Spanglish: The best of both worlds: Morocco!

I never thought that after 2 weeks Granada would be a welcoming familiar face.

I have no idea where to begin, so logically I’ll have to start at the beginning. All I knew was that we were leaving for Morocco, Africa. Sounded pretty sweet to me to be able to say I’ve been to Africa but I really didn’t know what all I was in for. I knew Morocco was in North Africa closest to Spain, hence us going there. At the closest point, Spain and Morocco are only 9 miles apart, but they are worlds apart. So there we were a group of about 50 college students naive of what were about to embark on. We stayed the night in the port city of Algeris Friday night and had to catch a boat the next morning. The boat/ferry was huge with a café, a bar, a jewelry store, comfortable seating, and separate business seating. The lap of luxury didn’t last too long. We were divided up into smaller groups of 15 instead of traveling in overwhelming numbers. Our group leader’s name was Jess. She was born in Whales, has a British accent, and lives in Morocco. Jess lead through the port city of Tanger where we observed a center for women to learn skills that they can take and try to earn money from it, such as sewing, weaving, or cooking. From there it was a long bus ride to Rabat which is a city of 2 million people and where the king lives. We also visited an enclosed city with an amazing view of the Atlantic. Our day was almost shot so we went to our meeting place and divided up to live with host families.

Two other girls and I stayed with a family consisting of an older woman and her husband and three of their children ages 20, 18, 16. They have 7 children all together but the youngest three are still living there. The 20 year old daughter was our English translator because the top language is Arabic followed by French. English isn’t too common but it seems to be more common than in Spain. The house was beautiful. You walk in and there is a huge open square room with doors all around the square. At first I thought we were in a reception area but found out that was the house. The room we slept in did not have common beds, but instead really long couch benches that ran along the walls of the entire room. This is extremely common to have in the home, even though each personal bedroom has their own bed. That night the daughter asked us if we wanted to take a walk and of course we were very interested to see the city. I have not experienced culture shock since being in Granada, I’ve adjusted very well. However I feel that I can safely say I have experience culture shock in Rabat, Morocco. We started walking through the alleyways of the residential area until we were met by a main road with a couple of shops. Well those couple of shops turned into a never ending line of shops and people and cramped spaces. They weren’t really shops either, they didn’t have a building and a door to walk into. No, they had a space on the street displaying their products and they were one right after another. I was overwhelmed with people and the harassment. I hesitate to use the word harassment because I know that is the one thing people are going to get from this entire blog and that is the wrong perception I’m trying to give, so let me explain. The have so many beggars that shove their product in your face if you happen to make accidental eye contact. They target tourists. We didn’t just stick out like a sore thumb; we stuck out like a streaker at a football game. We weren’t trying to draw attention to us but there was absolutely nothing that we could do. We were 3 white women walking and we turned heads. We were the perfect targets to be taken as suckers, and that was pretty much everywhere that we went in Morocco. However like I said, please don’t let this be your image of Morocco.

So Morocco is an Arabic nation and is very modern compared to most of Africa. Throughout the city the color scheme is white with blue or green. Blue is the color of the Jewish faith and green is the color of Islam. Most people are Muslim, some are practicing and some are not, both are equally accepting. Women are not forced to cover their skin, it is a choice. Bigger cities have less people practicing than smaller traditional areas or rural areas. Moroccans are very curious about the outside world and really like to know what America thinks about them. I feel like the teenagers don’t really care, just as normal teenagers are, but the adults are extremely nice and willing to learn and better themselves. The host mother that I had in Morocco was always smiling and saying the few English worlds that she knew, like “eat” “good” “hi, how are you?”…oh yeah and “eat”. She cooked so much food for us! We had Kuss Kuss which is like rice kind of stuff, lots and lots of bread and fruit, some delicious pasta, beans, meat, and more. This family is considered middle class and they are pretty well off. We drove past a section of Rabat with devastating poverty. It was just a block of shacks and clothes that house 1700 people. It was absolutely ridiculous that this community was right in the middle of the city with city buildings and middle class all around it. They only have one free water tap for all of those people. It blew my mind. We also had lunch with a family that lived in the rural area and they called themselves mountain people. Their house was very small and made of a clay like substance. They had running water and electricity but it didn’t seem like a cozy home. They had chickens, donkeys, dogs, cats, and children. They seemed very happy with the lives they had and have lived in the mountains all of their life. They barely go to the city or know what city life is like. We walked up the mountain side that they live on and it was an amazing view!!

