Leaving Ghana was hard on multiple levels. I said goodbye to Benjamin (again...always saying goodbye) and then I hopped on the bus to have a late dinner with Tetteh and the Ethereans before heading to the airport for our 3am flight. Well apparently the traffic in Accra was going to make us late for dinner so suddenly a motorcade appeared complete with motorcycle cops with flashing lights. We made it across town in less than a half an hour because everyone on the roads just pulled off to the side. I had it in my head that we would be dining at the church, but as it turned out there was some wealthy Etherean who donated the use of their luxurious mansion, so had a nice outdoor dinner with lots of sweet wine, dance music, and touchy feeling church goers trying to hug and welcome me. Why do people always want to hug me when I'm cranky? Tetteh is especially guilty of this. He made sure to touch me every time he saw me. Maybe he was trying to heal me. I don't know, but I didn't like it and I didn't ask for it, so as the evening progressed every time I saw him coming my way I changed course.
By around midnight the days of minimal sleep were really catching up to me. I had to dance just to keep myself awake and after that stopped working, I found a corner where I could write and scribbled some of the most incomprehensible junk in my notebook. Finally we were loaded back onto the bus to go to the airport, which was one line after another...security, customs, check in, more security, duty free, more security and eventually I got on one of the most uncomfortable planes in existence where I was alternately squished by the seat in front of me and unable to lean back because the man behind me was over 6 feet tall. The German girls sitting next to me took turns waking me up so that they could use the bathroom. By the time we arrived in Casablanca, I wanted to die or kill someone or both. The airplane breakfast was disgusting...completely inedible and I'm not that picky.
So we got off the plane in Casablanca, got our luggage and then discovered that one of our group mates was being detained. She has a passport from Belize which means she needed to have purchased an entry visa to Morocco...which she had, but unfortunately the person who entered it only gave her a one way visa, so she was going to be unable to enter the country. This meant that we all spent several hours longer than anticipated at the airport before she was finally free to go and even then they didn't return her passport, so our guide, Hamid, stayed an additional few hours while we bought some croissants and got on the bus to go to Marrakech.
While this was probably one of the worst introductions to a city I can think of given our state of mental and physical exhaustion, I have to say that this country is truly magnificently beautiful and intriguing. We traded in the Ghana gold and lush green rain forests and balmy days at the beach for the "ovenly" arid heat of a country steeped in silver and silk. The iron rich earth here is red too, but dry. We're in the desert now. I tried to stay awake to watching the scenery, but I fell asleep and when I awoke there were these stark rocky mountains littered with goats and ruins or half constructed buildings. Hamid says there are 3 colors central to Morocco, red, green, and blue. Red for the buildings, green for the courtyard, the date palms, the olive trees, and blue for the vast open sky. And he is right, as we got closer to the city all the buildings coming into view were a rich salmon color with a deep maroon trim and sometimes green roofs and window trims. Some houses literally looked like they had been built into the sides of mountains with deliberate camouflage.
The city itself is beautiful: a perfect blend of modern and traditional. There are horse drawn carriages to take you around the square, and camels seated on street corners with traffic whizzing by. We stopped by our hotel to drop off our bags before immediately going back out for a short orientation tour and visit to the main Square. Even the hotel is elegant from the beautiful geometric tiled floors to the intricate moldings on the ceiling of the restaurant. We rode past high-end retail stores and mom and pops shops. At the Square there were actually real live snake charmers with real live snakes like something out of Aladdin and monkeys...neither of which I was particularly excited to see, but there were also gorgeous silk scarves and silver jewelry. I'm still trying to figure out the Dirham (that's the currency here...8.5 Dirham to 1 USD)
After a perfect night of sleep, I awoke this time to really dig into the city. We went to the Mille to the Jewish Quarter where we walked through the market and saw the spices stacked in huge cones, then to the House of Sahid, which is a museum, to see the leather work and learn more about Moroccan Culture. There were pictures and jewelry, gorgeous artifacts from all over. And in the center of the building their was a courtyard with a gazebo, a fountain, and some bitter orange trees with fruit that looked like limes. The whole thing gave me dejavou. Having lived in Spain, I feel like coming to Morocco is seeing the other half of a puzzle. I understand now where the tiles and the architecture come from. Especially when we saw the tower. It's called Koutoubia Minaret. I saw it's identical twin 10 years ago in Sevilla. There they call it La Giralda.
