Regular readers of this blog may be wondering why it has yet to chronicle our trip to Morocco and Spain after our visit to Marrakech. That last entry described events which occurred more than a month ago.
This delay has been due, in part, to the intensity of the touring experience, in part to my contracting a cold which took a bit out of me for several days, and in part due to my normal procrastination tendencies.
We arrived back in the US on October 4 and then on the 5th we were on the road to fly out to Missouri to attend our nephew’s wedding. And then, immediately upon our return to Olympia, war broke out in Israel and Gaza.
Several friends and family have been both inquiring about my emotional state as well as what I know about our Israeli friends and relatives. The reality of both is a confusing mix of fear, anger, determination, and deep deep sorrow.
No one knows how this war with Hamas will evolve. There are no good choices. Only, if we are lucky and wise, less worse ones.
It was just last March when my cousin Hemy was taking me to the tiny town of Ghajar, Israel, which lies adjacent to the Lebanese border. We ate a pita falafel, walked in the “Peace Garden”, and I took pictures of the border wall which separates the two nations.
The Lebanese-Israeli Border: Note the border fence separating two very different realities.
At that time in the spring of 2023 and onwards into this summer and fall, Israelis were convulsed with demonstrations against “judicial reforms” proposed by its right-wing government.
Hemy and Anat, in their beautiful Beit Hilel home, watching massive street demonstrations, protesting Israeli government moves to restrict judicial oversight.
Hemy grew up in Kfar Giladi, a kibbutz about 5 miles to the southwest of Ghajar, lying less than a mile from the Lebanese border. It was famous as a smuggling route for Jews to get into Palestine prior to Israeli statehood. My family were significant pioneers and leaders of that settlement, and I had enjoyed a beautiful Passover seder celebration there in a previous time I was in Israel.
Israel’s fertile Hula Valley, lying between the Golan Heights and Lebanon. Cousin’s Hemy and Anat’s home lies just to the north (left) of this picture.
As of a couple of days ago, Kfar Giladi and 27 other Israeli towns and settlements adjacent to the Lebanese border have been evacuated. Skirmishes with Hezbollah have been occurring with increasing frequency and full-scale war may break out at any moment. Hemy reported to me that authorities recommended that he and his wife Anat leave their home in Beit Hilel, which is located due east of Qiryat Shemona. They have done so, staying with their daughter’s family further south, away from the border. Ever the workaholic, Hemy tells me that they are in “a village in the Misgav area near Carmiel. Safe place and close to my work at Rosh Pina.” Hemy previously told me that his son was likely to be called up into the reserves at any moment.
Another cousin, Yoav, an Israeli now living in Walnut Creek, California, grew up in a kibbutz bordering Gaza. He reports that “Our home in Kibbutz Kissufim has been destroyed with many people murdered, kidnapped and terrorized. My dad passed away back in 2015 and my mom is living on a kibbutz up north. We’re devastated, sad, angry and anxious.”
My cousins living in the center of the country, some near Tel Aviv, and some west of Jerusalem, appear to be physically safe at the moment. But all are emotionally traumatized and know folks who have died, been injured, or are actively in the military.
Everyone I know in our country is inundated by the news. I find myself mesmerized. Paralyzed really. And of course, frightened and sad. I think a part of it is the feeling of helplessness in the face of extreme danger. And I also feel incredible compassion for both the Israelis and the two million Gazans who are truly in a hellish existence.
A few days ago the Olympia police reached out to me to see what our temple might need. I felt a certain thankful calmness around the ability to just act in some fashion. They contacted me because I both chair the Olympia Downtown Alliance’s committee that deals with safety and serve on the executive committee of our synagogue. Bottom line, we at the temple are taking some precautions and keeping our communication lines open with the police.
There were important life experiences that Jean and I had during the remainder of our recent trip, and I intend to share those with blog readers. But I just couldn’t do that until weighing in on what is foremost on my mind and the minds of all caring people. Let us all pray for peace.
It’s 5:19am. I’ve been up for 2 hours, sitting outside our Radisson Hotel room in Marrakech’s Ville Nouveau. Sound sleep will prove to be an issue throughout this trip for me. But the quietude also has had its reflective beauties.
The porch overlooks an ultra-modern riad-like central courtyard which includes a pool. The cell phone’s mobile connection works just fine. Astonishingly, cell reception has been quite good throughout our Moroccan visit. Cities, small towns and even in the deep mountains, we’ve had reception. Add to that speedy Wi-Fi in hotels and we are world-connected. In many ways.
But as I said, it’s 5:19 and I put down my phone, listening to the day’s first call to prayer. It lasts more than 10 minutes. Najib, our guide to Marrakech’s medina for the day, later tells us that the actual prayer portion in a call to prayer is really not very long. Perhaps a minute or two. But the muezzins like to sing.
Marrakech. The name itself feels exotic. Eastern. Aromatic. It is the pink city (clay from the area is required to be the facing of all structures in older parts of the city.) It’s Morocco City – the name it had for hundreds of years. And all of us of a certain age, immediately think of the Crosby, Stills and Nash song, “Marrakesh Express.”
Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind Had to get away to see what we could find Hope the days that lie ahead Bring us back to where they’ve led Listen not to what’s been said to you.
Wouldn’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express Wouldn’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express They’re taking me to Marrakesh All aboard the train, all aboard the train.
((Quick aside on transliteration. Why is Marrakech’s ending sometimes spelled with an ech and sometimes with an ash. A meaningless call for standardization! But I’ll use the ech here for that’s what “most” of the road signs say.))
The Marrakech medina is huge. The term medina refers to the old part of a city. (https://www.marrakechsunset.com/blog/what-is-a-medina/41/) In Morocco, its larger cities medinas are usually surrounded by fortress walls. In the case of Marrakech, its original city boundaries were constructed more than a thousand years ago.
Come with us to the Kasbah?
Crossing into its medina from Ville Nouveau is a profound and immediate transportation to not only a different historic era, but a different currently operating economy and society. 200,000 people live in Marrakech’s medina. That’s about a fifth of the city’s entire population. My presumption is that for many, they never or hardly ever leave this warren of narrow streets and whirling and weaving humanity.
Our guide, Najib, has been in the tourist-serving business for more than 20 years. He owns his own tour operation, but Covid threw that business for a loop, so he has had to scamper to find work where he can. In our case he had agreed to serve directly as a guide to us, Brahim’s clients.
Najib comes across as both knowledgeable about the medina’s history, and intimate with many of its inhabitants. Our tour is not infrequently stopped by Najib’s greetings with medina residents and businesspeople. Lots of hugging going on.
Only about 100 km from the wealth of the Atlantic.
As we started merging into the heart of the medina, Najib, a practicing Muslim, nevertheless earnestly explained his concern about “fanaticism” and the influence of the Shia portion of Islam in Sunni-dominated Morocco. He said even young girls are now wearing the hijab in Morocco.
Marrakech’s medina is an extraordinarily complex maze of passages. It would be no trouble at all to be in deep trouble and lost. Jean was amazed at Najib’s ability to negotiate his way through.
Najib and Jean searching for kaftans.
The medina is really a densely packed residential district intersected by a series of plazas, mosques, and souks upon souks. Najib explained that historically, it was a sort of agglomeration economics ideal. Each souk (let’s call it a business district), was a specialized area for commerce. One street contained rug dealers. Another glassware. Two warrens to the right are ceramics. Then one can walk to artisanal metallurgy. It’s been mixed up a bit lately, but those concentrations still exist.
Metal artisans at work. One had been at it for 50 years. The other a brand new apprentice.
However, there are threats to the health and stability of the medina. Foreigners – mostly French apparently – have been buying up apartments. Housing prices have skyrocketed, pricing out locals. Prices for the tiny stalls used by the medina’s artisans have escalated too. In response, the Moroccan government has been purchasing some of the stalls and renting them out at reduced rates to artisans to maintain the integrity of the medina.
I asked about the economics of artisans and retailers in the warrens. How could so many (literally 1000s of sellers) make a living with so many selling precisely the same things? Najib said, “Yes, that’s the question. I have no idea.”
We visited the artisans’ workshop areas that were subsidized by the government. Welding light arches; sanding; puncturing metal. We purchased a gorgeous metallic plate individually made by an artisan and his helper.
Dear readers, you may be wondering about the earthquake damage in the medina. There were many pictures and videos worldwide about the impacts on Marrakech. Najib did show us areas of the most prominent damage. But they were clearly isolated areas, already well roped off and contained from the continued functional areas. The medina was busy, vibrant, and for the most part, appeared unaffected by the earthquake.
Some evidence of clean up from the earthquake.
Coincidentally, our one full day in Marrakesh was also Rosh Hashanah. I had known this when we had to reschedule our trip, and also had researched that there was one active synagogue in the medina. I asked Najib if he could take us there and he did.
In all of Morocco’s larger cities, and many of its smaller ones, there are Jewish Quarters in their medinas. These quarters are named Mellah, which is Arabic for salt. Why salt? In the Middle Ages, salt was a means of commercial exchange, more common than precious metals. Jews, the inveterate traders, where perceived by Muslims and Christians, as occupiers of that commercial and social space.
This role in society would of course prove to me a mixed blessing. Deprived of the right to own land by some Christian and Muslim rulers, and not subject to the restrictive usury laws of the other two faiths, Jewish merchants and financiers made the best of the constraints of their eras. We all know how that played out over time to the motivational inspiration of the anti-Jewish majorities. At times, Jews became the confidants and advisors of Sultans and Kings. Other times, they were blamed for all evils of the world: restricted, banished and/or killed.
What’s behind door #1? In the Muslim areas of the city one never knows. The Hand of Fatima hides all.
In the Mellah, the Stars of David and open windows are evidence of a lively historic Jewish presense.
