Eyes of Passion

At lunch I felt the presence of someone staring at me while I wrote. I look up eager to engage the stare, she turns away. Curiously I watch. She is older than I, eyes of passion define her. She radiates--helpless romantic. We hold a gaze--just a moment. She speaks French, how an accent melts me. I utter no words, letting my eyes do the talking. Her's shine so brightly piercing metal like the craftsman of the souq. On we went, eyes engaging in a tantalizing game of passion. We leave the restaurant at nearly the same time. I reach the street, disappearing into the mass of the plaza. No words were uttered, none needed. We were perfectly fulfilled from afar. I will cherish her half-smile and suggestive glances. She is my love of Marakech.

Tannery Tour

After a morning jaunt to Jardin Majorelle I returned to the Medina destined to witness the art of leather making. A world class header shared with some kids in a dead-end street. I am clearly going to have a great day. I take a wrong turn and end up in a familiar, but wrong place. This time a free guide missing a front tooth decides to show me the way. Now he moves through the crowds with unbelievable ease. I struggle to keep up, my best crowd navigating skills shamefully inadequate for the challenge. He waits, and we continue. He pawns me off to a guy at the tannery who shows me around. This new guide show me the tanks of chemicals, Berbers slogging through poisonous liquids. Blood, guts, feces, and fluids converge in the dirt gutters streaming towards some downhill location. Here the leather is treated, prepared, and cut. Within the bordering houses, the leather is sewn into the final product. It takes two months for the leather to go from raw material to final product. The aroma is no worse the Greeley, which I guess says a lot for Greeley. From here I am taken to the rooftop of a rug store where I can see down on both the Berber and Arab taneries. So I settle for a rug, tip my tannery tour guide, and continue towards the hotel. Pleasantly enough I run into my first guide. He asks me what I bought and tells me that I got a great price. Now he asks for a tip of a cigarette. Of course I don't have one, so we settle for a pen. This is good to remember, when traveling always have a smile and a pack of smokes or a case of pens. I find myself eating lunch overlooking the main square. A persistent desert wind cooling the air and flipping the pages faster that I can fill them.

Visual Stimulation

Today was full of firsts. I suspect that here you experience something new every day. This may be true everywhere, but perhaps my senses become dulled when I am familiar with my surroundings. Had I come here prior to Italy I would have been a much less tolerant prick. The first new thing I saw today was my first fight. Unlike the passive Italians that I have witnessed for the past three months who are content to get in each others' grill, but do nothing more--Moroccans exchange blows. After some Arabic profanities, formalities were exchanged and it was on like Donkey Kong. The melee tumbled into a nearby store. The store and street packed, a mob has gathered. The two fighting are under 25, so the blows are fierce and the movement swift. One kid's movement is hindered by his nice leather coat. As he removes this, members of the crowd surge and separate the bought. The crowd divides the two and as soon as it started it is over, no police, just citizens keeping the peace. So I decide to walk on to the new city for the evening. Here I witness my first auto accident in Morocco. It involves two scooters, no surprises here, and one crippled man. The man on two canes somehow finds himself in the middle of the street (logically as this was no place for a healthy person). So the scooters are whizzing down the street, approaching each other. Each decides to pass the slower traffic taking the ambiguous middle lane. As they accelerate and claim the center line, wall-ah the man on two canes appears. Both motorists swerve to avoid him--one choosing right the other left. Blam-o, the crunch of metal, screech of rubber...a head-on encircles the crippled man, still standing, like Moses in a parted Red Sea. Oh the irony, which I can say now as no one was hurt. A spellbinding spectacle which is somehow normal in Morocco.

