Morocco - 28 Nov 07 to 6 Dec 07 (and some perspective on the whole trip)

OK, my first blog post of the trip. Thanks for bearing with me. The technology infrastructure here is not to be taken for granted; consequently things must be done in stages sometimes.

First, a couple words about why I'm doing what I'm doing. Why did I go to Africa for 6 months?

Well, for several reasons. The first and foremost is to understand the reality of life here, from a participatory standpoint. Dive in. See what it's about. How much do oranges cost in the market? What is the cultural meaning behind how people say good morning? Of course, I already spent over two years in Mozambique doing just that. But Africa is vast. The reality of Mozambique is not the same as Benin, or Morocco for that matter. I've spent quite a bit of time involved with the musical traditions and people of West Africa and I felt it was time to get to know that part of Africa as well.

The second reason I came was to study the music in more depth. I've been involved in the musical culture for years now, and I felt it was time to experience it at its source. What is it like to see a rhythm played for a masked dancer or a wedding party? Who are the teachers of my teachers and what stories do they have to tell me?

I also want to say that for me reason #1 above is a very important counterpoint to reason #2 for coming here. I also want to get a sense of the place of the music in people's lives, and get a sense of the reality of life here, that not everyone is a master drummer or dancer, most people are ordinary folks living their lives. In a word, perspective.

The third reason would be that I was born to travel, and deep down I really want to go everywhere. Some places are just higher on the priority list.

The fourth reason I went on this trip is to return, at the end of my journey, to my Peace Corps country of service: Mozambique. It's been five years since I left and the pull of all my personal connections there is very strong. So I guess this is really two trips in one; four months experiencing West Africa followed by a two-month return visit to Mozambique, with Morocco as a prelude.

OK, so with all that on the table, why then Morocco? Well, I've learned in my travels so far to be an opportunist when it comes to seeing new places. In order to get to Guinea, West Africa one must fly via Casablanca, Morocco and there is no additional charge to stop for a few days. Plus, a good friend of mine just finished his Peace Corps service there and thus I had the opportunity for some connections and people to stay with. So I thought to myself, Why Not? Plus, the opportunity to experience a North African country in addition to West African, Southern African and East African countries allows yet another level of understanding of the African continent. And also an opportunity to experience life in a Muslim country.

I spent 9 very full days travelling through Morocco, making a loop starting and ending in Casablanca that passed through Marrakech, the Atlas Mountains, Ouarzazate, Midelt, Fes, Rabat and back to Casablanca. I got to meet tons of Moroccan people and spend a little time with some Peace Corps volunteers as well. Below are some images that tell a little of the story, along with a few comments. Thanks for reading.


My last stop in the US before coming to the African continent was NYC. I spent a very nice Thanksgiving with my girlfriend, Jennifer, and her family. Here we are out to breakfast in Brooklyn. Thanks guys for an awesome Thanksgiving and wonderful hospitality!!

OK, here we go Morocco. This is the Marrakech McDonalds. Every old Moroccan city has two parts: the Medina, which is the ancient, medieval city, and the Ville Nouvelle, the adjacent modern city of streets made for cars and fast food restaurants.

Here is a souk, or shop, in the Medina in Marrakech.

Moroccan food is, in my opinion, very good. The most common dish I encountered was the tajine (below). It is a small, self-contained oven in which the food is cooked and served. The food is eaten by breaking off pieces of bread and using them to grab chunks of the food and place them in your mouth.

After Marrakech, I took a six-hour bus ride over the Atlas Mountains. They are some serious mountains, approaching dimensions and landscapes familiar to me from the Rockies in Colorado.

Crossing the Atlas and arriving on the eastern side of the mountains, one is greeted by a much more arid landscape. The hard, flat earth stretches out to the horizon in a prelude to the Sahara beyond. I had the good fortune to visit a Peace Corps Volunteer living in the eastern foothills of the Atlas for a couple of nights. She lives in a small Berber village. The Berber are the original people of Morocco, whose culture has been strongly influenced and blended with the Arab peoples who came roughly 1300 years ago, but they retain a unique identity, language and culture. This is my friend J.M. and some of her close Moroccan friends. I had to ask special permission to take this photo, as many Berber people do not like to be photographed.

I just had to put up this photo of J.M.'s kitchen. J, I hope that's ok. Let me know. Anyway it reminded me so much of all the meals I cooked living in Mozambique.

