Photo Essay: Arabian Nights

front row seats

these women made the most startling sound ever

acrobats

Hanging On to the Past

It was kind of sad to say goodbye to everybody in our group in Morocco. I didn’t love everyone on the trip, but there were some I did, and it was so nice to hang out with new people. I wish I’d had the chance to make a meaningful connection with someone as I did in Death Valley, but maybe that would have happened had I been traveling alone. And maybe that’ll happen if I maintain correspondence with some of them after we’ve all returned to our respective homes.

The loneliness wasn’t terrible in Morocco. I had plenty of attention from men everywhere, both the good and the bad kind, and I was so far from my own life that I could be distracted for a while from the NYC pressures of dating and being alone. Of course, I couldn’t get away from my life completely. As much as Morocco was an escape, seeing it reminded me that things aren’t always so different elsewhere, even on a different continent, across an ocean, and on land that used to be under the Mediterranean Sea (well, at least in the Devonian period). Occasionally I would stumble across something so unforeign to me it would throw me for a loop. I still remember vividly hearing the chorus of the cicadas at one of our coffee stops, baffling me with a sound that was so familiar from my childhood in Upstate New York, in a setting that looked something like Southern California or the Mexican border, mixed with the sound of sheep bahhh-ing in the distance and tons of birds chirping everywhere. I was equally baffled to see and hear so many familiar birds, including egrets and tons of storks with their huge nests occupying chimneys and turrets unapologetically.

And there were cats everywhere - skinny, underfed cats who meowed for food, rubbed against your legs and then bit them, in case there were some meat to spare. I think they were all strays, but as one of our local guides said, "they belong to everyone." There are lots of dogs, too, but they are all wild and remain untouched by the locals as they are seen as dirty and too much maintenance. We saw a cute one and almost reached down to pet it, until it sat down and began to claw at itself, stirring up an entire swarm of huge bugs living in its fur. It was one of the few times I wanted to cry during my trip.

I hope I can hold a piece of this trip with me for a while, now that I’m back. My health problems have already returned with a vengeance after subsiding nearly entirely in the desert. While perched on top of a sand dune waiting for the sun to set, our camel man brushed away the grains beneath me to make me a nice little seat, and then started tossing the brick-colored sand on top of my feet, ankles, shins and up to my knees till I pointed at my skinned knee, still open and aching from my fall off a curb our first day in Rabat. Stopping just short of my wound, he said, “We call this ‘sandshower,’ very good for reumatique,” and I wondered if he knew how much pain I’m always in. In hot desert temperatures in excess of 48ºC (over 115ºF!), with my legs packed in an even hotter sand pack, I felt magically recovered and cocooned. I think the only way I can keep that feeling is to pick another desert to visit.

So my skinned knee will eventually heal (though it’s taking a long time), but I think the one thing I’ll definitely retain is my French, which now I’ve got back after having studied it for five years, twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how much I’d loved it, and now I wonder why I never continued it in college, why I never hung out at La Maison on campus and only spoke French on a weekend in Montreal (poorly) and when trying to seduce Kevin Reynolds on a night out at the Hour Glass.

People keep asking me if I had fun on my trip, and the truth is, I wasn’t trying to have fun – I was trying to have a thought-provoking, mind-opening escapist experience – but speaking French was fun. And taking pictures was fun. And riding a camel in the desert was fun. And now I think I may have missed my calling.

A Good Porking

Morocco is a Muslim country so of course there's no pork served. No bacon or sausage for breakfast, only hard-boiled eggs, tomato, cheese, and chocolate croissants. I was only there for ten days, but somehow I went through major withdrawal and have gone, ahem, hog-wild with the pork upon my return.

Maybe that's the source of my stomach sickness, which I managed to avoid while in Morocco. Was it the pepperoni on the pizza at Uno's? The pepperoni on the pizza at Nick's? The spicy pork salami at Gottino last night? The bacon at Marshall Stack tonight?

I actually really enjoyed the bacon-free food in Morocco, from the authentic tagines and couscous to the Arabian specialties at McDonald's, like the delicious "Chicken Mythic" (which didn't make me feel very mystical but was yummy nevertheless). Eventually I got sick of tourist food, which was typically chicken couscous and beef tagine, but when I got to try something a little different - like the kefta kebab tagine with an egg cracked on top, or the chicken and almond pastilla topped with powdered sugar - I relished the opportunity.


The staples in Morocco were very good too. They have amazing orange groves that produce the most delicious juice you've ever tasted, which was a nice reliable component of our daily breakfast, and a nice refreshing option at the outdoor markets. The locally-produced wine (mostly from Meknes, but also a bit from wineries north of Casablanca) is the perfect nightcap, whether sipped while watching the sun set on a rooftop bar or in the hotel lobby to wash down some spicy snails.


The bread was always the same too, though very often baked by each restaurant rather than imported. At one of our coffee stops, we got to order our own custom sandwich, where I ordered sardines with tomatoes and onion, served on a weird Arabic wedding paper plate that went perfectly with a bottle of Fanta Orange.