Wild life. Who woulda thunk that I would see more domestic animals in Morocco than driving across Iowa? They have cows, sheep, donkey, goats, chicken, cats, and dogs everywhere! On the same road you will have a nice car and someone walking a donkey. And the DRIVING?! OH EM GHEE! Scariest crap I’ve ever experienced in my life. I thought Spain driving was bad, oh ho no way. They drive on everybody’s ass, honk their horns if they’re not speeding, and pass every, I mean EVERY chance they get. Once Moroccan drivers get behind the wheel they are on a mission. How dare people go the speed limit?? I luckily did not experience motion sickness until we got to Chefchauen.

Chefchauen was our final destination and we stayed there over night on Monday. This is a very touristic place apparently, but I would not want to endure the trek to get there. It is way up in the mountains with roads winding around and hugging the mountain sides. The jerking and constant weaving finally got to me right at the end of the trek. I did not get sick, but I felt nauseous and dizzy. If the drive would have been 30 minutes longer this would have been a different story. Chefchauen was great because we were allowed to walk around and go shopping. I’m not one for shopping but it was really neat to see all of the shops and the customs of shopping. Bartering is encouraged if not required. I bought a Moroccan scarf, a wrist band, a cool key hanger thingy that reflects the image of Chefchauen, and OF COURSE candy =) I mean, duh! I bought 3 rolls of cookies called Principe so I’m pretty sure they are in Spain too so I’ll be on the lookout for them. Plus a chocolate doughnut cake thing and a candy bar similar to Twix but only with chocolate wafers inside. Yeah my mouth is watering just thinking back on it now. Their currency is the Durham and the exchange rate is 1 euro to 11 Durham and 1 dollar for 8 Durham. The scarf I got I bartered down to 100 Durham, so close to $13. I could have got it down a little further probably but you just can’t win as a tourist. Still a good buy. I only changed 20 euros at the border for spending money and that was more than enough for me. Morocco is pretty cheap.

The next day was traveling day. We needed to get the Chefchauen back to Granada. We started off with breakfast in the city and I had the best orange juice I’ve ever had in my life. It was literally fresh squeezed with no additives. Like so fresh that I had a seed in my drink. I don’t think they even added water. It was DELICIOUS! Anywho everything was going smoothly until we had to cross the border from Morocco into a Spanish owned city in Morocco where the port for our ferry was. The customs officers seemed like they hated their job and were very unhelpful. We ended up passing through just fine. All we needed was our passport and a form that said we were just tourists and not staying in either country. So customs is also very loose on the checking they do for people crossing the border. Going into Morocco we had to walk through a metal detector and put our bags through an x-ray, but I don’t think the guy watching the monitor was even paying attention to what was going through. Leaving Morocco and entering the Spanish city we only had to show them our passport, nothing else. So we were in Spain technically and then we took our boat to the actually country of Spain. Leaving the port we only had to put our bags through an x-ray that no one was really paying attention to. I did not have to take of my jacket that was full of things such as my camera, iPod, passport, etc. There was no metal detector and the guards were talking amongst themselves. If I wanted to I could have easily brought in illegal drugs or weapons. The funny thing is when we were first leaving to go to Morocco the only signs I saw prohibiting anything were that we could not bring potatoes or plants into Morocco. I’m very thankful America monitors what is being brought into the country and on our planes.

Reflecting back on Morocco I’m very glad I was able to experience it. All the little things I was complaining about here in Granada, like questionable food, a long walk to school, no internet in my house, and that there isn’t any heating in the house, I am very thankful to have. I’m thankful to have a western style toilet with toilet paper and that it actually flushes the toilet paper. I’m thankful to come back to Granada and have wide sidewalks and stores inside buildings. Granada is such a comforting place to live in. I can walk past people and not be paranoid that they want my money. People here can walk their dogs and kids have playgrounds to play on. Granada is such a lovely city.

Morocco was not a horrible place, but I could not live there. Des Moines is always going to be my home, but right now Granada is my home.

Oh yeah! Did I mention we got to ride camels on the beach??