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From Abroad

We traveled to Fez to catch a ride to Chaouen, a blue-tinted town in the Rif Mountains about five hours north of Ifrane. A student who studied abroad at WVU, Muhammad, joined us in the taxi ride and talked to Slick and I about his experiences on High Street and riding the PRT.

A few feet out of the Fez taxi station, something went awry with the car. The driver jumped out and popped the hood as I ran across the street to withdraw some dirhams from the bank. I came back to see what I could do to help out. Upon investigating the engine, I found that it was still there, thus ending the extent of my diagnostic abilities. Back on the road, we were traversing the Rif Mountains when we reached a long incline, going slower and slower and slower until finally stopping near the top of the hill. We jumped out to give the car a push in the opposite direction. As it started downhill, we sprinted towards the car to catch up with it and I leaped into the back seat. A ‘mushroom truck’?one with so many bails of hay that they mushroom over the top of the vehicle?passed us as we made our second attempt up the hill. Finally successful, I was still fearful of driving for four more hours through the mountains with two breakdowns under our belts. The mushroom truck must have been traveling too fast, as it was subsequently stopped by a police officer wearing white leather boots complete with a matching white leather gun holster. Stylin’!

“So that is where olive oil comes from,” I thought to myself as we passed an olive tree grove. A farmer had set up a stand to sell freshly made olive oil, which had been poured into various bottles. Along the drive, some farmers had set up pomegranate stands; others sold cactus fruits, which I later found out you cannot grab with a bare hand (but it only took me 10 minutes to get out all of the hair-thin thorns).

Fencer told me that having an olive tree symbolizes peace because it takes 100 years for a tree to reach maturity and thus, if interrupted by war, cannot exist. Fencer, after doing a tour in Iraq, has a much different perspective on things than that of the average international student. He is likewise prone to philosophical discourse for hours. Interesting, nonetheless.

Night had fallen by the time we reached Chaouen. After arriving, our cab driver demanded a tip. Omar, a middle-aged Chaouen native and self-proclaimed ‘king of this place’, greeted us and offered to take us to a hotel for the evening. I usually am more skeptical of the ‘official town greeters’ but was for some reason intrigued. He did, however, find us a cheap hotel. Afterwards, he led us to a touristy restaurant, which we have learned to tweak to our benefit. Normally, these restaurants, complete with soap in the bathroom (which leads to a lesser chance of pulling a Casa’), charge 150 DHs for a full course meal. They give the tourists a menu designed specifically for them. However, there are also normal itemized, market-priced menus, which the waiters often hesitantly divulge. Yet being insistent on the other menu usually pays dividends, especially when one is a student.

Omar sat with us and talked to us about some of his other business operations and we “gently declined the movement for monetary gain,” which turned into our verbose way of secretly saying “let’s get out of here.”

Shortly after, we took off to explore the blue-tinted medina. After climbing some stairs that led to nowhere, we descended and ran into various people who asked us to look at their shops. “Just take a look, that is all, just look,” they would say. I forewarned them that I had no intentions of buying anything, yet they still invited us in to chat. Fencer and I were talking to them for a while, speaking a bit of Arabic. Slick hadn’t said much so I told them that he was Russian. The Moroccan shopkeepers became intensely curious of the Russian in the room. Slick went into Russian mode and he and I started speaking in ‘Russian.’ “Puskin waz Putin?” Slick asked me. “Aygin flygin!” I said with an angry scowl, hitting him in the face. “Ah, zifligin!” Slick responded. They laughed pretty hard and started to teach us some Arabic slang and swear words, which I translated for my Russian friend. They then asked Slick how to say “my name is” in Russian. At this point, I was dying from laughter. Abdul, one of the shopkeepers, brought out a Berber drum and started playing. I tried to convince Slick to show them a Russian dance but he was a shy Russian.

The next day, we grabbed breakfast and then further explored the town and surrounding mountains. A ruined mosque provided us with a tremendous view of the town. Muhammad, a local, talked to us about the history of the town and explained that Chefchaouen, the full Arabic name, means ‘look at the horns’, referring to the twin peaks that rise above the whitewashed town.

