Morocco

I was just getting coffee in the break room at work and someone in there was talking about my recent trip to Morocco. I never wrote about that here...
So a few months ago my friend agreed to go somewhere with me, and we settled on Morocco. I am not sure why I always wanted to go there, it just seemed like a cool place to visit. So we look online, find a tour, and book a trip that was to take place in about 2 months. (Neither one of us are big on the whole "plan it way in advance" thing. I think the two of us are both too antsy.)

First, we are on the flight and end up sitting next to this little girl. Her parents were placed in different places on the plane, and she didn't want to switch with someone to sit with her dad, she wanted to stay with us. So my friend (who had to sit in the middle after the heinous experience I had on the way to Paris) ended up taking care of this little girl--reading stories, helping her eat, etc. She did steal her cookies though, so I guess that was worth it. But the flight wasn't awful.

We get off the plane and meet with our tour, get to the hotel, and get ready for seeing Casablanca. Now, we were bold in Paris--we got there and walked right out of the hotel and all over the streets and took the Metro and talked to people and stayed out at night. All that. So at 1 p.m. I decide we should go for a walk around the hotel and see what is there. We get 1 block away and a man walks by making kissy sounds. I was like, "wow, I knew that would happen, but still weird!" A few seconds later, another man walks by going "bonjour girls. Hey ladies." A few more steps, and it's "Hey girls! I know where you're from! {kissy kissy} I know you!" This guy follows us for a block talking and making sounds, and now I get really uncomfortable. My friend is all "who cares?" but I can't handle it, so we go back to the hotel. And right there was when my adventurous spirit died.

We did the tour thing and it was fine. The country was amazingly beautiful, and fascinatingly different. But somehow, I am a HUGE hit in Morocco. When we were in Fez I was telling the tour guide, Hassan, about how it was when we left the hotel. He whipped around and said, "You left the hotel?! Here? AT NIGHT?!" and I felt like I did something wrong. I said 'no, not here. It was in Casablanca. In the afternoon. It was light out... I'm sorry Hassan."
And he said, "If you want to go somewhere, tell me. Call me on my cell phone if you are going out at night. You can't go out at night!"
Rather than feeling like I had a companion, I felt amazingly uncomfortable. To have a stranger (albeit a stranger who is being paid to make sure I make it out of the country alive) flip out like that made me feel much less safe.

We go to Marrakesh, the last stop on our tour, and on one of those day tours, Hassan was pointing to a wedding chair in this museum we went into. He decided then that he would come tell me that the men of Morocco really favor pale skin and child-bearing hips. Hunh. Should I be insulted? I mean, yes, in my family the babies practically just fall out. All 3 of my birthing sisters had babies when the nurse swore it couldn't be time, and ended up with the doctor not being ready. One of them even had a doctor with 1 glove on, yelling for his other glove as the baby was coming.
But perhaps having my first real boyfriend tell me a few weeks into dating him that I had child-bearing hips made me a little touchy. Why did Hassan have to go and point that out?

But I had my answer: I was such a hit in Morocco because I am the palest person around, and I look like I could bear a man many fine, strapping sons. Hunh.

In Marrakesh then we end up just going to sit at the hotel bar. I was terrified of leaving at night, as though all the men would just see me reflecting the moonlight and flock to me. We walk into the "jazz club" (in quotes because that name was a real stretch; they should have called it the "cheesy American music that even my parents find too soft" club).
We sit down and order a bottle of wine, and everything seems to be fine. But the guy playing the keyboard just keeps staring over, and smiling. Then he starts winking. Luckily, the way the place was set up had me sitting in such a way that he was straight ahead of me, and thus it was hard to NOT look at him.
On the second night, we are both walking by this place and he sees us through the window. He waves at us, and waves us in. We are greeted with a giant smile and winks as he plays through another painful rendition of a song I never really liked in the first place. We sit, my friend getting a soda and I had a campari and soda. She gets tired and heads up to bed while I finish my drink. I am sitting alone reflecting on the vacation that was going to end soon, glancing through the pictures on my camera. Just as I look up I see the piano guy staring at me, grinning, winking, all very over the top, and then he sings: "Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"
(As a side note, I had a joke with my friend in high school about this song and we always laugh about it. So to now be in this situation, by myself, hearing this guy singing it with a heavy accent and staring at me suggestively was almost too much.) I am grinning behind my hand, but know I have to get out of there.
I call over the waiter, who was never anything but cordial when I was with my friend. "Yes honey?" (What?)
me: "oh, I'd just like to have my bill"
"well, you only have to pay for 1 drink."
me: "oh yeah? Why?"
"because you are just so beautiful." {wink, grin}

I mean, I wonder if my pheramones were just like, of some type that doesn't exist in that country and I am somehow this hot commodity.

