She left Sarah, She came back Scheherazade. Or at least wanting to be.

Africa » Morocco
April 23rd 2006

Published: April 23rd 2006

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winnie lou

Rabat

Beautiful sunshine!!

For Spring Break this year I traveled to Morocco with my travel buddy Ms. Katie Fox. We had an amazing time and I think this trip has been one of the most eye opening experiences for me in terms of cultural shock. I can safely say that I think traveling to countries that make you feel a little bit uncomfortable and out of place is one of the best ways to learn about your own culture. We couldn’t get over how different Morocco is, for better and for worse. Mostly though it was just really cool to experience, and neither Katie nor I could stop saying « Rockin’ Moroccan!! »

We decided to go to Morocco for 11 days and made a bit of a tour, flying into Marrakech and then taking buses and trains to Fès, Mèknes, Rabat, Essaouira, and then back to Marrakech. Before our departure I was secretly a little bit nervous about traveling in Morocco as just two girls; the common response to the idea of a Moroccan adventure was « oh. Are you sure you are going to be SAFE? » Well no, I wasn’t sure, but I tried to convince myself that in this

Fès

In Fès at the leather tanning factory trying to decide which golden sandels to purchase.

the 21st century two girls should be able to travel without a male escort. However there WAS a small voice in my head wondering if maybe we were going to be pestered so much that we would end up spending all our time taking refuge in our hotel room.

Luckily, this was not the case. Somewhere mid-trip Katie and I realized that all the hype about girls traveling alone is mostly just hype from people who either haven’t been to Morocco or don’t have thick enough skin, and if you can handle a little verbal attention (abuse?) you will be fine. I think the constant verbal comments that we get in Paris toughened us up for Morocco. Men made comments, but for the most part it was along the lines of « Salut les gazelles! » which is basically like saying « Hello beautiful ones! » We realized that as long as we dressed rather modestly and responded nicely, and then moved along there were no real problems.

So, although I was nicely surprised by the rather light verbal harassment, I was completely shocked by the gender differences in Morocco even though I had been warned. One of

Fès

Trying out my drumming capacities. The music in Morocco is another highlight.

the most visible differences is the café situation. The shocking thing about the cafés in Morocco is that they are filled with men and ONLY men. Not a single Moroccan woman in them and rarely ANY woman at all. (This rule generally applies to the non- tourist cafés; in more touristy areas both sexes drink their mint tea side by side amazingly enough!) Supposedly, if a woman sits down in a café she is a prostitute, which was enough to scare Katie and I away from many a café.

Veils are another huge cultural difference. We decided that most of the older women wear veils while the younger generation is generally unveiled. We got varying answers, but it seems that many women begin wearing veils in their mid-twenties, although there are also some older women that go veil-less and dress in Western clothes. Most women however wear a long, shapeless and unflattering robe that is often spiced up a bit by a glittering sparkly pin, high heals, and makeup. About 15 percent of women are truly covered and wear a scrap of black cloth that hides all but their eyes. This is actually a bit disconcerting to see and

Mèknes

Katie gets henned up.

my stomach actually turned the one time we saw a woman completely covered from head to foot, all you could see were her eyes and even her hands were hidden under black gloves despite the heat. The desire for modesty I can understand, but I have trouble with the need to hide the female form completely. And gloves in my opinion is going completely overboard.

The hamaam provided a stark contrast to the sometimes shocking concealment of women, and it was probably my favorite experience in Morocco. Since there isn’t much water, and especially hot water, in Morocco the common way to bath is to go to a public bathing house called a « hamaam.» They are segregated by sex, and often a hamaam has female hours and male hours. It took a fair amount of mental preparation to psyche myself up to be comfortable with the idea of being nude in public despite the fact that there are only women. We arrived at the hamaam trying to act like it was part of our normal routine, but I think it was clear by the way we fumbled in getting our clothes off that we were newbies to the

Mèknes

Our beautiful henna decorated handes. Sitting with the Moroccan women getting our henna done was really like being in the equivelant of a beauty parlor except you sit outside on the ground.

public bathing scene. Luckily however « Big Mamma » was there to take control and save us from our modesty and embarrassment. « Big Mamma » as I affectionately like to call her, resembles what I would imagine Mother Nature personified would look like. She is big, black and beautiful, and also has possibly the largest breasts I have ever seen and a rather large stomach as well. She is one of those people who takes up space not only with her body but with her huge presence as well.