Here is a Kasbah (castle) built in the 17th century. Although not as famous as the nearby Ait Benhadou, this Kasbah found outside of Skoura is much larger and also older, and is on some of the Moroccan m0ney. The kasbah at Ait Benhadou is famous as the site of filming for a half-dozen Hollywood movies, like Gladiator and some others I can't remember. The whole regi0n around Ouarzazate is a very popular on-site filming location, and the rumor going around was that Leonardo di Caprio was in town filming a new movie while I was there. I did not see him anywhere while I was riding around on the public transportation.


After visiting the Ouarzazate region, I rented a car for a couple of days and drove up the east side of the Atlas. I made a couple of detours up the Dades and Todra gorges. Here is a picture of my friend Mohammed who was showing me around; we were driving up the Todra gorge to visit a small mountain town called Tamtatoucht (tam-ta-TOOSHT).

Mohammed and his friend insisted in dressing me in the traditional Berber headwrap and taking my photo. When I asked him if he could work my camera, he told me he was "Berber Japanese". I guess that means yes.

Here are some dromedaries that were hanging out by the side of the road in the Todra Gorge.

After crossing another big mountain pass, I ended my first day with the rental car in a small industrial town called Midelt. It was here, in probably the least touristy town I visited in Morocco, that I met the most genuine people. These guys took me all over town and we hung out all night. Here we are smoking the chicha, a big water-pipe that you smoke through a flexible tube. The stuff we smoked was a sweet-smelling purple lump that smelled like it could be eaten. The taste was very nice.

My friends also took me to their house to meet their family. Here's me with Mom.

The next day I drove through a beautiful cedar forest that looked like it could have been in Oregon, except for the troupes of Barbary Apes inhabiting its trees.

Stop

After the forest, I passed briefly through the town of Meknes and got lost for an hour before finding my way out the other side and on the road to Volubilis (below). Volubilis was the southernmost extension of the Roman Empire and was inhabited for a couple of hundred years around AD 200-400. In addition to the ruins of walls and arches, there are also many beautiful mosaics that are preserved.

Just down the road from Volubilis is the holy city of Moulay Idriss, named for the Moroccan saint who brought Islam to the country in the 8th century AD. My guide for the city, Majite, was a really great guy who also offered me his perspective on the tensions between traditional and modern culture in Morocco.

My next stop in Morocco was the grand old city of Fes. I stayed the pitifully short time of a day and a half, which barely scratched the surface of this place. I spent most of my time walking around the huge medieval medina. The Bab (Arabic for Gate) pictured below is very famous and is known as the Bab Boujaloud.

My walking tour of Fes was conducted by an earnest young man named Mohammed (I think I met 5 different Mohammeds while I was in Morocco). Although a very competent and knowledgable guide, he didn't have his official licence and we spent half the tour dodging the official guides who were threatening him for coming on their turf. Before he had to cut the tour short, we got to see the tanneries where all the leather comes from (Fes is particularly known as a source for leather goods). The tanneries are infamous for their odor, but since I can't post the odor to this blog you'll just have to take my word for it.

My last night in Morocco was spent in Rabat, the capital. I visited with a group of Peace Corps volunteers who were there to do their midservice medical checkups. We went out on the town and partied it up with the locals. This guy was known to us as the Moroccan Cowboy.

My last day in Morocco was spent chilling in Casablanca. Before the annexation of Morocco by the French in the early 20th century, Casablanca wasn't much to speak of. The French turned it into the economic center of their new colony and thus it is a very Western city, with no old medina. While there, I toured the gigantic Hassan II mosque, built by the father of the current king. It is the largest mosque in the world outside of Saudi Arabia, and stands somewhat bizarrely all by itself on the seaside, out by the port with only industrial warehouses as company. The mosque is breathtakingly beautiful, featuring the work of 10,000 Moroccan craftsmen who handmade all of the design elements inside and out. Despite this beauty, I personally felt a sterility in the extremely oversized dimensions of the place, which seemed to me built more to impress than as a place of devout spirituality.

And finally, for some sort of contrast, here is a street scene in Casablanca on the walk back from seeing the Hassan II Mosque.

My flight left at 11pm from Casablanca and arrived in Conakry, Guinea the next morning at 2:50am.....but that's a story for another post.