When it rains in Marrakech...

Finally, my blog post on Morocco has arrived! But first…

A haiku:
Desert sun at first
Souk shelter in flash rainstorm
Dark clouds Marrakech

So, the first day in Morocco, Kirra and I got up early to watch the sunrise and check out the pilot boat as we pull into the port. The port of Casablanca, or where there was enough room for our ship, is seriously industrial. It was so industrial that walking from our dock to the gate of the port into the city was unsafe and we had to take a shuttle bus just to get into the actual city of Casablanca. In Morocco, I chose to do a 4 day, 3 night Semester at Sea trip and so as soon as the ship was cleared (meaning the customs people were satisfied with all of our documentation), we boarded our bus to go to Marrakech. It was about a 2 and ½ hour bus ride to Marrakech from Casablanca but as we were leaving the Casablanca, our tour guide pointed out some interesting sights including the Hassan II mosque, which is astounding. It holds, I think he told us, 55,000 worshipers inside and outside and more than half of the building’s foundation stands in the Atlantic Ocean. The King, Hassan II, who commissioned the project, hired a French architect to design it and the materials used to construct and decorate it are from all over the world. The cost of this world monument? $800,000,000 American Dollars. Almost 1 billion American Dollars. This is insane, and raises at least a couple ethical questions, but we’ll get to that later.

When we got to Marrakech, we were dropped off in the Jama Al-Fna square, which is the biggest open market IN THE WORLD. It was incredible. We had our first Moroccan meal in a wonderful restaurant in the square and after lunch we were let free to explore the souks (“market” fii al Arabia). Then in rolled the darkest most ominous cloud I ever saw in my life. In less than 15 minutes, the sky ripped open, and Marrakech enjoyed it’s first (and probably only) rain this year. To reference the title of this blog post: When it rains in Marrakech… It freaking pours. This experience was one the best of my life. You probably all know how much I LOVE thunderstorms and so the fact that we got to enjoy this unlikely storm in the outskirts of the SAHARA DESERT made me feel incredibly lucky. We were literally running from stall to stall standing under their awnings and still getting drenched. The stall owners offered us garbage bags or anything they could think of to stay dry, but we went without, most probably because they would have charged us a couple Dirhams for it. It was more fun that way too. When we got to the main part of the plaza, we had no choice but run right through the storm to where our bus was waiting for us, and I have never…never gotten so drenched by a rainstorm EVER. It was exhilarating running through that storm with my new friends Liz and Alyse, not to mention one heck of a bonding experience. I have lots of pictures of the aftermath of this, but I can’t figure out a way around the size limitations of picture sending. It was incredible. I still can’t believe it, and just really don’t have any words to describe how awesome it was.

After the rainstorm, we took a steamy bus ride to our hotels where we had time to shower and get dry before being picked up for dinner. Our hotel was really neat and on a pretty cool street in “downtown” Marrakech. For dinner, we went to a place called “Chez Ali,” which can be described as something like Epcot in Disney World, but not nearly as authentic and fun. This place exists for no other reason than to cater to tourists in a way the Moroccans think the tourists want to see Morocco. Interesting and awkward to say the least. There were different groups of people representing each of the 8 “tribes” of Morocco, dressed traditionally and playing traditional music and singing and dancing; but the performers all looked miserable and unenthused. We were to walk past each group as though on some sort of It’s a Small World walking ride and finally sit down at our dinner table where each group then came to us. They just looked so…miserable. I spent the evening trying to keep up a positive attitude about the place and not feel like it was my fault, in a way, that these people were as miserable as they were. We had dinner, which was awesome, and then we were treated to a “horse fantasia” show, which I also have no words for. It was the same thing: a twisted, touristy way to represent a culture. It included traditional Moroccan music, Star Wars music, a flame thrower, a belly dancer, a magic carpet ride, and lots of sick, mistreated looking horses. We went back to the hotel later and got up the next morning to meet our bus at 7 am to go to Zagora and the Sahara.

If it sounds like things were slightly disappointing, it is because they were. I will expand on my actual feelings after I recap what the trip was and what I did. I do want to say here though that even if it sounds like I didn’t have a good time, I really did. My fun in experiencing something awesome was just often punctuated with ethical questions and some culture shock, which I will explain later.

