Life in small town Morocco has recently expanded it boarders. I fall in and out of sleep pondering where I am. A hotel in Rabat? A fellow PVC's living room floor? A kasbah in Taznght? Marrakech? Tiznit? A train?
The blurring of time and space began about a month ago when Amber and I left for training in Marrakech. We met up with a gaggle of volunteers for an evening in the city of Ourzazate before splintering into various travel groups heading to different Halloween parties scattered about southern Morocco. Amber and I attended a party held at a breathtaking, meandering casbah, with a beautiful garden entrance, candles lining the stairs, tasteful painted trim around doors and windows, and hanging plants adorning the multi-level courtyard. As the sun set on the adobe village, the din of costumed Americans, chatting, dancing, and preparing refreshments, echoed off the ancient mud walls.
The next morning we woke early, and walked the mile or so across low fields to the main road where we caught a transit to a bus station. Soon, we were making our way up one of the most difficult passes in Morocco winding through the Middle Atlas Mts. towards Marrekech. We arrived in Kech some 5 hours later and chose the least pushy of the taxi drivers accosting us as we exited the bus station to take us to our training hotel. The hotel was a bit outside the central tourist sections of Marrekech, surrounded by newly built suburban complexes and mellow streets. And since I didn't really venture further than the neighborhood pizzeria for the first week, this was my first, albeit naive, impression of Marrakech.
Training flew by. We told stories, exchanged ideas, problem-solved, worked in groups, listened to presentations and enjoyed the quality food and company. In the evenings, nightly potlucks formed in the shared bungalows, complete with kitchen, where unmarried volunteers stayed (married couples were accommodated in tradition hotel rooms). After dinner, people hung out around music circles, caught up with their email in the lobby, grabbed taxis to the city, or took advantage of the hotel's showers and hot water. All in all, a very relaxing and rejuvenating week- much needed for the weeks to come.
We checked out of our hotel Saturday morning and headed to the Kech airport where we picked up Amber's mother. We dropped our bags at a fun riyad buried in the winding alleys sprouting from the edges of the famous Jmaa Al'Fna. And there, for the first time, we hung up our volunteer hats, instead donning tourist hats, and walked out to the busy square. As promised by tourist magazines and travel books, Jmaa Al'Fna was bursting at its mortar seams with rich foods, extravagant spectacles, and unique scents and sounds. Lined stalls of nuts, and dried fruits sold by the kilo. Orange juicers shouting invites in numerous languages from behind their carefully stacked citrus pyramids. Tea vendors standing next to karts with large copper kettles steaming in the cool night air, pouring glass after glass of piping hot spiced tea, sweet and pungent, like liquid cinnamon. Women sitting on wooden crates offering to paint intricate henna designs on the hands and feet of passers-by. Whirling dancers accompanied by drummers and men playing long droning brass trumpets, high-pitched but hollow, as if muffled by history. Snake charmers blowing penny whistles and prodding hissing snakes, putting cigarettes between their long fangs. One man brought his thick snake and hung it around my neck. "You take picture! You have camera?" I told him in TashlHite, "Excuse me, but I don't have a camera". He gingerly removed the snake suggesting I come back later. "Encha'llah"(god willing), I said.
(Check soon for the next evocative installment of "Drifting" in which I part ways with Amber and Denise and head south to the beaches of Tiznit)
On the one hand…
12 years ago
