Day 2 -
Some boring actual tourism related stuff - feel free to skip
Fes is like an unnavigable maze - like varanasi - but with donkeys not monkeys. After about the 10th turn through narrow market streetsi knew I'd have no chance of being able to find my way anywhere except by trial and error. I had money, water, food, and didn't need a toilet, so i had all the time in the world to get lost and find myself again.
I saw an amazing islamic school - sane wooden and marble carving design as through Spain. I then collected an unofficial guide, Mohammed, who was going to show me panoramic views of the medina. He lead me up the hillside to the medina wall.it had started to rain,with very strong wind and construction on the wall, with a result that we were blasted with horizontal rain full of grit and sand. I did my best to hold my skirt down walking along the wall. Then he showed me the famous tannery, and the jewish quarter. He stopped to help some people push a cart up a hill. I told him that was very nice of him, he said it was just the islamic way.
He invited me to have Moroccan whisky on a t errace, but i declined and said I'd like to just go for a walk - i wanted to save some things that i could have the joy of discovering on my own by chance, rather than have everything pointed out to me. So we parted ways, and to my absolute surprise he didn't ask for a tip or tour fee or anything - after I'd spent the last 30 minutes worrying about how much was appropriate or what to do if he demanded too much. I was very impressed with Moroccan hospitality. I think maybe I'm a lot more attractive overseas than in Australia.
Fes elections and scapegoating
No sooner had i lost Mohammed than i picked up Abdullah. He said there are local elections now in Fes. I picked up a piece of paper off the ground with writing and a picture of 2 pigeons on it crossed out. This is some kind of anti pigeon election campaign material, where pigeons are literal not metaphoric. Its a nice change to see animals scapegoated in election campaigning rather than ppl. Abdullah - 22yo friendly guy who looks about 16 and unofficial guide who i again assumed was showing me around for eventual tips - didn't explain it to me, but said they just pay people with no job to hand them out, and if that's what a job is then he'd rather not have one.
He said he doesn't like the elections because the politicians promise to restore the city but they never do - they do nothing for poor people. They all lie. He said the expression for them is that they shake hands with one finger. He said the rich in Morocco only help the rich. When the king visits, they kick the poor off the streets. He also compared this to how under the french there was a 6pm curfew or you got arrested. Businesses put photos of the king in their shops because the king will only shop where his picture is displayed. They also give the king many gifts - the rich helping the rich.
He also said it's dangerous when elections are on, because different groups of people get money from different sides, and will fight in the streets.
He said he used to smoke weed but hasn't for 3 months, which is better, and it will be even better after a year. He used to play soccer 3 times a week, 5 a side on the beach - which i think just means on sand as there's no beach nearby, unless it's a river bank. Although then broke his ankle paying soccer. He went to a natural healer woman who was 109 years old, an in 3 months it was better. He said he'd never play again but now he misses soccer sometimes. He prays and this is good because it means he doesn't drink alcohol. He said drs and hospitals used to kill people, just prescribing drugs without knowing what was wrong. But he said with more drs moving here from overseas it's getting much better.
He wore a necklace with the hand of fatima on it to protect him, like how people put the hand of fatima on their doors. He said the sahara and marrakesh are dangerous because if men don't know that you're a good woman, they push you in the streets. He gave me his necklace, saying it will protect me and he can buy himself another one. These little girls we passed said photo so i took one, and then he tipped them. He showed me his house, and the shoes his family makes, and i sat on the terrace having a mint tea. He introduced me to his brother, who has a son but is divorced. Apparently divorce is pretty easy in Morocco. Polygamy up to 4 wives is still possible, but now only for the rich, whereas before everyone could.
He took me back to my hostel and we arranged to meet later so he could take me to a good hammam he recommended for a massage. He invited me to have dinner with him afte the Hammam..
Hammam
This was a very interesting experience. Everyone gets naked except for undies, including the staff. I've never seen so many boobs in one room or at such close range. There's a complex science of adding hot water to multiple buckets everywhere, which Fatima seemed to always get wrong in the opinion of the woman who was cleaning me, who kept yelling out to her in annoyance. I did some faux pas like sitting down when i was meant to stand, soaping too close to my eyes. I had water splashed on me and was soaped all over then rinsed. Then i was vigorously scoured to a painful pink. I don't know what kind of skin diseases are transferable from the cloth in this process, but i guess I'll find out and hope they're treatable. Then i got the massage which involved lying down on the rock hard (possibly it was marble, i didn't look) floor that id previously been sitting on. Then we finished up and i realised I'd have to eat dinner in wet undies as i hadn't packed spare. That part was missing from my instructions from Abdul.