Black and White Guide

Day three in Morocco and things are going wonderfully--clear blue skies and temperature again in the 70's. Somehow it is surreal to be walking around in a t-shirt in the mid-December. I start the day with my the usual glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and then trudge to the Sabien Tombs. A cemetery for royalty, I find this facility most intriguing. At the tombs I am offered a free guide. A curios black and white cat decides to show me around. Oddly enough the cat seems to know every tomb I want to see. It leads me there, meows about the significance, and off we move to the next one. This is surprisingly familiar to my experiences in Italy. I thank the cat for the information, paying for the service with a small treat. As I exit the tombs I ponder what to do next. Well as I am on a death tour, I hike across the southern medina to the Jewish Cemetery. It is located in one of the oldest ethnic neighborhoods in the world. The Sheik isolated the Jews here because their practices ran contradictory to Islam. Deciding to change gears I head to the souq for some more shopping. One can only spend limited time here as the interactions are draining. Lunch was fair and dinner was at the now famous food cart #1, again greeted as "couscous."

Medina Maze and Ginger Tea

Day two and plenty more to see. After a modest breakfast it was off to Palais al-Bahia. Then to another rich guy's house that is now a museum. I was feeling hungry so I headed for lunch. Now I am not the kind of person that gets lost, as a matter of fact I have a good sense of direction. But in Marrakech it is quite easy to find yourself helplessly turned around. Navigation is complicated for many reasons. None of the streets are straight, and they are quite narrow restricting your range of view. You can only experience about 200 feet either in front of you or behind you. Signage is either non-existant or in Arabic which does little to aid me. Paths constantly terminate in dead ends forcing one to repeatedly double-back. Finally, everything is the same shade of pink. I wandered for a good couple of hours determined to eventually stumble across some form of public space that I could locate on a map. To no avail, hungry and tired, I finally broke down and hired a young boy to show me the way back for the bargain price of $0.50. As I was enjoying my "traditional" meal of Berber Beef and potatoes, I witnessed a woman across the street wailing loudly, as if there is any other way of wailing. A crowd of mostly men quickly formed, obscuring the woman. Scooters stoped, wails continued. Eventually, the woman is helped into a nearby store. When she is returned to the street she is vomiting. A friend helps her clean up. Kind of makes you lose your appetite. After lunch I went to the souqs and did some shopping then back to food cart #1 for dinner. I figure since I did not get food poisoning from eating there last night it is a good choice. The couscous and chicken filled me to the brim. I was welcomed as "couscous" man. After dinner I decide to have a little Italian passegiata. Across the plaza I end up having a glass of mint tea. With the tea comes some sort of gingerbread cake. It is gritty and has a pungent bitter taste, but when combined with the tea the results are amazing. It is filling and the flavor is hot. The combination of the spice and temperature of the liquid is most enjoyable.

