Morocco and the Boy

As many of you know, I spent last weekend in Tangier, a city on the northern coast of Morocco. (And yes, Matthew was there, though Tangier is not where he’s actually studying this semester.) Anyways, I was lucky enough to convince Adriana to come with me and lucky that Matthew convinced three friends to make the trek with him. A shout-out to all of you for putting up with Matthew and me!

Anyways, the original plan was for Adriana and I to take a night ferry across the Straight of Gibraltar after spending the day in Tarifa, Spain (Matthew and friends weren’t due to arrive in Tangiers until 10pm). However, these plans quickly changed when we got off the bus in Tarifa—there was literally nothing worth seeing. We couldn’t even find a supermarket with snacks worth buying or even an ice cream place! The good news is that the ferry company didn’t care about the time on our ticket, so we crossed over to spend the day in Tangiers. Upon landing, we were quickly greeted by a friendly old Moroccan man (Rashid) who clearly wanted to give us a tour. He found us as soon as we got off the boat and again after our backpacks were scanned. He offered a few suggestions as to where we should go, but we simply thanked him and headed to barter for a taxi. This was a success (as it turns out, almost everyone speaks Spanish in Tangiers), and we were soon in our hotel room. Yay!

We figured we might as well explore while it was still light out, so we went for a walk. What an experience. As two white females, we got a lot of stares. And I’m not talking subtle looks—I’m talking men who literally sat down a few feet away and stared. To add to this, I was harassed by a little boy who wanted my orange soda, Adriana was asked out by a “Spaniard” (definitely not Spanish), and we had to use our wits to ditch several prospective tour guides. After walking around a bit, we found our way to a bakery and café (these are our specialties no matter what city we’re in). Most notably, we were the only females in the entire establishment, and not a single person sat with their back facing the street—this is the place for you if you are male and like people-watching. Anyways, the desserts were great, the tea was divine, and then—out of nowhere—came Rashid! “You took my advice! This is a great café.” We had no idea that we’d taken his advice, nor did we invite him to join us (though that was precisely what he did). We managed to convince him that we didn’t need a guide but that we did need to meet up with friends. We headed to the hotel room for a nap complete with Spanish game shows on TV.

Adriana with her tea before our Rashid encounter:

When the rest of the group arrived, we headed out for our first Moroccan dinner. Surprisingly, at least for picky-eater me, the food in Tangiers was delicious! That first night, I had couscous, and for lunch on Saturday I had tajine. The tajine was so good that I managed to eat all of mine, part of William’s, and a few bites of Matthew’s—so much that I was incapable of eating dinner that night. I also succeeded in trying some traditional Moroccan baked goods, some churros, and lots and lots of tea (it had fresh mint).

My tajine:

On to Saturday: Spending the day with the group served to highlight how different we were treated when walking with only females versus when walking with males. We were hardly harassed at all that day—except by people wanting to give us tours. My favorite part was the mix of languages we were using: the group mostly spoke English, Adriana and I spoke Spanish, and everyone else spoke to street vendors and waiters in Arabic. All in all, we managed to get royally lost, visit a history museum, and shop in the souk. Most of the group also made it to McDonald’s, but I fell asleep around 10pm and only woke up to eat my McFlurry. Pretty good room service, no?

The souk:

Matthew and I in the souk:

The girls:

The group (everyone):

Matthew, Chris, Andrew, and William had to head out around 10am Sunday morning, so Adriana and I took the opportunity to enjoy one more cup of tea and some paninis. We took a chance and went back to the café Rashid recommended (it had the best tea) and—you guessed it—he found us! We told him we had to catch the ferry and thanked him again for talking to us. Unfortunately, this was not actually our last Rashid sighting. An hour later, he was greeting us at the ferry before Customs, and a bit after that he had us cornered in the waiting room! We were a bit afraid he was going to find us on the boat. Luckily, that was not to be. After an hour-ish ferry ride and three hours on a bus, we found ourselves safe and sound back in Sevilla. I have to admit that at this point, coming back to Sevilla really does feel like coming home. Even though I originally struggled a bit with the types of food most common here, I know look forward to my big bowl or lentils and have even acquired the recipe!

Fun note: A few posts ago, I wrote about the frustration of changing classrooms for my one regular university class. Well, today I showed up to class and not even the professor knew what classroom we were supposed to be in. Gotta love Spain.

Spanish words of the day: cuáquero = Quaker (because in searching for a Quaker meeting in Sevilla, I found the one and only Quaker here—we’re grabbing coffee tomorrow!)

peace,
elizabeth