Women in the town were standing near an aqueduct system, washing clothes and rugs on washboards on both sides of the water channel. Those who live in Chaouen brought down their clothes to be washed and then transported them back up the hill to put them on clotheslines. A kid angered a mountain goat by pushing it around and it became hostile, charging after a woman carrying her laundry from the wash center. She slapped it in the head and it immediately calmed down.

As we journeyed through the town, two men stopped us. One dressed in a blue Tuareg head wrap and donned a flowing white jellaba and the other had a long, white beard with blackened tips at the bottom. They addressed us in English and I responded in Arabic, which made them curious about our status in Morocco. “Why is it that you speak Arabic?” one inquired. We explained in Arabic that we were students at the university in Ifrane and I told him that I studied Arabic and Islamic civilization, which pleased the older sayyid to no end. He stated that he originates from Pakistan and that he came to Morocco to help spread the word of Allah. I told him I am not a Muslim but am quite intrigued by Islamic civilization. I went out of my way to pull out my Islamic civ book and show him my notes in Arabic. He proclaimed that it is good that Americans are living in Morocco; “we like this very much! We are all brothers.” Supposedly, the older gentleman fought in Kashmir for 60 years. He hoped that we will eventually find that Muhammad is the prophet of Allah and made a motion of prayer towards the sky. Fencer and Slick talked with the younger man as the other stopped talking and stared at the sky. We exchanged ma’assalaamas (go in peace) and went on our way to further discover the region.

While trekking in the surrounding mountains, a few young kids on muleback stopped us and started speaking Spanish. They asked us for a pen and I kindly offered up Fencer’s. The Spanish got into us when we were heading back to the town: “Tenemos que correr!” I yelled as we sprinted down the steep dirt path that led back to Chaouen. Slick shouted something in Spanish and then came Fencer running down the hill in between us. I still had cactus needles all over my hand from my earlier decision to tear into one of the cactus fruits. “Yo tengo dolor!” I yelped as we ran into town.

That evening, a wedding group paraded through town. Either the bride or the groom carried a large, white box over his or her head as family, friends, and curious onlookers surrounded them. Drummers in the front announced the coming of the wedding party as the horn players in the back were surrounded by younger kids jumping up and down. The dancing wedding group snaked throughout the streets, jumping up and down while the horns blared from the back of the group. Slick and I had attached ourselves to the party, yet it ended abruptly at a hotel room. The bride and groom went in to the building and everyone stopped jumping and dancing, looked around, and presumably decided to go get some tea. It looked as if everyone thought, “Okay, what do we do now?”

The next morning, I awoke in my own room and reveled in the quiet that it afforded. I read some newspapers and slept in, getting a late start on exploration before heading back to Ifrane at 1:30 from the bus station. Fencer went back to the abandoned mosque on the top of the hill to do some reading and I went to get some toast from our frequented breakfast spot with Slick. We took one last journey through the medina to search for a postbox, but stopped to eavesdrop on an American conspiracy theorist talking about politics. His logic was quite interesting and I decided to turn the corner and sit down to chat. James in the Rain greeted us by raising a hand and saying, “Texas! Texas! Every time I meet someone, I say, Texas! Texas!” The local shopkeep brought out some sitting pads of some sort and we sat and talked at length. Slick spoke with James in the Rain while I talked with the shopkeep, Abdeslam. He told me that he spoke nine languages and is working on his tenth, Chinese. His wife is supposedly an ambassador in Rabat and they will be moving to Central Africa later this year. His English throughly impressed me and he was likewise fluent in French, Spanish, and multiple dialects of Arabic. He told a story about how he and an Arab friend speak two different dialects of Arabic and thus settle to speak in English. “It is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?” He chuckled. A Japanese man with dreadlocks, flowing jellaba, and cased surfboard in hand walked through the medina and Abdeslam greeted him and conversed in Japanese. I am a miniature version of Abdeslam and spoke the only phrase of Japanese I know, which is ‘hello, my name is Adam.’ End of conversation! One day I’ll get all of the languages down.

James in the Rain continued to talk about what he was going to do “after the revolution,” but we had to cut him short as we were late for our bus. We ran out of the medina, grabbed a kefta (chopped beef) sandwich and caught the six hour bus to Meknes.