On the last night, my friend was sick and went to bed early. So I am sitting with 2 other girls from the tour and they are saying they have wine but the waiters wouldn't open it. I was like, "oh, just take it to the jazz club. That guy will do it." So we walk in and the waiter is like "Hi! What can I do for you?" to me. He opens the bottles for us and we turn to see my piano guy waving and smiling and winking again. So these 2 girls are like, "uh, do you know him?" and i just told them the story about how he likes to wave at me from afar.

We go to sit out by the pool with some wine, and in about 10 minutes the piano guy shows up. He stands right by the door about 20 feet away, just staring. One of the other girls waves back, and is like "man, that is creepy!" He did that 2 more times, and then when our group moved inside to the couch area in the lobby, he did as well. He took his break by sitting on a couch 10 feet away just staring. And if I looked over, he'd smile. But never did he try to talk to me. Just watch. From afar.

I end up heading upstairs at 1 or 1:30 and have to get up at 3 for our trip home. I was really looking forward to getting home. So at 2:45 I hear my friend in the bathroom.
She calls me. "Diane?"
"yaargg?" (I had a lot of wine, and I had no sleep, so I wasn't quick on the waking up here.)
"I keep falling over..."
Me: "maybe you are just tired and it's making you dizzy?"
"Diane? Can you help me up?"

So I go into the bathroom without my glasses and as I help my friend get up off of the floor, I see a big pool of blood from where she just was. I turn in time to see her about to collapse and grab her before she goes down. (In my defense, she didn't say, "Diane? I am lying a big pool of blood." I thought she was just dizzy!)
So as I am slowly lowering her to the floor she is staring vacantly right past me going "Diane? Diane?" in this eery, child-like voice. So now I am about to flip out. The whole back of her head is matted in bloody hair. She had been about to take a pill, and so they were all over the sink and floor area. It was like a scene from a movie; a bloody person passed out surrounded by pills, the pill container lying on it's side and the top on the floor.
We are back to standing up, and I realize that I can't lift her up. So I end up saying "is it ok if I drag you across the floor?" (Also in my defense, I didn't mean like, by the hair or feet. I was holding her up and just meant to let her feet go because every time she tried to walk, she just fell over and stumbled back into me.) SO we get to the bed and from there, I lifted her back.
"Diane? I just need my power bar. Can you get my power bar?"

Anyway, we end up calling the doctor who came and did NOTHING. He said she should get stitches but that he would drive us to the clinic. Overall, I am really glad we didn't go because he was a total scammer. He said one price and then followed us to the ATM machine (as we were leaving the next day, we both spend up our Dirhams down to just enough for airport food) and then demanded more.

So our tour ended up waiting for us, and we had about 5 minutes to get ready and pack and make it downstairs. We left the hotel room in shambles. It looked like a horrible murder had taken place in the bathroom, and another in one of the beds.

We got to the airport in Casablanca, and find a medical area. I am walking in the room yelling about how there is no doctor, and this other woman on the tour was with me. We are about to start opening up the cabinets when this man stumbles out of a tiny door in sweatpants and says, "are you looking for a doctor?" My friend is brought in and they give her stitches there. Including stitching this gauze to her head.

That was pretty much the trip. I am thinking that I will go back to my Europhile ways and just stick with going to a country where people think I am nothing special. Because that seems to work out a little bit better for me.

I will though comment on the fact that Morocco was really beautiful, and being in the medinas was an amazing experience. I wish I had gone under different circumstances, like with just 1 man or a smaller tour. But just look at how beautiful it was.