Days 16-18. MOROCCO.

 

What an amazing, developmental few days it has been. There truly existed a transformation within me from the time I entered the country of Morocco to the time I left it.

 

When we docked on Tuesday, we got our passports and things, and debarked the ship at 8 am. From the second we descended the gangway, I said to my friend next to me, “we are so not in Kansas anymore.”It was true. When we docked in Cadiz, things were different, but not scary. I was petrified. Every person we walked by followed us obviously with their eyes and their head. They whistled, made cat calls to the girls and tapped us on the shoulders asking if we needed taxis. I was overwhelmed. I remember remarking to a friend that “it’s not that they’re just ‘not welcoming,’it’s that they’re going out of their way to make me feel unwelcome.”I look back at that statement now having spent some time in the country and getting to know some people with much ignorance. We weren’t unwelcome. On the contrary, we were quite welcome- just not in the way we were accustomed to.

 

Our first challenge, after walking a mile and half to the exit out of the port, was to find a taxi to the train station to travel southeast to Marrakech. Moroccans speak Arabic and French, neither of which I know any. Spanish ended up helping out a lot as a bridge language, but I’ll talk about that later. We split up into groups and set out trying to make sense of the 400 arab men who were fighting for our business. We settled on one man who we probably should have forgotten about. He drove a less-than-marked taxi with no visible taxi-cab license hanging from the rearview. In a split second decision, the group decided to go with him; it was only a 10 minute drive. We negotiated a price with pen and paper, like Joe our ship’s conduct officer told us to do, and hopped in. In a Jack Bauer-like moment, I noticed the locks of the back doors were missing. Terrified that we would be on NBC news later that night in the states, I opened my car door right in the middle of the road to confirm it was unlocked, and then held it barely cracked for the rest of the ride. We were 10 minutes old in the country and scared, do you blame us?

 

At the train station, we learned that the credit card machine was down, and Euro were not accepted. We had to get some Moroccan Dirham (roughly 9:1 with USD). The extra time it took at the ATM meant that by the time we got to the ticket window, all the first-class tickets (where you get seats) were sold out, so we settled for a 2^nd class ticket, in which seats were not promised. This was a three hour ride, so the group and I planted our butts out on the platform an hour before the train arrived, and nearly trampled over some nice Moroccan women to grab some seats in an open compartment. On the train we met a nice 22-year-old Moroccan man named Hicham. He spoke French, and so did Lia, a member of our traveling group. Through her, we conversed about everything from Moroccan politics to American perceptions, to the conflict in Gaza. He was heavily anti-Israel, and given my ties, I kept my mouth shut. It was hard to do, especially when he turned his laptop around and showed our compartment a powerpoint of the “atrocities of the Zionists.”Still, I had dad’s voice in my head telling me that we were on his turf, and I bit my tongue. Don’t get me wrong, Hicham was a nice guy, and through him we got a glimpse of the culture we were in, and for that we were grateful.

 

We arrived in Marrakech, and took refuge in the train station. It was clean, and we felt comfortable. After some nice lunch, we took a cab to our place of residence for the next 48 hours, Riad Mar Akush. Riads are basically bed-and-breakfasts. This place was INCREDIBLE. I can’t even begin to describe. It was 5 rooms, of which we booked them all, built into an open building complete with open courtyard, balconies, and roof-decks. We had at our disposal two guys, Mohammad and Hassan. They were both incredible. They helped us out so much, pointed us in the right directions, kept us safe and made recommendations. We had about 3 to a room, and it was truly awesome. It was already about 4pm when we decided to walk to the Medina, the main shops in the old city of Marrakech with the massive town square. This was just a browsing mission to prepare for the next day.

 

That night we went to a place called Chez Lucile for dinner. I recommended it because of one word on the menu. Shawama. And it was G-O-O-D, Excellent. It wasn’t Israeli shawarma…but it would have to do, haha. Like every one of us got Shawarmas.

<While writing this, my friend next to me ran to the bathroom as her seasickness returned with a vengance. The waves are insane>. That night we stayed up talking and crashed early. We’d need the rest for the day to come.

 

At 9 we were awoken by Mohammed and Hassan who were ushering us into the living room for breakfast. No words. Bread, yogurt, mint tea, more bread, crossaints, all homemade. We spent the day in the medina, getting lost and haggling. I never felt like more of a trained middle-easterner than when dealing with these people. I would walk into each shop with a different persona. Sometimes, I’d be from the US. Sometimes I was from Toronto. Sometimes I’d speak Spanish. I chose Spanish a lot because they rarely knew many words except for numbers (for prices). This meant that I was left alone, and that they would get annoyed while haggling, and just settle faster. I was insane at haggling. I got things down from 100 dirham to 20 (nearly 3 dollars), a painting down to 60. I was hard and walked away a lot, and they always came crawling back. I was even called a berber (native to morocco) by one of the shop-keeps who was impressed with me, haha.

 

In one hilarious exchange, a shopkeeper asked me for 150. I said 20. He then asked me for my maximum price.

 

“Twenty-five,”I said. “Final.”

 

He kept arguing and kept asking, lowering his price with each sentence. At one point he offered me 60, and I gave this comment, much to the amusement of my friends watching the scene:

 

“Do I look like I’m from the US? You charge Americans 60. I’m Canadian, we get 25.”

 

Finally, he goes, “alright my friend, what’s your final price.”

 

“Since I’m feeling generous,”I said, “Twenty-six”(a difference of about 20 cents)

 

We settled for 30.