We took an 8-hour bus ride from Marrakech to Zagora where we did our camel trek. This bus ride went right up and over the High Atlas Mountains. Holy Crap, talk about windy and slightly nerve racking. I have pictures of the views from the windows and they are breathtaking, in my case, quite literally. When we got on the bus, our tour guide immediately handed each of us a barf-bag and our SAS trip leader gave us a dose of the free motion sickness meds they give out on the ship. You can imagine, maybe, what the road was like. This is something that I can’t do justice by writing about; you need to see the pictures (I’m working on it.). When we finally got to Zagora, we did our camel trek to our Nomad tents where we spent the night. Riding the camels was fun, I have lots of pictures of that too, and even a video that I took for Julia’s Kindergarten class. And the staying in the Nomad tent was really cool. We saw a wonderful sunset, listened to actual traditional music, and even got to try out some dancing. We had dinner, went on a scorpion hunt with the biology professor on SAS, and went to bed. We did the trek again in the morning, followed by the same wonderful bus ride back to Marrakech. We had more free time in Marrakech that night, which was the best time of the whole trip. Our guide, Jamal, went way above and beyond what his job was, and he set up for us a dinner at his friends’ restaurant. It was in a riad, which is a really neat type of building. He explained that a riad is like the veil. It is designed to keep what is beautiful somewhat hidden to protect from the “evil eye.” This is an Islamic idea, and one that I came to like a lot. I wore a scarf the whole time I was in Morocco, and it was comforting. I understand now a little bit more about the ideology of the veil in Islamic society and it is something that Americans and the rest of the world just don’t identify with. Anyway, the riad is a building that looks like nothing special from the street, but inside there is such beauty! We had dinner in the courtyard, which is open to the sky and is beautifully designed with tile and gardens. After dinner, Jamal took us around the souks at nighttime, which was my favorite part of the whole trip. I might expand on this later, but right now I want to get this blog post up before Ghana tomorrow! Oh! We wrote another haiku while in the desert:

Creepy crawlies crawl
Creepily up the tent wall
Sahara Desert

As for my feelings on Morocco, this is a reflection I wrote for a class, but I think it’s worth putting up here as well. Take from it what you will:
Morocco was the port I was most looking forward to on this voyage because I have both French and Arabic language background, I have cooked many Moroccan dishes, my Arabic professor is from Casablanca, and I wanted to experience what life in a Muslim country is like. I think, in my excitement, I neglected to prepare myself for the poverty I was about to see. I don’t even know if I forgot to prepare myself because I am not even sure if I knew that Morocco had such poverty, I think it was just more naiveté on my part. In Casablanca, I was astounded at the beauty and the magic of the Hassan II Mosque, but when I turned just 180 degrees to look across the street, the poverty was even more astounding. I couldn’t help but wonder about the allocation of such a huge amount of money. I am also disappointed in the Semester at Sea trip I chose to take because it was not even close to what I thought it was going to be. I chose to do the 4-day Camel Trek into the Sahara Desert, and what it actually turned out to be was one day in Marrakech, two days on a bus, and a three hour Camel Trek. I signed up for this particular trip because I thought it would be the trip that would allow me to throw myself into Moroccan culture, experience what life is like, and try out my language skills. None of that happened, though, because the trip was huge (there were 4 buses of Semester at Sea students all doing this trip), the entirety of the trip was spent in horrible touristy areas, and I ended up feeling guilty and embarrassed of my American-ness.
I felt horribly uncomfortable in the Souks while bartering, and the aggressiveness of the shop owners was startling every time. My whole understanding of what “fair-trade” really means is now turned upside down because the concept of a “fair price” just doesn’t exist when there are so many different variables that go into the process of buying something. And the last, biggest issue on my mind is women and women’s rights.
I knew that I was traveling to a Muslim country and that the rights of men and women would be different than what I am used to, but for some reason, I just can’t settle what I experienced. I understand that I am undeniably blessed with a sense of empowerment that growing up female in America allowed me, and I know that different cultures are well, different, but that doesn’t change how haunted I feel. Being told that I should not travel in groups less than three people, one of which should be male, started to rattle my sense of pride in my independence. And this, I understand, is simply for my safety. The seemingly insignificant fact that the size of the step between the roadway and the sidewalk was huge was another reminder that Morocco is a man’s country. When we drove through the Atlas Mountains and saw Berber villages, men and boys sat by the roadside or in shops and cafés relaxing, while the women and girls were collecting food and palms for dinner. In the cities, Marrakech and Casablanca, I never even saw women. Period. They were inside their homes. When I asked my guide about this, he told me that woman rarely leave the house and the only time women socialize with each other is when they go to the public baths. And for the baths, women pay more than men because they stay in there longer!
The biggest issue that I’m having is that I just don’t know how I aught to feel on the subject of women’s rights. I knew, going into this trip, that my rights, Muslim women’s rights, and the rights of women around the world are different; and in no way am I suggesting that the American way is best, but I didn’t get the opportunity to speak with any women on the issue to see what they felt about it. So I am left feeling lost. I suppose this is what is known as “culture shock,” but I don’t want to just chalk up the way I’m feeling to “it’s just culture shock” and never explore my feelings on the issue. This is what Semester at Sea is all about, and I want to learn, learn, learn about myself and about the world.

Crazy stuff. I feel better now after writing that and speaking to my professor about it, and I know that I need to prepare myself better before each port. Hopefully Ghana will be a better experience. I have a pretty wicked cold though right now which is upsetting because…Ghana is tomorrow and I have a whole lot of things planned.

Anyway, the logistical pre-port is starting in a few minutes so I have to go. I’ve not had any cool dreams because of the malaria meds, by the way. Also, about pictures… I cannot get my computer to compress any pictures to smaller than 1000 KB, and in order to send them in an attachment to my blog they have to be smaller than 50KB which is really… just not going to happen. So I’m trying to think of other ways to get you guys some pictures. Also, thanks for your comments and e-mails, they make me feel loved! I hope to hear from you soon.

Until then, be well and I’m sending lots of love.

Kalista