While I was marinating on this familiarity, Rev Michael summoned me over. He said that Ricki had found me on the walls. I didn't know what he meant, but I followed anyway. Turns out, there was a picture in one of the exhibits with a lady who had my face. She was hooded and adorned with some serious metal and beaded bling and with her eyes down cast...we could have been the same person. Who knows maybe I was her in a previous lifetime. I tried to find out her name, but the caption only said woman of the Sahara. She was a nomad too. I'll post the pic when I can, but my camera died so I had to rely on others. It was very creepy and very cool.
Today when we were at the Kasbah, the vendors were calling me Fatimah and it gave me pause. Since the start of this trip I've been called many names. American Sister, Jamaica, Rasta, Madame, but Fatimah is the first one that really sounded like me. I have taken to greeting everyone in Arabic as I pass...mostly because I think it's beautiful to greet someone with peace, but then they look at me curiously and ask if I'm Moroccan. Sometimes they ask before I say anything. Most of the people in Marrakech are very light skinned and Arab looking, but as we crossed the mountains towards Ouarzazate the people began to shift. They are darker here, maybe not quite my shade, but there is something familiar about them to me as well. On the bus trip Hamid made a comment about the word nomad...he broke it down to its syllables no mad...and joked that nomads aren't crazy (they're not mad). They moved around because it was the smart thing to do. Now that I am on this trip, I am feeling less crazy, like this leap of faith was really just like answering a call to prayer, and act of sanity, a chance to expand.
I digress, I was still in Marrakech visiting the Menara, a reflecting pool surrounded by gardens, rows of olive trees, and old men selling woven hats and light weight tunics in every color imaginable. Then we went to a pharmacy where we learned more about the different spices and different herbal remedies. There is tea to lower your blood pressure, oil to remove eczema, scented oils that act as aphrodisiacs and whole ginseng, or as Mohamed called it "Moroccan Viagra". I spent entirely too much money on creams and oils and various teas (no ginseng)and then I even got my hands decorated with henna tattoos. I spent the rest of my time in Marrakech wandering around and meditating. Even in the city, there is a stillness that centers me. And of course five times a day, I reminded to pray when the call to pray sings out to wherever we are. Although it is inconvenient that this is Ramadan in terms of finding food during the day, I'm glad we're here now during this holy time.
This morning we left Marrakesh. I could have stayed another week. We drove over the mountains. I have recently had several dreams about flying and I think they must have been trying to prepare for the winding roads of the Atlas mountains. We climbed higher and higher on these one lane roads, the bus switch backing across the mountainous desert. With the city behind us, there were few dwellings, small groves of poplar trees silver leaves glinting in the wind and prickly pear cacti waving from the roadside. It looks actually like how I envision Afghanistan, beautiful, barren and red mostly, with some golden rock facades reflecting deposits of copper and other different minerals, and patches of green, the occasional oasis of a well plotted farm surrounded by dwellings built into the rock. I kept wondering who are these people and how did they come to live here?
We stopped several times along the way meeting vendor and camels and stray cats. I had a lovely omelet and some vegetables cooked with cumin for lunch before Marissa lead us in a short tai-chi sesson on the back terrace overlooking the gorges. Then we made it to the Kasbah, which is the word for Fortress. There are several Kasbahs around Morocco, but Hamid wanted us to see this one because it is one of the few where you can go inside and look down on it from above. The Kasbahs look like life size sand castles made of red mud. We hike down a rocky valley, across a stream, and then up these crumbling steps to see a sweeping view of the valley. Along the way there were vendors selling everything and anything, necklaces, purses, magnets, belts, scarves, and beautiful paintings very different from the art we saw in Ghana. This was desert art with camels and sunsets and silhouettes. Though none of us were dressed for the hike, it felt good to walk and even to be in the heat. It felt good to move. So now I am in Ouarzazate (pronounced Orz a zat) about to have dinner and explore the public bath. Tomorrow we are riding camels into the desert and possibly meeting some sufi mystics. Can't wait.
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