al-Maghrib
Today was a true highlight. I decided to spend a few days in Morocco, which is my first time in Africa, and also first time in an Islamic country. To throw a little spice in the mix, I decided to travel with a young woman as well. Chelsea was hoping to go to Morocco, but didn’t feel comfortable going on her own, and I was looking for someone to travel with for the first time on my trip. We got along well, and didn’t end up ripping each other’s heads off. Many thanks go out to Chelsea for making my experience in Morocco so memorable.
We landed in Tangiers after a quick ferry ride across the Strait of Gibraltar from Tarifa. Our plan was to stay in a pension in the medina, or old town, so we naturally started to walk. If you hear someone talk about small windy streets it still doesn’t quite prepare you for the finer aspects of Tangier’s medina. Most streets are too small for cars (those that are allow just enough room for an anorexic body to miss the side mirrors), with erratic steps, twists, and turns capable of making your head spin enough without the mental stimulation of people, smells, colors, and movement.
There is an ominous and intimidating aura present of young men with crossed arms staring at you waiting to pounce on your slightest fallacy or hesitant move. As soon as you just touch sight of their eyes an immediate flood of language comes at you as they attempt to speak your language, to make contact. Every soul is eager to help you, to make sure you get where you are going, to make it efficient and pleasant, but always at a price. No matter what you hear, everyone will eventually want money from you for a service we refer to as a good deed or helping hand. The smells and sights are not of a spice bazaar, but more of stale water, grime, disrepair, and urine. This place is a sort of purgatory of helpless eyes held only high enough by the promise of money. There is no pride in their faces, for their work, or for their community. The streets are dirty, houses made with crumbling bricks, corners rank with piss, and dilapidated fountains. There are two types of hope in this place, the face of a child still young and cheerful capable of an innocent smile, yet wise enough to know of the other hope, your wealth. We are rich, we have bountiful lives, and the hands of small children reach to your pockets as if you were Robin Hood.
After settling in, we decided to take a breath from the hustle of the medina and check out the New Town area filled with wide streets, mosques, and glimpses of the Western World. It was at this time, while on a hill in a cemetery I experienced my first call to prayer. I had these visions of men in robes shouting from the peaks of the minarets to people below, and time stopping as everyone turned to Mecca and took time to reflect and pray. I was greeted by the crackling of a megaphone propped to the top of the minaret filling the air with sound, and slowly more minarets announced their presence as they created a cacophony of sound. I stopped to take in the moment, and it seemed as if I was the only person who stopped. Life kept moving, cars kept driving, and people kept talking.
Morocco is at the western edge of the Islamic world and is known as Al-Magrihb for short or “The West”, and thanks to a progressive head of state, also more progressive in womens rights and enforcement of Islamic law. However, for the first time I felt like I was truly in a foreign land. It took some time for me to process what made this place so alien to my senses. It wasn’t a different language, it wasn’t the type of people, it wasn’t the oddities of cuisine or marketing, it was the lack of sex. It is hard to fathom how much sex has impregnated our culture until you remove yourself from the equation. We are flooded with nuances, hints, and outright movies of lust which missed this place like a three year old misses adult jokes in a Disney movie. This place is fascinating, exciting, and truly different. I was warned about Tangiers, but I am glad I experienced it. I’m not planning to judge Moroccoo on this city alone, but it was been quite the introduction into a chapter of my trip.
Chelsea had heard from other travelers that if you only have a few days to go to Morocco to head to Chefchaouen. Its a small city about three hours south of Tangiers, that was founded by the last of the Muslim and Jews expelled from Spain and has been opened to the outside world for only the last 100 years.
