Mad Marocco - December 21, 2008

I guess the only way to tell this story is to start from the beginning. When we first arrived in the airport to set off for our flight to Morocco, we were greeted with an hour and a half delay. Yay! I should have known this would be a harbinger of things to come. I felt like I was still recovering from my jetlag from returning home from the states on Sunday. We met up with Stephane's colleague at the airport. First Russian man I ever met. Very nice guy. So, finally we boarded the plane and took off towards our destination of Casablanca, Marocco...and then on to a town to the north of Casa called Mohammedia. Stephane had to give a lecture at a university there. So, the plane ride was the first of many strange and somewhat scary experiences I would have over the course of the next few days. We made friends with a Maroccon woman sitting next to us which was nice. She gave us some pointers and also provided her telephone number, should we make it to Rabat where she lived. She promised to give us a tour if we ever come there. It was really very nice. She was going home to visit family but she actually lives about an hour away from us in France, so maybe we will get a chance someday to see her again. So, about halfway through the flight the attendants went through with the cart of duty free merchandise. Apparently a customer sitting near us was not happy! He proceeded to get up in the aisle and YELL very loudly in Arabic at the flight attendant. Thankfully, our new Arabic friend was giving us a translated play by play. Apparently, the guy was being a fucking pain in the ass the entire flight and the attendant refused to sell him cigarettes for some reason. It was quite scary because you never really knew how far it was going to go. Like they were standing chest to chest and yelling in the aisle right behind our seats. It was by far the scariest thing I have ever witnessed on a flight. It turns out the argument never went to blows and the attendants continued to ignore the pain in the ass as he kept hitting the call button for the rest of the flight. The attendants were funny because they would just walk by and switch the light off not paying him any mind. So, a student from the university picked us up at the airport which was very nice. My first impression of Morocco was that the weather was beautiful and there were tons of palm trees and Muslims. Obviously. It was then that I came to the realization that I was entering a third world country. After all, I am not known for my prowess in geography. Along the road to the airport there were many people walking. In fact, they were several people walking on every single road we ever drove on. It's much different than anything I have ever experienced (except Block Island in summer for those who know) . At one point, a farmer herded his cows onto the airport road and we had to stop abruptly as not to him them! I asked if it was normal, and the guy said , "In Morocco, anything is normal". I thought....alrighty then. He also mentioned that there were no rules when it came to driving. I could tell this anyway but he was good at manuevering through it all. He decided to take us on the road through the center of Casablanca so that we could see everything, rather than to take the road straight to Mohammedia. He said it would be an extra ten minutes! This was a huge mistake as it was rush hour and a huge cluster fuck. When I say that, I'm not even sure it conveys accurately in words what the situation was like in reality. There are 8 MILLION PEOPLE in Casablanca, or at least this is what the student told us. Well, eventually we made it to Mohammedia approximately two hours after we had arrived. UGH! And , we basically had enough time to put our bags down before we had to go out again. The student wished to show them the university campus and then we were all going out to dinner. Campus was nice and the student was confused and thought I was part of the group of professors that had come from the other University in France. ("Yes, this is Professor Butcher, who holds her various specialties in Cooking, 80's Pop Culture and water pipes") ROFL But Stephane set him straight and then we all headed out to dinner. It was Stephane and I, the student, Stephane's two colleagues (both Russian) and a Moroccon professor from Lyon. We ate at a very nice resturant near our hotel. And I'm not going to lie, I smoked cigarettes in Morocco. About ten of them! EEK! and bad bad bad, but I fucking did it anyway, even though I shouldn't have. We drank some Moroccon wine, a Cabernet...which was quite good. Me and the Russians were drinking the most but everyone helped finish three big bottles. We also had a classical Moroccon dish called "Tajine". It comes in many different styles. I had Poulet avec Citron et Olives (chicken with lemons and olives) and Stephane had Poisson avec pomme de terre et carottes (Fish with potatoes and Carrots). It was very good and came in a neat little Tajine pot and was steaming HOTTT! So, after a night of drinking with a bunch of crazy mathematicians we retired for the evening. Stephane had to be up early to leave for the conference so I decided to get up with him and have breakfast since it was included in the rate. After he went off to the conference, I decided to get a sandwich and set off on a wonderful day of taking photographs and wandering around beatiful Morocco for the day. Well....that's not exactly the way it turned out. As I was leaving the Boulangerie (bakery) I noticed two men looking rather suspicious behind me. At first I thought I was just being paranoid and decided to just keep walking. I started to walk towards the ocean where I saw the previous night they had a park with benches. I still saw them behind me so I decided to sit on a bench for a while and see if they would leave. Nope! They just sat down on a bench further away and started smoking cigarettes. They weren't really looking at me, but it was almost like they were trying not to look at me. I figured I just had to wait them out. Well, I sat there for a full half hour like frozen in fear. I wasn't going anywhere and they weren't either. After I got up enough courage I decided to just maybe go back to the hotel for a while and figured they wouldn't follow me since it would have been so obvious at that point. Nope! They got up shortly after I passed and started following me AGAIN!!! I was so fucking scared at that point that I started to cry and got back to the hotel as fast as I could. They followed me the entire time. This is probably the first time that I have ever been scared to walk alone in my life!! AND it was a bright sunny morning at around 9:30, not a dimly lit alley at midnight. When they followed me from the park to the hotel I knew that I wasn't delusional. But I never really got a good look at them, so I then was afraid to go back outside for the rest of the beautiful day. I was so upset. For the first hour I was at the hotel I just cried. Then the maid knocked on my door to ask if some workmen could