Saying Goodbye

This is going to be my last post from Morocco, since I leave for Europe in 2 days. After 3 months of living abroad, here are some things I miss about home and some things I’m going to miss about Morocco.

Things I Miss Most About Home

1.     Mexican food: I would give so much for a good burrito or quesadilla.

2.     Fixed prices: sometimes I just want to know the price of something without having to engage in a heated debate.

3.     Traffic laws and crosswalks: not having to be scared for my life every time I cross a street will be nice for a change.

4.     Not being hassled: Meknes has relatively no hassle, but when traveling in big cities, especially Marrakesh, persistent Moroccans won’t leave you alone until you eat at their restaurant, sleep in their hotel, or buy their carpets.

5.     Cleanliness: I miss the clean air and clean streets of the states.

6.     Things open late: Meknes’ nightlife is pathetic at best. By 9 pm everything is closed and the streets are deserted.

7.     Cute girls: I love Morocco, but I must admit the female department is lacking.

Things I’ll Miss Most About Morocco

1.     Palais du Poulet: I’ll miss getting a heaping plate of chicken, rice and french fries for only $2.50.

2.     Cheap everything: cafes, buses, trains, taxis, hotels, restaurants, fruit, etc. I’m afraid I’ll have a heart attack when I see American or European prices again.

3.     Traveling: easy, affordable travel is so much more accessible in Morocco. In the States you have to have a car and a lot of money to go anywhere.

4.     Bargaining: sometimes I just don’t want to pay that much.

5.     Friendliness: If you think Americans know hospitality, then you’ve obviously never been to Morocco. Moroccans define hospitality.

6.     Cous-cous: I’ve grown to look forward to cous-cous Fridays.

7.     The medina: Shopping was never so exciting. How can it ever be fun again without shop owners yelling out bargains in Arabic, selling everything from soap to scarves to tea pots.

Aid Moubarak Said

It’s a cold, crisp morning and all the streets are eerily deserted. It had been raining all night, leaving a moistness in the air. I arrive at the farm before nine and join the family as they finish their modest breakfast. We proceed outside and Rashid grabs the fully-grown sheep by its horns, pulling it out of its pen. He leads it over to the patio in front of the house and knocks it on its side, asking me to hold its legs down as the year-old sheep struggles to stand up. Before I know what is happening, a Moroccan man hired just for the occasion comes over with a knife, mutters a one-word prayer, and cuts the sheep’s throat. I struggle to hold it down as it fights frantically. After 45 seconds, it lays still, with a pool of blood spread across the patio.

Next we hang it by its hind legs and skin it. After the skin and head are removed, Rashid cuts into the abdomen and takes out the stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, heart, and other organs. He cuts quickly and deftly, all-the-while with a cigarette casually hanging from his mouth. The whole process takes about an hour. Afterwards we build a small fire to cook the head and the two front feet while the women empty the contents of the stomach and clean it for cooking. While the stomach is cooking, we make shish kebabs of liver wrapped in dried intestinal fat, cooking them over a smoky fire along with the heart and kidneys. Nothing is wasted.

It’s sacrificed for Aid, the most sacred holiday in the Muslim calendar and similar in importance to our Christmas. It’s a celebration I don’t think westerners can understand when taken out of context. Each family that can afford it buys a sheep and sacrifices it. On the day of the sacrifice, each family eats the stomach, kidneys, heart and liver, and sometimes the brain and tongue. On the following day it’s okay to eat the meat, however each family is supposed to give to the poor first.

As I sit around the table sharing sheep stomach with a Moroccan family, I realize how far I’ve come since I arrived in this country barely three months ago. I was squeamish just walking through the meat market, and now, three months later, I’m helping to butcher a sheep. The whole process never disgusted me. It just made me more grateful for the meat I do eat. And after seeing it die, I ate the stomach, kidney, heart and liver gladly. I felt like I would be dishonoring the sheep if I didn't eat everything. Aid Moubarak Said.

