Morocco

Where oh where do I start in talking about Morocco…we woke up in the port of Casablanca. Now I don’t know what your image of Casablanca is, but it’s probably influenced somewhat by the movie. And if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve heard about the movie. And if you haven’t heard about the movie, Casablanca at least sounds like a romantic name. Well I want you to take all of those thoughts and disregard them immediately, because Casa is nothing like that. At least not from what I saw. The port is surrounded by massive cranes, and behind those all one can see is a hill rising up in the middle of the city covered in run-down houses and slums. I looked down on the dock to see several feral dogs and a three-legged cat. Some first impression, right? Initiating culture shock…now. To top it all off, on our first day here two students were robbed, one at knifepoint and both ended up flying home that afternoon. Yay travel!

My first activity was an SAS-organized city orientation with a visit to the Hassan II mosque, an unbelievable structure right on the ocean. It’s the third-largest mosque in the world and to this point has cost Morocco upwards of $8 billion to build, and it’s easy to see why. Every single inch inside is hand-carved, hand-painted, or hand-assembled. Our guide told us that on Fridays during Ramadan, up to 120,000 Muslims go there to pray. It was a great experience, and since there are only a few mosques that non-Muslims (read: infidels) are allowed in, I felt very privileged. That afternoon I met up with some buddies and took a train about an hour away to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. There weren’t a whole lot of sights, but we were there at sunset so it was pretty and gorgeous weather. Charles got attacked by a henna lady who wanted 200 dirham (about $20) for drawing a few flowers on his arm. Not only did he not have 200 dirham, but he was black so you couldn’t even see it. Lesson #1: you never have to stop to talk to anybody.

On day two we took the train about 3 hours south to Marrakech, the “touristy city.” The main draw is the market, or the Djemma el Fna, complete with snake charmers, more henna ladies, storytellers and guys with clothed monkeys on leashes. It’s incredibly tempting to take pictures of all this, which brings us to lesson #2: don’t take pictures in Morocco without expecting to be hassled for money. In fact, don’t even make eye contact with them. Before you know it, you’ll have a monkey wearing basketball shorts on your arm and a wallet that’s about 10 dirham lighter. Other than the market, there was disappointingly little to do in Marrakech, so that night we took the train back to Casa. Lesson #3: public transportation isn’t what you’re used to in the states. I’ll leave it at that.

On day three we went to Fes, one of the most unique places I’ve ever seen. The taxi driver charged us about 30 dirham to get to the train station, about 3 times as much as he should have. I only had a 50 and, surprise surprise, he insisted he didn’t have change despite the clinking of coins in his ashtray. Not knowing French (which seems to be a recurring theme) or Arabic, we reluctantly cut our losses and left. Though I did leave him with a little verbal gift on my way out…turns out I’m not very good at ubuntu.

On the train ride, the girls met a guy named Muhammad who happened to know one of the people on the ship (you’ll come to find that everybody in Morocco knows someone on the ship or has a brother in the states. Most likely the state you’re from. It’s uncanny really.) He said he could set us up on a tour of the medina (basically 10,000 unmarked streets in a giant walled section of the city.) There was a taxi waiting for us at the station and a guide waiting at the city. We got to see the famous tannery from a rooftop, as well as had an authentic Moroccan meal in a lovely restaurant. I had pigeon pie, a classic Moroccan dish. Everything was working out great until we realized it wasn’t. Muhammad was basically paid to bring us into his friends’ shops so they could hassle us. If you were strong-willed, you could leave with a little bit of trouble. If you weren’t and were instead like most of the girls we were with, they would clean. You. Out. Don’t get me wrong, we never would have seen these things had we not done this, and I made it out relatively unscathed. But the strategy became obvious. It was realized even more when we got to the train station and the 8:45 train we were promised was actually more like a 2 am train, which left no other option but for the taxi driver to take us the three hours back to Casa. Fine, just get me out of here. But wait, the taxi driver is old and 9 pm is his bedtime, so his son is going to drive us. Greeeat. And the son is bringing along a friend. And we had to stop at his house before we left. What? We were sketching out so hard at this point, convincing we were going to be murdered in a ditch somewhere between Fes and Casa. However, we made it all the way back safely, if only a little bit poorer than we had wanted to be. Lesson #4: if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Day four we just walked around Casa and bought souveniers before the boat left at 8 pm. 

We’re on the way to Ghana a few dollars poorer but a few lessons smarter. Til next time friends!