come in and fix the AC, and I took that opportunity to go down and sit in the hotel lobby. It kind of sucked that day because Stephane didn't get back from the conference until after 8. I was just sitting with nothing to do the entire day except read and watch people walk by, which was actually fairly interesting. Moroccan stooping, as it were. When he got back we talked about what happened and he said I had done the right thing by coming back. I mean , it did totally suck being trapped in the hotel all day but I also didn't get kidnapped or raped, so I'll call it a good decision! ;) LOL SO that night after I cried a little more with him we ate dinner in the room and then went to the lounge for some Moroccan beer and music! They had a live player whose instrument was a keyboard. Surprisingly enough it was not cheesy!!!! I swear. And the beer was good too. I smoked more cigarettes too! (bad bad bad) We were calling it Moroccan karaoke because several times another guy got up to sing a few notes with him. It was a really neat atmosphere. This lounge at the hotel is actually a major attraction in the area so there were people there who were not guests at the hotel. It was dark and the curtains are dark and you definately felt as if you were in another world. So after we just retired to the room for the night. Stephane had off the next day so we decided to go back into Casa to check out a hammam and also the souk (market) at the ancienne medina (or old city center). Now, if you have never heard of a hammam, then google it. It's like a bathouse and sauna and spa. The one we went to is at www.hammamziani.mr We paid 300 dirham a piece for the full special of everything they have. 300 dirham....sounds like a lot eh? LOL nope, it was like 26 euros or 35 US dollars. This package included a bag of things to take home, including the gumming glove they use to remove the skin and a pouf. It first begins with you going into a steam room, pretty hot and you can't see shit. Stephane told me to wear my bikini bottom so I did. The other women were just wearing underwear. It's funny because these are the same women who cover themselves completely in the streets, and here I was seeing there boobies and everything else through their wet underwear! I told Stephane I wanted to yell in the streets to the Muslim men, "Hey I just saw all your wives tits!!!" LOL So anyway, while in this steam room my "helper" , who was the biggest Moroccan women ever, gave me some black olive oil soap and had me rub down. Then she washed me off and took me out to the main room which is basically equipped with three marble tables with handles and many basins in a row for the water. It's also a steam room but larger and not so hard to see anything. She got my slippery ass up on the marble slab and proceeded to scrub the living shit out of me using this black glove. I read that this process is called 'gumming'. I could not believe how much dead skin she got off me!!! It was totally disgusting and totally fucking awesome at the same time! Then after she scrubbed me to the bone, she had me stand up and rinsed me off again. Then she told me to take off my bikini bottoms, which I had no idea what the hell she was saying at first, and got me back up on the slab face up. She then proceeded to rub hot mud and seaweed all over me from head to toe (only one tiny spot she didn't get ) and then wrapped me like a burrito in plastic and left me to marinate for the next twenty minutes. At one point I had an itch and moved to scratch it and almost slid off the slab!!!! LOL But I didn't. She came back FINALLY and unwrapped my cacoon and helped me stand up. Then she rinsed me again and had me wash my hair, then rinsed me AGAIN! She gave me back my bikini bottoms and took me into the third room, a massage room. She again helped me onto a marble slab and gave me about a 20 minute massage which included cracking my toes, ankles, fingers and doing some weird stretching to my shoulders and back. I felt so good after. It was steamy and she rubbed me with some strong smelling lavender oil and washed me AGAIN! I felt so clean when I left there. Then she rubbed an awesome lotion all over me (including my boobs...lol...first time for everything!) and gave me a robe and sent me to a relaxation area to rest and change at my leisure. I just want you to know that when I was home in the states I had an 80 minute swedish massage at the Mohegan Sun spa and spent over $200 US dollars! I mean they let me go in the steam room and shower and drink tea too, but this hammam was three hours worth of pampering for one eigth of the price!!! I tipped the shit out this tall Moroccan woman! I mean she scrubbed my tits down after all, she deserves a tip! LOL then Stephane and I met to leave, since both areas for the sexes are COMPLETELY separated, as it would be inconceivable for a man to see these Muslim women like that! I asked if the hammam had scrubbed his balls down and he said, "NO NO NO"!!! LOL So after the hammam we had a very humbling experience. I experienced, in the streets near the ancient medina, the mid-day call to prayer on Friday, the weekly Muslim holy day. When the fuck have you EVER knelt down in the dirty streets with everyone around for miles, on a ragged sacred carpet to pray to your God? Me, never! Some people should seriously be ashamed of themselves if they've ever claimed to truly worship their God! You should have seen this! At one point we had to stop and go around because there were so many men and women outside the mid-town Mosque that we had to go three streets out of our way , lest we walk right in the middle of the prayer. At one point, I came around a corner and I was standing in the direction of Mecca and realized that I had no less than hundreds of eyes on me. I was an intruder. I felt a way deeper understanding of worship and a belief in your God. I'm far from a Muslim, but after experiencing that , I feel like I should pray a little more to the Goddess, because I've been neglecting her! After that experience, and checking our email at an internet cafe with a picture of a scantilly clad Angelina on the wall, we went in search of the popular Moroccan mint tea. Before we found this place we had unsuccessfully tried to get a cup two times at other places. Mint tea is to Morocco like Budweiser is to Block Island! This should not have been this difficult to find, but alas, it took three tries! Honestly, I wasn't impressed. It's green tea with mint and sugar. woo woo Stephane says this waiter didn't do this whole crazy stunt like in "Coctail" , like the waiter he had in Marrakech ! I had higher hopes but really it was just tea. Oh, and I had cookies with a very fine and dark Moroccan black hair included. Mmmmmmm...spicy!


I'm actually going to stop there and call this PART 1 of the Morrocan saga.....

Stay tuned, because there's more.....

I didn't take hardly any pictures but I will post the ones I did take when I finish Part 2...but it may not be for a few days. Because let's face it, I have better things to do.