From Sand to Sea

From atop my camel, all I can see are sand dunes for miles. Berber guides tell me that the buttes in the distance mark the border with Algeria, but it seems like a rather meaningless distinction in face of the harsh Sahara. After an hour of swaying back and forth, we arrive at an enormous 300 ft. sand dune and climb to the top for a spectacular view. In one direction lies the oasis town of Merzouga, and in the other direction, the Sahara’s windswept dunes howl all the way to Egypt and the Red Sea, over 3000 miles away. The previous day my entire Moroccan study abroad group, as well as five groups from similar programs in Spain, all drove 8 hours down to Erfoud, the end of the road so to speak. In Erfoud, over 150 American students piled into a caravan of 4WD Land Rovers for the hour-long trip to Merzouga through the desert. Going through Erfoud, we were one endless line of Land Rovers, but once we left the city, each car chose its own path and sped off into the night. Looking out the window, I could see cars all around, weaving in and out of each other and speeding through the sands, leaving no trace they had ever been there except for a plume of dust and a rumble in the distance.

This trip was a nice change because I got to see two familiar faces from home. I got to meet up with Whitney, who’s studying in Salamanca, and Casey, who’s studying in Madrid. They’re friends of mine from UCLA and are both in the Student Alumni Association with me.

Our first day in the desert, all 150 students got up before dawn to see the sunrise and then later that morning, we all climbed atop our camels to go further into the desert. After hiking to the top of an enormous sand dune for a spectacular view, we headed into the desert town of Merzouga to be swarmed by children asking for candy and money.

Many of the exchange students from Spain were clueless, much like we were when we first arrived in Morocco. They got ripped off left and right on everything they bought, with no idea how to bargain. One girl bought a pipe for 250 DH that was worth maybe 30 DH tops.  Another girl bargained a carpet down to 3000, but when they swiped her credit card, they swiped it in dollars, not dirhams. They were helpless cash cows. Also, many of the Spanish kids were paranoid about eating the vegetables and fruits, which I think is an overreaction. I’ve been drinking the water here since my second day in Morocco and have yet to get sick.

The next morning we took 4WD’s to the buses, and headed back to Meknes. However, the trip wasn’t over for me. After two hours, my friend Tas and I got off in Errachidia, to continue on our own for 5 more days. From Errachidia, Tas and I headed to the Todra Gorge, known for its beautiful mountains and canyons. On the bus ride there, we met Omar, a Berber in his mid-forties, who spoke Amazigh (Berber), Arabic, French, Spanish and English. After arriving, we sat down and had mint tea with him. To improve his English, he asked for the definitions of a few words he had heard recently. They included the words circumcise, eggplant, coconut, negotiate, issue, diarrhea, and mushroom. He also helped teach Tas and me some words in Amazigh, a language completely unrelated to Arabic, but spoken by a large part of Morocco. (Although Morocco is considered an Arab country, the majority of Moroccan’s are Amazigh, not Arab.) It was fascinating to see how Omar learned to speak English so well just by talking to tourists and asking them questions about a few words here and there until he built up a repertoire of English vocabulary. Moroccan’s have an amazing ability for learning languages. Nearly every Moroccan knows at least 2, maybe 3 languages. Which is all the more impressive because very few Moroccans I’ve met have ever left the country (even most of my well-educated professors have never ventured outside of Morocco’s borders due to poor currency conversion rates and the miles of red tape and visas they have to go through in order to enter another country.) After tea with Omar we got a ride up into the gorge and found a small riad to stay in for the night.

The next morning we got up and went on a 4-hour hike up the canyon. It was breathtaking—a narrow gorge with a small crystal-clear stream running through.  On our hike up, we passed an enormous herd of sheep and goats. About an hour later, we passed two Berber women leading a few mules down the mountain. From the top of the gorge we had a spectacular view of the small town below.

That afternoon we took a bus to Ourzazate where we spent the night and in the morning continued our journey to Agadir. After a seven-hour bus ride we arrived in Agadir, a large cosmopolitan city on the Atlantic. On our first trip to Marrakesh, we had planned to visit Agadir, but after learning it was a large Europeanized city with little Moroccan culture or history, we skipped it in favor of staying two more nights in Essaouira. However, after traveling in small, traditional Moroccan cities for the last 2 months, being in a modern city was a nice change. I felt like I was in Los Angeles—large boulevards, high rises, nightlife, foreign restaurants, fancy hotels and lots of European and Moroccan tourists. After two nights in Agadir, we continued to Marrakesh in order to take a train back to Meknes.