 

We had a great lunch at a restaurant called Argana, which came heavily recommended by the travel guides we read. It was in the middle of the square, and served Tangiers, traditional Moroccan food with meat, veggies, sauces, spices all brewed together for hours. Kind of like a crock-pot, but very unique. Hannah and I shared a traditional steak Berber one, and shared with Nate and Lia who got lamb, raisins, onions and other in their tangiers.

 

We spent the rest of the day walking around the shops and markets being yelled at by shopkeeps, then went to explore an ancient palace called El-Badi.

 

While walking back to the Riad as the sun was setting, we stopped again at the main square to take one last look around. Someone in the group wanted a quick henna tattoo, so Jill (co-open mic night superstar) and I walked into the massive crowds to look around for what would become the defining moment of my stop in Morocco. Funny how it happens like that:

 

As we walked around, groups were gathered around people who were doing tons of different things. Some were backflipping, some were playing music. Most were literally just telling stories. Mind you, they were in Arabic, but their body language was speaking in a language I always call human, and you could tell that their tales were gripping. Unbelievably, people just gathered around to listen, to cheer, to sit, to comment. There were no tourists there, no showy gags or flashing cameras. Just thousands of men and women who were partaking in a daily tradition as old as life itself. They come together, they share, they go home. No paragraph will ever explain how we felt during this 10-minute walk through the square, but I’ll never forget it. It was true cross-cultural understanding, and the backbone of this voyage.

 

We stayed out late that night, went to a Hookah Bar, and then a bar bar before calling it a night in the cold riad (they don’t deal with winter well). We caught a 9 am train back to Casablanca, and then toured The Mosque Hassan II, the 3^rd largest mosque in the world, and the highest religious minaret (tower) in the world). The place is like a stadium. It can hold 35,000 people inside for service and 95,000 in the plaza outside. The roof even retracts. It’s built out on a constructed pier, literally over top the atlantic ocean. All the while, it’s architecture and décor is mind-boggling. Google it for 2 seconds and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

 

We flew by Ray’s Café (famous from movie Casablanca) and then called it a day. I was happy to see the ship, still bargaining with the taxi driver as we pulled into the port. I wasn’t scared anymore, and I wasn’t uncomfortable. Unlike when I left the ship, I now knew that this was their culture. This in-your-face ness that as Americans we are less comfortable with. Truthfully, the Moroccans are very, very, very nice and warm people. Through the countless individuals that helped us and the select few that we got to know in 3 days, I walked out of Morocco much more understanding than I walked in. I learned their game pretty fast, and felt confident I could at least play them at it by the time my trip was done. Given my upbringing, any time I see police cars buzz by with Arabic writing on their doors, I tend to tense up. This port gave me a chance to reconcile some of that, and put into practice that there are so many good people out there.

 

Okay. I’m going on and on. I think you get the idea.

 

Leaving the port tonight the waves caused a few injuries and a bunch of minor damage around the ship. When I returned to my cabin, for instance, I found my dresser about 10 feet from where it should be. Mind you, my cabin’s only about 11 feet long, so this was quite a move. To any parents reading and freaking out, your kids are fine. Nobody’s hurt. Hopefully the seas will calm out tomorrow.

 

Goodnight from outside Morocco. Next stop, Namibia.

 

Greg

 

PS. Below are the lyrics from “No Land”the song we wrote and performed last week.Italics = Jill, Underline = Me, Bold = both. Enjoy.

 

“No Land”

 

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land

 

It was so tough before Cadiz

Hitting the walls it hurt my knees

Plus puking everywhere was like living in a world with no land

ooooooh

 

Four drinks for me is not enough
I can’t walk when the seas are rough

Wish I could steal a boat to get myself to land

 

BUT HOW

DO YOU EXPECT ME

TO LIVE THIS LIFE ON THE SEA

all this water all around me is making me crazy

 

tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land

can’t live can’t breathe without land

Les McCabe don’t you understand

There’s no land no laaaand

 

Got me out here in the waters so deep

Lose an hour every night there’s no sleep

Guess I’ll go watch the MICE band

Cuz there’s no land, no laaand

 

No land land

no land land

no land land

 

I hopped a train north to Madrid

Tapas vino I’m lovin it

That Spanish gypsie cast a spell on me for real

 

Somehow I’m still awake at five

Churros and chocolate keep me alive

I don’t know Spanish but the guy in the club didn’t even care

 

So how

do you expect me

to get back on the MV

cuz Espana all around me it’s so hard for me to leave

 

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land

can’t live can’t breathe without land

Captain Jeremy don’t you understand

there’s no land no land

 

Got me out here in the waters so deep

Estrogen everywhere makes me weak

If there’s no more men I’m gonna scream

No men no men

 

no men men

women men

no land land

 

B R E A K ***

 

LAAAAAAAND

 

Tell me how we’re sposed to go without fuel

Can’t see Morocco without fuel

Wanna ride a camel or mule

NO FUEL NO FUEL

 

Sometimes it gets really hard

That’s what she saiiiiid

I can’t wait to get off

she said she saiiiid

 

 

What were doing for six hours last night

I’m sick of card games all night

Watched the superbowl until it got light

NOT TIGHT not tight

 

Got me out here in the waters so deep

If we don’t get there soon I’m gonna weep

Off this ship I might leap

time to sleep time to sleep

 

No land land

no land land

noooo lan

Les McCabe……