CASABLANCA, MOROCCOArrived at Casablanca 6am. After asking around, I found that the city was 35km away and that I could take a taxi, bus or hitchhike. I decided not to put off economizing and stuck out my thumb—the trip has begun! Finally got a lift with a guy who spoke only 3 or 4 words of French, making for a dull ride.
Once I started on foot, I was repeatedly accosted by hustlers—I’m used to cult fanatics, etc. in NYC, but most of these guys are much more persistent. One walked with me for more than a block, while I gave him the silent treatment: looking at him but pretending not to understand English. (They’re very good at identifying me as an English speaker.) This didn’t fool him—only disgusted him and he finished by cursing me and spitting on me. I think that they can accept a refusal, if you’re strong enough to refuse, but they have no respect for someone who won’t play the game—that is, listen to their spiel.
I was looking for the youth hostel when a small, middle-aged man ran up to me and asked if I spoke English. His boss was from L.A., he said. He spoke English pretty well and seemed more sincere than the hustlers I’d met, so I guessed he was just eager to practice his English. He introduced himself as Abdul and asked where I was going. The youth hostel was closed for two days because someone was murdered there last night, but he would find me a place to stay, a cheap hotel in the medina, 7 dirhams. The medina is the “old city” or “inner city” quarter of a North African town. It’s made up of hundreds of tiny, narrow roads winding around like in a jigsaw puzzle and full of tiny shops.
Abdul practically pulled me through an especially dirty section, dead cats on the walk, etc. I wanted to tell him not to go so far out of his way for me, but he was already too involved. I wondered if he was after a tip, but he was saying how he just wanted to make sure that foreigners would bring home good memories of his city.
We finally got to a surprisingly clean, neat hotel that belonged to a friend of his. This was it, I figured—he gets a commission from the hotel, but there were no vacancies. At the next place, the clerk was asleep. Finally he showed me a sad but adequate room for 13 dirhams ($3.00). I left my pack there and then he had to show me the easy way to get there, from the other direction, then we were off to the gala celebration of the king’s birthday. All the time, he never stopped talking about little tips for saving money, how he liked helping foreigners, how we were good friends now, and we stopped off at his brother-in-law’s café.
We ordered tea and croissants and he took 10 dirhams from me to give to a boy to buy my ticket for the celebration. I had asked him about stopping at a bank because I didn’t have much local currency and he said he could get a much better exchange rate on the street. He would have to do it, because if the money changer saw me, he would lower the rate. I gave him $50, he took off, and I instantly realized what I might have done. In fact, I had been warned about much trickier scams than this. Time passed and my heart sank til I finally went to the cashier, but didn’t even have enough dirhams for the snack. Abdul had done a total job on me.
Returning to the hotel, I almost kissed my baggage when I realized that stealing it wasn’t part of the scam. As I prepared to go pay for the room, the clerk, who’d been extremely sympathetic toward me and cursed out the dirty crook, told me that the room was not 13, but 30 dirhams. I said Salaam to the second crook of the day and found a nice room around the corner, with a terrace, for 13 dirhams.
This picked me up a little and for the rest of the day, my spirits went up and down: up when comfy in my room and thinking about the adventurous open road ahead and down when everyone who started a conversation with me, no matter what the subject or how casual, always ended up, one way or another, after my money.
When I first hit town, I was glad I started out in such a metropolis, because in spite of all the differences, there are many things here that I’m used to. Now I’m thinking that after a couple more days, I’ll try looking outside the city and hope to find more sincerity.
I also feel, tonight, like not letting the trip go beyond the two-month minimum I’d set.
PHOTO CREDIT 1
PHOTO CREDIT 2
GHARDAIA, ALGERIA
The traditional dress here is different than in Morocco. I still see about half the older men in traditional dress, but here many boys and young men wear it too. Here they wear very baggy pants, with a crotch down around the knees, sometimes with a western shirt, sometimes under the jellaba. The women are rarely seen. Islam deems that if these inferior creatures go out in public, they must cover their faces. In Moroccan cities, about half of them do so, with a big, colorful kerchief hanging on or below the nose. In Algiers, a little token doily was used. Down here, it's extreme: all women are completely draped in white, with only a tiny triangular space allowing ONE eye to be exposed.