Once again, Marrakesh was fun, but also tiring from all the hassling. However, it was actually entertaining a few times because we were no longer ignorant tourists who didn’t know the prices. For example, when we got out of the bus station there was a taxi driver offering to take us to the main plaza for 50 DH. However, I knew the price was 10 DH, so I just laughed at him and found a petit taxi. When trying to get a hotel, the manager was asking 120 DH for two people. Unfortunately for him I knew the price was 100 DH so I just held firm until he gave me my price. Bargaining can be a lot of fun, but you have to know the value of things or else you get ripped off.

Chefchaouen and the Rif Mountains

This past weekend I spent 3 days in Chefchaouen, a small mountain village in the heart of the Rif mountains in northern Morocco. It’s a popular traveler destination for its laid-back attitude and relatively no hassles. Built onto the mountainside with a beautiful medina splashed with a light purple whitewash, it’s one of the most beautiful towns in all of Morocco. 

Chefchaouen is the mountain counterpart to the relaxed coastal town of Essaouira. Both are small, have a strong hippy vibe, and are home to some of the nicest Moroccans you’ll ever meet. But Chefchaouen is a popular hippy destination for more than just the spectacular views and laid-back atmosphere. Chefchaouen is in the heart of the Rif Mountains, home to 42% of world’s cannabis production. In fact, the term “reefer” is derived from the name “Rif” Mountains. Although the king officially condemns cannabis production, it is one of Morocco’s most profitable exports and its prohibition is loosely enforced. While in Chefchaouen, I was offered hash dozens of times, in plain daylight and in the middle of main thoroughfares. Most of the local men in Chefchaouen smoke kif, a mixture of hashish and tobacco, which they smoke in long wooden kif pipes. These Moroccans smoke it casually like cigarettes. However, since they use very little hash they are rarely ever blazed.

But there’s a more remarkable aspect to Chefchaouen. There is no crime. Well, at least no petty crime. My first night there I walked around the town at 2am. As I passed the outdoor shops in the main plaza, I noticed that the owners had left all their goods lying out on the stands, tables and racks, completely unwatched and unguarded. The shops didn’t even have any doors to lock if they wanted to. The most security I saw was at the fruit stand where a blanket had been thrown over the produce. There was no one on guard and the streets were deserted…so I took everything I could carry. Okay, so I didn’t really take anything. There’s too much mutual respect to take anything. For example, the first night at the hotel, the owner didn’t even ask for any money up front. He just showed us the room and said to pay whenever we wanted.

My second day in Chefchaouen, I went to see the nearby cascades and Bridge of God, a natural rock formation that spans the river from hundreds of feet above. The falls and bridge were a 30 km grand taxi ride outside of Chefchaouen. We hiked about 45 minutes to the lower cascade, which was beautiful, tucked away in a small gorge. A few people went swimming in the ice cold and crystal clear water. 

While there, we met a cannabis grower who took us to his farm, about 10 minutes off the trail. It was about an acre or two in size and on a hilltop with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. He had already harvested his crop earlier in the season and all that was left in his field were dried stalks and a few leaves and buds on the ground. Afterwards, we ended our hike on a mountain peak, eating our afternoon lunch while surrounded by spectacular mountains and the Bridge of God in the distance.

Getting Squeaky Clean at a Hammam

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity of going to a Moroccan hammam, or bathhouse. It is remarkably similar to the Roman bathhouse of antiquity and remains an integral part of Moroccan life today. Most Moroccans go to the hammam a few times every month. It’s a cheap way to get clean and especially useful for families who don’t have showers or bathtubs. Most hammans have 3 rooms: the first is cold, the second is moderately warm, and the last is as hot and steamy as a sauna. First you strip to your underwear, then grab a bucket and proceed to the third and hottest room with your soap, shampoo, and washcloth in tow. Once there you fill your bucket with water from the spigots that surround the room and rinse yourself off. Next you lay down on the hot tile floor for about ten minutes, letting your pores open amidst the heat and steam. You are then scrubbed vigorously by one of the attendants. In my case, this was a hairy 40-something-year-old man in a swimsuit with a modest potbelly and a huge mustache. He indifferently scrubs you with a rough washcloth akin sandpaper. You bite you lip as you see layers of dead skin rolling off in grey clumps. Once you are all scrubbed, he rinses you off and lathers you up with soap. After he shampoos your hair and vigorously scrubs your head, he rinses you off again. The next bit they only do for men. I guess I would call it a mix between aggressive stretching, yoga and contortionism. He pulls and bends you every which way, sometimes in rather painful ways. For example, one stretch involved me laying face down while my hairy friend stood on both of my hamstrings. He then grabbed my arms and pulled me up off the ground while continuing to stand on my thighs. This is supposed to stretch and loosen you. After that, the attendant is done and you can proceed to the colder rooms to cool down and close your pores again. Although very rough and at times painful, you feel remarkably clean afterwards. Plus the vigorous scrubbing leaves your skin soft and smooth for days afterwards.