Dinner
So it was me, abdul and abdul's brother in the candlelit shoe-making room for dinner, which was hot chips, eggplant, some deep fried thing and a tomato-fish thing in bread. They played music on their phone, which wad largely Moroccan but also some algerian, tunisian. Their favorite band was saudi Arabian. I played some australian music that i had on my phone - which was only blue king brown (which the brother rocked out to) and a song by Yane's band.
We played dressups - ie they gave me Moroccan shoes to wear and a fancy Moroccan dress and we took photos. Abdul decided i should be called Fatima. But then he gave me some more options to choose from. I chose Halouma, because it was easy to remember like the cheese. Abdul called me "sister".
Abdul gave me a mirror and some shoes, and I'm pretty sure he and his brother were arguing about him giving me stuff, and the brother having to go and buy me water.
We had beers and they smoked pot for a while. Abdul started touching my arm when talking to me, and at one point high-fived me and then kissed my hand. Abdul invited me to lunch the next day and to go to Ourzozate with them the day after, and stay with their berber family and go to the desert on camels and be welcomed like a Moroccan. He said this was much safer for me. I said it sounded good but maybe. It was about 12.30 so i started saying i should go home. We left an hour later.
As he walked me back to the hostel, i said i probably couldn't go to O with them because my family would worry. He was really upset by this. He told me he really liked me and i had broken his heart. I'm not sure whether this was primarily because i was rejecting his hospitality, or because he thought i was the person with the good heart he was looking for to run his guest house with in the future. Either way, it was really sad.
I was sad because I'd upset him. It was sad that i couldn't just accept kindness without te standard fear and suspicion of westerners towards Arabs. It was sad because people want you to give them trust as though its free without acknowledging that this is something you can't give without sacrificing your own safety. It's sad because, while being female opens some doors, like random kindness on the streets, it closes others, like actual friendship.
I extricated myself from this and said goodbye on the following agreed conditions proposed by him:
-i paid him for the tour but not for anything else
-i would add him on facebook and send him the photos
-i should try to bring my brother or family here one day and visit him
-someone would call someone tomorrow, although i explained my phone doesn't work here and i didn't have his number, but i gave him my email
-i had to promise not to get raped by berbers in the desert, and/or not to have sex with anyone - these seemed to be interchangeable.
He looked very concerned for me as he said all this and gave me multiple hugs and kisses on the cheeks and the top of my head.
Day 1
I've had a great day in casablanca so far. I headed north of my hostel aiming for the hassan I I mosque, which is pretty much casablanca's one attraction. Having forgot my compass and having only screen shots from Google maps with none of the streets labeled, i just kept the morning sun on my right and followed what i imagined might be a sea breeze. Occasionally i got glimpses of what i thought was the mosque tower in the distance. I grabbed some delicious pastries for brekkie on the way.
It was a great walk through completely untouristy areas-unfortunately i didn't take any photos because i thought it would be safer to keep walking and not stop to fumble in my bag. As usual i feel like the world is very safe for me, and today continued that. The horror stories of being groped on the street, while I'm sure it happens, didn't seem any kind of risk where i was. I had one rather stunning young man tell me i was beautiful, but i can probably handle that.
The mosque itself was also great, especially walking up to it from the outside with the view of the ocean in the background. A third of it is built on the ocean (reclaimed land). I then joined a Canadian and an Australian woman for lunch, and with the help of the Canadians French managed to get from the mosque to buy a bus ticket to fes, order lunch, then leave those two to get my bag from the hotel, then eat lunch and go get the bus in just over an hour without getting lost.
Getting to casablanca, one of my 4 flights from canberra was to Algiers. They'd obviously picked me for a helpless foreigner before i arrived, because there was a man as i got off the plane with a sign for mr taplin haether, and he took my passport and baggage receipt and told me to wait by the window. So i guess that's all it takes for me to hand my passport over - an a4 pieceof paper with mr haether on it. The Chinese woman who sat next to me on the plane checked if everything was ok with me, whichwas very nice of her. The guy returned and filled out my immigration form for me, cut the immigration queue with me, them cut the security queue with me, then showed me where my gate was. Unfortunately my bag did not receive the same comprehensive escort service, as to my knowledge ist still in algiers.
With the flight delayed, i left the airport at 10.45pm rather than daylight hours. I was pretty happy with myself for getting the train into the city rather than a taxi, until every single other person in my carriage, and what looked like the whole train, got off at an early stop. The sheep in me wanted to follow them but I resisted in favour of google maps. At that point i put my book and headphones away and was on alert mode. But mine was the next stop so i just got an overpriced taxi to my hotel from there and it all worked out.
Luckily I've avoided tummy troubles on my travels so far, and have probably jinxed myself by bragging about this excessively, but i stupidly drank a mouthful of water at the algiers airport to take a tablet. I'll have to see whether i finally get my comeuppance, or comeouttance as the case may be.
[ Last edited 30/08/2015 05:28pm ]