Sometimes the best foods were the most unexpected, like the freshly-fried doughnuts we stumbled upon at the port in Casablanca, recommended by our local tour guide and sold for only 3DH apiece (though extremely hard to stop at just one, wiping the apricot jam from your chin and brushing the granulated sugar from your hands on your pants).

I easily get accustomed to food habits, so I find myself missing Moroccan food here in New York as much as I'm trying to make up for the food I was missing while I was in Morocco. I guess my constitution is kind of confused. Either I need to stay in one place for a while, or I just need to get used to travelling more.

In any case, it's time for some mint tea to settle my stomach.

Everybody's Got Something to Sell

There are a lot of things I don't understand about Morocco. I understand why a camel man would take my picture and hand-walk me up a sand dune, so that he could try to sell me his fossil wares after and work out a nice gratuity (though I only gave him 5DH). But why would a woman living in a tent, who makes her own rugs and has two beautiful daughters to care for, allow 40 desert tourists into her home and serve them mint tea?

I almost felt guilty for taking her picture, especially since none of us actually spoke to her (though I managed a "Shokrun" and a "Merci beaucoup" on my way out). But the tour director, who received a warm greeting of eight kisses, four on each side, from her said it was OK so I snapped away. Life is hard for these Berber women, and it's hard not to throw money at the children, who scamper around you and stick their hands in your back pockets and purses (of course not mine). But our handsome local tour guide Ali advised us not to give them coins or sweets because "they should be in school," echoing the disdain I felt at American tourists throwing change at Mexican children from our train to Tecate.

The children are everywhere in Morocco, and they're smart. They hide behind rocks at popular tourist stops and scenic overlooks and event sometimes hold adorable baby animals in their arms to attract attention (and photographs, for which they expect payment).

On the contrary, the Berber women don't like to be photographed, and will tell you so by waving their arms, turning away and covering their faces (even more) with scarves. I was appalled when some of my fellow travellers boasted that they snuck photos of the old women sitting on the ground in the souk in Rissani. They're not National Geographic photojournalists. Those photos won't help or educate anybody. And yet they didn't pay the women anything. It just doesn't seem fair to take something from someone who doesn't have anything.

I think there's an inclination for tourists to treat locals - who live simple lives and don't speak a Western language - like animals in a petting zoo, cooing and gawking like we do at the donkeys in the donkey park, or the camels at the sand dunes. But even when I took a photo of a camel sitting on a cliff above the Tinerhir Oasis - who craned its neck and posed and flirted with the lens like a real supermodel - I gave the camel owner 3 DH, one DH for each picture I snapped.


Everywhere you go in Morocco, everybody's got to get paid. They've got something to sell - fossils, prickly pears, or even their own image. Everyone's got a family at home to take care of, and everyone thinks you're a rich tourist (especially if you can afford to go there - which is not really true since everything was so cheap there). In Marrakech, which is nicer (and newer) than the other big cities we went to, the main tourist attraction - Djemma El Fna ("La Place"), a big market in the center of town - is where all the people who have something to sell converge. Snakecharmers, henna artists, and even little boys who box for money. Walking through it is like being dragged through the middle of Times Square on New Year's Eve, your eyes blinded by bright white lights reflecting off the smoke that fills the air (especially with Stand #31 on fire). And the shopping is equally chaotic, and surprisingly like Chinatown - lots of fake designer bags, cheap scarves and shawls, plastic sandals and bootleg CDs.

You can't blame anyone for making a living, but in the end, it's kind of hard being constantly sold to. And a little scary when women chase after you with syringes of brown henna ink and men jump in front of you and rattle off a greeting in every language you're likely to speak: "Hello!" "Bonjour!" "Buenas Dias!" "Shalom!" I tried to speak French as much as I could, and that certainly helped the bargaining process (except with the photogs, who insisted on a fixed price for crappy photo prints). I got a great price on the caleche ride back from the market to our hotel, the lovely and luxe Hotel El Andalous, and somehow I (mistakenly?) got free argan oil, Moroccan all-spice, and a weird lipstick rock from the Berber pharmacy.

In the end, I wondered if the locals found my French condescending. They already assume tourists are French, and given the imperialistic relationship that the French had with Morocco, I don't think that's a good thing.

It's All Just Empty Everywhere

I'm not feeling very popular right now. After 12 days out of touch and out of the country, I had no personal voicemails, no text messages, and barely any emails outside of the innumerable newsletter subscriptions I have.

But while in Morocco, I felt pretty popular. Starting with the seedy city of Casablanca, where Arab men as young as 14 or 15 practice making disgusting comments at you, I got constant attention from men. I wasn't looking for anything, relishing the relief of dating pressure by virtue of just being away from New York, but men everywhere leered at me, both repulsively and somewhat flatteringly when they were really hot.