McDonalds in Morocco

Before leaving Marrakesh, I couldn’t resist eating at the McDonalds in the train station. Before you hate me, realize that in the States I avoid McDonalds at all costs and might eat there once a year if I’m unlucky enough. However, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see how an American corporation successfully integrates into a foreign culture. First of all, the McDonalds’ in Morocco are much nicer restaurants than those in the States. A meal with a burger, fries and coke is around 53 DH, which is the equivalent of about 7 USD. While that’s only a little bit more expensive than what you would pay for the same meal in the States, you must remember that Morocco is a much poorer country than the U.S. and that for 7 American dollars, you can eat at a nice sit-down restaurant. Those who eat at McDonalds are generally part of the emerging Moroccan middle class and they embrace western culture, wearing designer jeans and name brand sunglasses while talking on flashy new cell phones.

On the menu McDonalds has some similar items, such as happy meals, the Big Mac, and the Big Tasty. However they also have some new inventions such as the McArabia and the Gamba Burger, which has a shrimp patty.

In addition, their “large” meal is the size of what would be considered a “medium” in America. After a prolonged debate with myself, I decided to order the Gamba burger, whose patty is made with shrimp rather than beef. It was actually really good, and if they served it in America, I might eat at McDonalds more. Although McDonalds is called “fast food” it takes much longer to receive your order here than in the United States. But on the upside, the quality of the food is higher and better prepared. All the meat is killed according to Halal, the Islamic religious doctrine that outlines how food must be killed and prepared.

All in all, I think that the McDonalds’ in Morocco serve much higher quality food. The employees are better groomed and a little classier than the average McDonalds employee. I would imagine that workers here are paid relatively well, unlike in America, where working at McDonalds is at the bottom of the barrel as far as well-paying jobs go.

Marrakesh & Chilling in Essaouira

This past weekend was Eid ul-Fitr, a celebration for the end of Ramadan. Eid is as important in the Muslim world as Christmas is in the Christian world; family comes to visit, the fast is broken, and feasts are held. Because Eid fell on a Monday, there was no class on Monday or Tuesday, giving us a four-day weekend. We couldn’t let such a long weekend go to waste, so we decided to go somewhere far. My friend Laura and I organized a five-day trip to the south of Morocco. We were a group of nine—four guys and five girls. On Friday we left after our classes for a seven-hour train ride from Meknes to Marrakesh. We had a compartment to ourselves, making us feel like we were on the Hogwarts Express. (Unfortunately they didn’t have any chocolate frogs or every flavored beans.) We arrived at about 11 pm in Marrakesh, in what is possibly the nicest train station I’ve ever seen. From there we took taxis to the main plaza in Marrakesh, the Djemaa el-Fna. The Djemaa el-Fna is an enourmous plaza full of snake charmers, performing monkeys, acrobats, peddlers selling traditional medicines, henna tattoo artists, and lots of enormous food stalls selling everything from snails to roasted chickens to fresh squeezed orange juice.

The Djemaa el-Fna has been offering these same attractions for over a thousand years. Today locals frequent the square as much as tourists. Just off the main square are the souks where you can find everything from shoes, scarves and jewelry to hand-carved furniture, enormous rugs and pirated DVDs.

Our first night in Marrakesh we were planning on staying at a hotel where you could supposedly sleep on a mattress on the roof for 30 DH a person (about 4 dollars). However, while we were looking for that hotel, we found another one that had a giant tent on the roof that was used as a lounge with eight couches and a mattress. We decided to rent that instead of the mattresses. It was the same price, and perfect for the nine of us. That night we had dinner in the plaza at one of the food stalls and then wandered into the souks.