Thank goodness Big Mamma grabbed my hand and pulled me past all the naked women sitting on the floor washing themselves into the heat of the hamaam, because shaking in my boots as I was ... er bare feet I mean to say, I wasn’t about to move anywhere on my own. Big Mamma drenched us with hot water, found an open area and plopped herself down on the ground, handed both Katie and I a piece of soft soap that smelled like dead fish and motioned for us to start lathering up (she didn’t speak French or English). The treatment really began however when she grabbed me up

Mèknes

Volubilis, Roman ruins near Mèknes. That is me on the left and Lauren, one of the girls who studies with us in Paris and who met up with us for a few days.

in her arms and flipped me face down on the ground as if I were a pancake. Out came the « pumice stone glove » and she went to work on getting all the grim off of me, even my face was fare game and all I could do was hold onto her massive leg for dear life as I lay there. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry out in pain or laugh because the pumice glove hurt and tickled so much. Soon I forgot about loosing my clothes and began to worry more about if I was going to loose all of my skin.

After this bath I realize that I have never properly bathed myself and after a good 45 minutes of scrubbing, washing, massaging - and maybe most importantly being naked in front of other people, I felt like a newborn who has just entered the world and has been baptized. The women there were of all ages, shapes and sizes and no one seemed concerned that everyone was naked. Somehow after the first 5 minutes I couldn’t care less about being naked either and it seemed natural and much healthier to be

Mèknes

The main square in Mèknes.

able to bath with other women without embarrassment. Both Katie and I wondered how a culture that has this wonderful ease with nudity inside the hamaam can also have such strict dress code rules outside of it.

In Essouira, a beach town south of Casablanca we had another magical experience. There we met two guys, Issam and Faoud, who became our tour guides, chefs, and friends. We met them the instant we stepped off of our bus in Essouira, which gives weight to their belief that it was destiny that we met. When we arrived we needed to get a hold of our hotel and had to ask a guy at the phone booth to give us a hand with the phone card. He didn’t speak English and his French was marginal, but luckily his two friends Issam and Faoud, who both spoke beautiful English walked up and offered to give us a hand. From then on they continued to offer to help us find the hotel, and in the end we ended up spending all of our time in Essouira with them.

At first I was ever so slightly unsure why they would be so helpful to

Fès

We get pulled into a rug shop, served tea, and convinced to buy some blankets and a rug. A few days later we would become much wiser and braver bargainers.

strangers and what exactly they wanted from us, especially suspicious since we were all around the same age and they were two boys and we were to girls, and that just makes for questionable motives. But in they ended up being two of the nicest guys and were able to open a door into the Moroccan way of life for us that we couldn’t have experienced otherwise. « Wiseman » and « Heart » as we called them because of our inability to pronounce or remember their Arabic names took us to « the Castle made of Sand » that Jimi Hendrix wrote a song about, introduced us to their friends, invited us to tour the beach, saved us from the verbal attention of other guys, talked about Islam and religion with us, taught us some words in Arabic, wrote out words in the Arabic alphabet for us, and perhaps coolest of all showed us how to eat!

One day they took us to buy fresh sardines from the port and had a small restaurant cook them up for us on the BBQ. There we were in front of about 50 little sardines and we had to pull the

Fès

The leather tanning factory.

meat of the bones and eat with our hands! Normally this wouldn’t be appetizing to me, but it turned out to be great fun and even yummy. When we mentioned that we loved couscous and wanted to learn how to eat it with our hands like many Moroccans do, Issam called his mom and had her make us couscous and chicken tajine for dinner. We bought the chicken at the butchers and actually saw it killed right in front of us. Katie and I both decided that this is really a much better way to eat meat because you end up realizing that you have killed something and that you shouldn’t let it go to waste. The couscous was amazing, but I am not a fan of eating with my hands, it gets all over, surprise surprise.

Well, those are some of the highlights from Morocco. I would definitely love to go back again. The warmth of the people was amazing to experience; everyone wanted to talk with us and we even got chastised for being anti-social when we read our books in public which is a HUGE change from France where everyone has their nose in a book.

Fès

Me!

I never even considered that it could be rude to read! I guess that was what was so cool about traveling in Morocco, it was a very different set of values from either France or the US, and it was refreshing to get outside of my comfort level and see life from a different perspective for a week and a half. I have to admit, Paris seemed a bit gray after Morocco. Luckily, I continue to be enchanted by Paris and I am especially excited at the prospects of Paris in the springtime. The sun came out in full force today and all the Parisians with it. One thing I especially appreciate about Paris now is that I can enjoy the sun sitting at a café without the fear that I look like a prostitute!

Love you all and don’t forget to write me!

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