Even when I felt protected standing by our Fes tour guide Mohammed's side, I realized Mohammed was kind of hitting on me, asking my origin (Italian?) and telling me he'd like to see me in a kaftan with pointy, gold-embroidered slippers and a henna tattoo - that then I would be "#1 wife."

Both he and the young man at the poterie commented on my fair skin and dark eyes, and it all felt very complimentary until my ceramics salesman let his hand creep below my waistline while I got my picture taken with him. He was very cute, so I didn't stop him, but I kind of thought that Muslim men must take out their pent-up sexual aggression on American women who pass through, that they must easily sexually objectify us because, well, we kind of put ourselves "out there" for it.

So I have no real sense if flirtation can really exist in Morocco, or in any other Muslim country. Normally, if I would see a cute boy, I would smile, bat my lashes at him, say something as cute as he is, and start the romantic dance. But in Morocco, it feels dangerous, like being too friendly will land you face-down on the back of a camel, headed for the mountains while your tour guide counts the Dirhams he received for you.

I knew that the men there would like me, given my experience in London with North Africans, but I thought somehow being American would turn them off. The shopkeeper in the hotel gift shop stopped me and asked me in French if I was Arabian or Moroccan. I acted cute and replied "Americaine, pas Francaise, pas Quebecoise" and was a bit flattered to think that I looked a bit Middle Eastern to him, but then I realized he probably was just flirting with me. He didn't seem to mind my American roots and stared into my eyes too long and grabbed at my hands.

There were no single and young and cute guys on the bus tour with us, which was probably for the best, but I was constantly surrounded by hot, swarthy passers-by so it was easy to get confused and wonder where to put that energy.

In fact, I got flattered in Fes when a Moroccan photographer was following our group through the souk and the mosque taking our pictures, many of me, until I heard Mohammed explain that the papparazzo would probably come to our hotel that night or in the morning to try to sell us the pictures. Worse yet, if he couldn't sell the prints to us, he would sell them to the Berber men. Yuck.

Out in the desert, everything felt better, less complicated. My body shed itself of all pain, inflammation, aches and breaks, and my mind cleared itself of heartaches and loneliness. But at our hotel in Erfoud, a Moroccan man asked me if I was a "gazelle," and our driver (also Mohammed) had to translate for me that I was being asked if I was an unmarried woman. A quick "yes" and I jumped on the bus to escape any further inquiry into my availability. But a short bus ride later into Rissani, and I couldn't wait for our local tour guide, Ali, to ask me if I was married, if I lived alone, if I would stay and live among the Berbers.

I know it's impossible to think that I could make a life with a half Berber 29-year-old who speaks eight languages and is finishing his PhD while taking care of his aging mother, but it's a nice fantasy. And for a moment, as I tried to insinuate myself into each of his conversations, I thought I might prefer to never come back to the United States.

Being a gazelle in Morocco certainly has its advantages, especially when trying to negotiate a good price for a horse-and-buggy ride back to your hotel from an insane outdoor market in Marrakech or making sure that your camel man takes care of you during a trip up-and-down some sunset sand dunes.

But it's all as transparent and meaningless as it is in New York. Ali asked me to stay in the desert, but he didn't mean with him and he didn't mean forever. He was probably no more sincere than the Casablanca hoodlums that muttered lewd obscenities in Arabic at us and then called us "bitch" when we didn't respond.

You've Got to Find Your Own Happiness

...So I'm getting ready to take an overnight flight out to Casablanca, dreaming of Rick's Cafe and cramming in as much last minute American food as I can.

The preparations haven't been too bad, especially since I've had a month to do it, but I'm still panicked that I'm forgetting something.

I booked this trip because I was tired of waiting around New York City for something good to happen, and tired of dealing with all of the bad, but now that the trip is upon me, I'm a little scared. And it's ridiculous, because I'm not scared of plane crashes or kidnapping or malaria, but of mundane things that would just make my life even more unbearable like losing my luggage and not sleeping on the plane and sunburns and couscous-inducing tummy aches.

Thank God Michelle is coming with me, and that we're taking a group tour during which almost everything has been planned for us. But as much as I've travelled lately, I've gotten really comfortable with every area of the United State, forgetting that things sometimes work differently elsewhere. And I've got to excavate five years' worth of French out of the bowels of my memory. Or learn how to pantomime very well.

There won't be much I miss while I'm away, besides Edith and pizza and Lean Pockets and family and Guiding Light. I tried to buy a new VHS tape to pop into the VCR and replace my old worn out one that I tape over and over again every day, but Duane Reade apparently no longer sells them, and running around to a Best Buy or something to find one would cut my timing way too close. Apparently I am a luddite. Even though I'm a little panicked that my Blackberry won't work in Morocco.

I haven't really left the country in about a year and a half (unless you count a few hours in Tecate Mexico) and I think it's about time I do it again. Maybe I'll be happier when I come back. Or maybe, like my last desert experience in Death Valley, I'll just fall deeper into an existential crisis.