Marrakesh is very interesting and exciting, but it gets grinding and very tiring. It’s a huge tourist destination, with fat retired European couples piling on and off enormous tour buses all day long. As a result, many of the Moroccans that work in and around the plaza are very pushy and forceful, always telling you to buy this, look at this hotel, eat at this restaurant, do this, do that, etc. Plus you always have to be on your guard because many shop-owners try to rip off tourists who don’t know what items are worth. For example, that first night at dinner, the cooks kept bringing us food that we didn’t order and then expected us to pay for it, plus they charged us at prices much higher than what was listed on the menu. However, since everything is cheaper in Morocco, getting ripped off means paying the equivalent of twelve dollars for something that should have cost four. I didn’t realize it until after we had paid, but the price of that meal was negotiable.

The next afternoon, we took a three-hour bus ride to Essaouira, a small port city on the Atlantic coast. Essaouira is everything that Marrakesh isn’t. It was small, it was quiet, it was laid back, and the only tourists were young backpackers like ourselves.

We were only planning to spend one night in Essaouira, but we all loved it so much that we ended up staying two more nights. Essaouira is a beautiful whitewashed town with lots of little restaurants and riads. It gained fame as a hippy haven in the sixties and seventies, and can boast that Jimi Hendrix came to stay there in the early seventies. Legend has it that his song “Castles Made of Sand” was inspired by a visit to the ruins of an ancient kasbah (fortress) found just two miles south of Essaouira. But despite the legend’s romantic allure, it probably isn’t true because “Castles Made of Sand” was released before Jimi Hendrix visited the city. Today Essaouira is full of young backpackers. Our first night there we met Lorenz, a 22-year-old Belgian college student who speaks amazing English as well as French, Dutch and German. He was traveling alone through Morocco on a five-week journey and we ended up hanging out with him most of our time in Essaouira. That first night, we rented an apartment in the central medina for 400 DH per night. It had two double beds, a large sofa, and its own bathroom with a shower. It was meant to sleep four, but we were able to fit nine. Three of us slept on the couches and three people slept in each double bed. It was cozy, but a lot more fun than being split up into two separate rooms. It was a pretty nice apartment and it only came out to 45 DH a person per night, or about 6 dollars. (The exchange rate is a little less than 8 DH to 1 USD.)

The next day we met Alvaro, a 32-year-old Spaniard who had cycled all the way to Essaouira from Madrid on his road bike. It was his first solo trip and it had taken him 19 days to get to Essaouira. He spoke very good English and turned out to be a graphic designer for a Spanish newspaper. We invited Lorenz and him to join us for dinner that night. That Sunday afternoon, a group of four or five of us decided to go play soccer on the beach. We ran into Lorenz as we were on our way to buy a cheap soccer ball for 20 DH. As we were walking down the beach two little 8-year-old Moroccan boys started chasing us trying to catch our soccer ball, so we invited them to play with us. After playing for a few minutes, another Moroccan boy of about 17 joined us, as did a Spaniard in his early twenties who was coincidentally also named Alvaro. After an hour we were all exhausted and went swimming.

Afterwards a few of us decided to go walking a few miles down the beach to the sand dunes and the half-covered kasbah that supposedly inspired Jimi Hendrix. In the face of the Atlantic’s harsh winds, the ruins are slowly disappearing under the surrounding sand dunes, making it a very cool sight to see. There was no one else there but a few goats and us. Our last full day, I went windsurfing for a bit. I hadn’t been windsurfing in over 2 years, but I picked it back up faster than I expected and did all right. That night we ate with Lorenz and Alvaro at a fancy European restaurant overlooking the ocean.

Unfortunately it was dark so you could only hear the crashing of the waves, but the food was amazing. I split a swordfish dish and goat tajine with caramelized figs and walnuts with one of my friends. That night, like most nights, we ended it smoking hookah in our apartment with the nine of us plus Lorenz. On Tuesday morning, we left on a bus for Marrakesh at 6 am.

On Tuesday, four of us returned to Meknes by train to avoid missing Wednesday classes, but five of us, including me, stayed another night. We stayed in an inexpensive hotel about a two-minute walk from the Djemaa el-Fna. That night we wandered through the souks some more and each bought a few items. Afterwards we had dinner in a café overlooking the Djemaa el-Fna, which was full of what must have been somewhere between ten to twenty thousand people. The following day we left for Meknes by train around 1pm, concluding one of the best trips of my life.