i write to you from essouira, a beautiful beach town on the western coast of morocco. it's medina lies within stark white walls erected by the spanish in the 1800s. i spent the day at the beach and the evening walking around the maze-like market ingesting kebab like it was my job.
to bring you up to speed, i landed in casablanca on saturday night and got on the first train to marrakech the next morning. while on the 3hr train ride, i met a woman (khoutar) who is studying tourism there and her two cousins (naseema and mejda) visiting from paris and brussels. khoutar was a great guide in marrakech and her and her cousins joined me on my trip to essouira. they just left an hour ago to visit family in fez.
marrakech is an amazing city full the smells, tastes, colors and sights that you would imagine it to have. smoke billowing from outdoor grills, mosques, silk scarves of every color imaginable, snake charmers, poor monkeys on chains doing tricks for tourists without western social consiences, freezing cold fresh orange juice, calls for prayers from mosques with scratchy p.a. systems, coffee that will take the enamel off your teeth, whispering men selling hash.... a definite assault on the senses in a wonderful way. i will post pictures once i am able to access wifi.
warning: slightly incoherent, free flowing and somewhat political rant. here we go.....
like you, i have been inundated with an enormous amount of negative imagery of the arab world via cnn and other such news organizations. shots of peaceful times in countries who's leaders don't cry for the destruction of certain other countries don't sell mcdonald's ads. negative imagery etched into one's subconcious affects one's filter (or at least mine) despite rational thought otherwise.
all of this said, and taking into consideration where i have been recently and the two passports i carry i couldn't help but feel a bit on edge when i landed in morocco. i'm not being paranoid when i say that the guy at customs repeated my last name back to me several times with a not so nice tone and took notice that my passport was issued in tel aviv. the guy at customs is ostensibly a government extension/underling and this once again illustrates the major differences in opinions between country's governments and the general populace. that has been the only negative experience for me thus far based on my nationality. that said, i haven't advertised that i was in israel before spain or that i carry a second passport. this trip is not a political one.
truth is, there are so few american tourists here now that even the expert eyes and ears of the shop owners at the suk (open air market) guess that i am spanish, italian or french before they guess american. once they do, and i tell them i am from california their eyes light up and they sing their praises for the place in the world they would most like to visit. i have yet to meet anyone that has had anything but a positive reaction to me being from the states.
anyway, not sure what any of that means really. merely a brain dump of some thoughts i have had along the way. looking forward to further exploration of this very beautiful and hospitable country.
salam habibis,
g