Today I Make my Marrakech

After the exhausting travels from the day before, I somehow find myself awaking early and eagerly heading out alone into the unknown. Today I claim my Marrakech. The town crawls like a teeming ant hill--the hustle and bustle of motion. Grinding horns and bells alert you to their presence. Cars, trucks, horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, donkey-drawn wagons, people-drawn wagons, and curious little motor bikes you start with pedals all race by, passing over the hot plaza tiles from shadow to shadow. Museum Marrakech is my first stop. Aimlessly I wander with a general sense of direction before suddenly stumbling upon the museum. Islamic architecture, with its mysterious culture and exquisite detail has always fascinated me. After the museum I head through the souks (marketplace) towards the Palais El Badi. On my way I find every imaginable animal for sale. Lizards, snakes, owls, turtles, monkeys, and some furry rat thing all dangerously wait in a hot musky cage. Chickens are bought live--butchered, plucked, and cleaned for all to see. Fruits and vegetables are neatly stacked on blankets in the street.
Near the palace whooping cranes nest. A majestic animal, it sits atop the old city walls making guttural clicking noises. People smile more here. The place is loud, smelly, and thick with smog. The nearby Atlas mountains cloaked in a cancerous veil contrast the vibrant clay red of Marrakech; radiating a sense of comfort, warmth.
For dinner I return to the square, eager to eat from the carts that role in around sunset. The square bustles with energy, smoking aromas waft from the food carts. Vendors yelling in all tongues eager to lure you to their smorgasbord of delights. Musicians, fortune tellers, story tellers, comedians, acrobats, and snake charmers feel any available space. Twenty men eagerly sit in a circle placing wages on which scorpion in the box will survive the longest. The operator, continually closing the box to shake it with renewed furry.
Food cart #1, that is where I will eat. Chicken kabobs, sausage, potato cakes, and bread with not one but two sauces. All cooked to order, right in front of me. Clearly they are a family which operates this eatery. The father, grill master of course, and the mother whipping up a mad batch of couscous. Her sons practice their Arabic, French, English, Turkish, Spanish, and Italian on the patrons. Who says you need to go to school? Now I watch the mother draw in customer after customer it uttering the only English I think she knows, "couscous?", she confidently beckons as she lifts a teeming scoop from the pot. Now this is important, as I am nearing the end of my first night, I see the mother preparing her famous line. So I mimic, "couscous?" My timing is flawless, her sons erupt in laughter and a genuine smile beams across her face. My joke would not only bond us, but to generate my Moroccan nickname, "couscous?".
Rhythm describes all that is Marrakech. An underlying pulse of repetition, prose, and beat. The architectural forms, cars, noises, movements, floor tiles, and birds all appear to respond to some underlying law of meter.

Final Round

With my ticket in hand I proceed to security rationalizing my new purchase in realizing I can always dispute the charges with my credit card company. The line moves well enough and I am the lucky winner of the full body search. My bags are torn apart in front of me: sans shoes, belt, coat, and dignity. Next up passport control. More problems. I hand the woman my passport and boarding pass. The toad of a woman, roughly resembling Madeline Albright, but in a less dignified manner, croaks at me in Italian. A smile and a simple reply that I don't speak Italian. She croaks back that she doesn't speak English. So now I must get the translation from the other passport control officer. She continues, croaking and holding some blue governmental form with a picture that I am supposed to have. I tell her I do not have one. She inquires, are you sure. I am not Italian, therefore when I reply no it means no, not I am really lazy and if I say no and act uninterested maybe you will go away and I won't have to work. "You must have a blue form." Maybe the school has it, I have never seen that form before in my life. "Where is your blue form." Ok so now I am at my breaking point. I respond in a slow, calculated, enunciated manner. "I don't have a fucking clue." She gives me a stern lecture and tells me I need it next time I leave Italy. Sure I tell her, maybe I should just stay in Morocco. With some time to spare and because I enjoy pain so much I attempt to try and get my tax refund. Now technically you have to show them the goods, which of course are in storage in Rome. But I reason it is Italy and they are pretty laid back. Not so, he stamps two of the forms and refuses to stamp the third one. Then writes on the third one that I was unable to show the goods. Ok, two out of three isn't bad. Next to the money line to get the dough...or not. A plane load of Chinese tourists has just rendered the line helpless. To the gate before the world ends. Once again I am searched before boarding the plane, but alas they let me board. For six hours I was harassed, poked, prodded, ridiculed, and threatened. When that plane finally took off with me in a seat I had bought twice, I quickly fell asleep. I was exhausted, worried, frustrated, and uncertain of what Morocco would present. Ding...this is going to be close...in a split decision the winner is...oh thank god I am not in Italy.

Round Two--Missing Ticket

Sent on my way from round one to two with a salute from the Carabineri I reluctantly join the line for Royal Air Morocc. When I arrive at the counter the polite woman informs me that my ticket is being held at the booth just across the hall. Now my paper ticket was supposed to arrive by mail. Those were the directions of the French email I got. By purchasing the tickets from the French version I saved 225 Euro, go figure. So when my tickets did not arrive at the Rome Center I called the New York office, because I could not locate a Rome office and they speak English...few. They informed me to pick my tickets up at the airport. So at this point I assume there is no problem. However, the inquisition from the Carabineri should have been an indicator of what I was up against. The man across the hall informs me that I have to buy my ticket. Well, I thought I already did. He says that the website does not charge the credit card, simply holds the reservation. He ensures me that in buying my ticket here, I will not be double charged. Fine, a small loss in my translation of French. Then Maximo (typical) tells me that my ticket is back at P. Barberini waiting for me to pick it up. Well that is great, how the hell was I supposed to know that, not to mention the ticket is therefore a two hour round-trip away from the airport. I ask him how I was supposed to know this when neither the confirmation email nor the airline notified me of this. Knowing that arguing will get me nowhere, I ask if he could find a solution. He calls the Rome office to see what he can do. Great there is a Rome office, why wasn't this information on the email! Surprise, Surprise...he can not issue the ticket here at the airport. Why? Because the ticket was mailed to me on "5 (not fifth) of December". Well it is now the 7th, I have checked the mail box multiple times on each day and guess what Maximo, no ticket! 35 minutes of me nicely arguing that the ticket did not arrive and him countering that he can prove that it did, yield me no closer to Morocco and no further from Rome. A solution I plead, I need a solution. You can purchase your ticket again for the same price and when you return go to P. Barberini and get a refund if in fact it was our fault. Terrified yes, I know all about refunds in Italy. Left with little choice, as I have nowhere in Rome to live, hardly any money, and a frail hope that everything will somehow work itself out, I reluctantly buy my seat for a second time. Ding, in an overwhelming slaughter Rome takes the Round...Levi appears to have little fight left in him. Will our desperate hero ever enter the promised land of the "secure" in the airport?

Terroista, Italian for this could take a while

So I finally arrive at the airport after the serendipity on the tram. As I am quite early for my flight (this would be my saving grace) I decide to find a place to sit. Well if you have ever tried to sit in Italy you know how difficult this is. Benches do not exist in this country and if you do find one there is likely a man with a whistle to ensure you don't sit on it (try Monumento Victtorio Emanulle II). So needless to say I am mindlessly ambling around the airport until I can procure a boarding pass and enter the "secure" part. Then out of nowhere a Carabineri points his machine gun at me and barks, "Passport" with a thick Italian accent with just enough entitlement to his voice. Dumbstruck and startled I am sure I fumbled trying to recall which pocket my passport was in. I hand it over while he radios for back-up as if I must possess some super human power that renders me bulletproof. Perhaps he is just unconfident with his shooting skills, a common theory amongst us. Now I have four more machine guns pointed casually at my chest and two at my head from the level above. Casually is the only word to describe how Italians hold guns, but the poses were unmistakably Italian. The conversation is quick and animated, all I can discern is "terroista". So glad to hear I fit some profile, I start looking at my chest half suspecting to see small red dots peppering my chest. Then the Sarge come sashaying across the terminal. He views my passport, mutters something about me being an American and I am free and on my way. Ding, Round one goes to Rome.

Ciao for Now

So I know it has been quite some time since I have updated. But alas the trials of world travel combined with the requirements of the holidays have delayed my writing. So to get things back in order I need to catch up on my travels to Morocco.
Deciding that I had endured enough of the Italian attitude I decided to leave the country for some much needed relaxation. An assignment had just been given to me on the last day of class and I was in no mood to focus on any more school, I mean my quarter was over right? But I have never had so much trouble leaving a country.
I guess it was Rome's way of getting even with me for some unforeseen cultural violation I must have made in the past quarter. Upon boarding the tram to Statzione Trastevere we were greeted with an accordion playing gypsy and his rattle playing gypsy son. The tram did its normal skid--stop routine, but instead filled with a carnival of noise. At the next stop a group of school children boarded, their small bodies rearranged by the jostling tram, music providing comic rhythm, and me eager for the clowns to board. Little did I know that this was the end of balloons and cotton candy.