In 2023, there aren’t many Jews left in Morocco. But Jewish presence and influence in the region goes way back and has been substantial. The evidence is a bit sketchy, but we were told frequently that Jewish settlement in the Atlas Mountains and the Moroccan plain predated the Roman conquests in the area. The Berbers were said to be of multiple faiths, including pre-rabbinic Judaism. The single star in the Moroccan flag was the Star of David prior to 1912 and the era of the French Protectorate.
Upon the founding of the modern Zionist program to create a new nation Israel, Moroccan Jews started emigrating in mass to pre-1948 Palestine and then Israel after its founding. The emigration rates went up and down based on the push and pull of pogroms in Morocco, legal and social constraints on Jewish life in Morocco, and limits on emigration. According to the Wikipedia article on Moroccan Jewish emigration, about 275,000 Jews left Morocco for Israel after its founding and about half that prior to 1948.
As an example of the level of detail we have gotten from our guides, we were told Jewish Moroccan emigration numbers that ranged up to 2 million people. But in any event, Moroccan Jewish influence on Israeli society is enormous.
For the few Jews who have remained in Morocco, there are, at the moment, pretty positive signs. Morocco recognized Israel as part of 2020’s Abraham Accords. Jews in Morocco are permitted to worship freely and openly.
Najib brought us to Marrakech’s Mellah. He explained that one could quickly grasp the identity of the place in that the houses in the Jewish quarter have windows and balconies that face outside. For Jews, it was important to express themselves to the world – for example lighting the menorah in the front window during Chanukah. For Muslims, we were told that it would be immodest to distinguish the wealth of a family from public spaces. It isn’t until one opens the door and is invited inside that the economic class of the family is apparent.
As we walked in the Mellah, we saw the outside of a synagogue. Turning the corner, we found that in fact, it was in use for Rosh Hashanah. There were two military police present at the entrance. Najib asked them If I could enter and they checked inside, smiled at me and gestured for me to come on in.
Najib said that he and Jean would be fine and would wait for me when I was done with the morning services – scheduled to be over in about 20 minutes. I put on my kippah that I had brought for such an occasion and walked into the synagogue’s courtyard.
I was greeted there – or perhaps more accurately ignored – by about 10 women and children. I proceeded to enter the sanctuary, where 15 men were engaged in the services. I requested a tallit – in Hebrew and French – and was given one that was in a plastic bag. Donning it, I joined the services, but did not ask for a siddur (prayer book) and no one offered one to me.
It appeared to be purely an orthodox service. Only men. Only Hebrew. But surprisingly, I felt comfortable. I recognized some of the prayers and even more surprising, I recognized many of the tunes. When they finished the service with Adon Olam, I was able to join right in. Upon departure, I shook hands with a few men and we exchanged wishes for a sweet new year – Shana Tovah Umetuka.
How did it feel to be praying with Jews in Marrakech? In part I sensed an unexpected normalcy by the men in the room. This is what Jews do and we are Jews. But also, I became overwhelmed by the magnitude of the Jewish experience in Morocco and the world. Why was it important for this small remnant of Jews to fulfill their religious duties in this distant land? Why was it so easy for me to join in with them and somehow know that I am legitimate in their eyes and my own? How did I feel? At home.
As I emerged from the synagogue and back into the medina street, I soon saw Najib coming toward me. He had coordinated with the police who called him after services were over.
Najib showed us a beautiful madrassa, historical museum and a few other examples of ancient Moroccan cultural relics. With that, after a long 4-plus hours of walking and shopping and praying, we met Walid once again, said our thanks and goodbyes to Najib, and returned to our hotel in Ville Nouveau.
Inside a former Medina madrassa, now a museum.
Ok.. all is not back to unblemished normal. The earthquake had its way with a museum exhibit. No permanent damage noted.
What should top off our one full day in Marrakech? Why a nice Italian dinner of pizza and pasta and wine, of course.
Najib, Walid, and every other guide the rest of the trip emphasized Moroccan acceptance of differences. Tolerance as a key virtue.
It wasn’t always so. And in all likelihood, won’t always be true in the future. But for now, Moroccans have managed to put forth an increasingly competent technological society with one that also honors its past. And tourists like us are part of the dynamic which both provide glue to that mixture of goals and challenges to its stability.
After a huge breakfast, we hopped into the van with once again Walid in the drivers seat, and crossed over the dammed-up lake of Ben Al Ouidane, weaving for 150 plus kilometers along an increasingly narrow road through the Middle Atlas Mountains. At times, the hillsides held hard-wood forests. Lower down they harbored habitat for savanna-like vegetation. Small trees, bushes, bare rocks. For a while, the mountains seemed to retreat, leaving long stretches of arid plains, occasionally interrupted by tiny villages or less formal settlements.
The road gets narrower and rougher.
We are headed south and west. Moving closer to the earthquake’s supposed area of impact yet skirting its epicenter. I am focused on finding evidence of cracks in the road or the occasional adjacent rock wall. No such evidence presents itself, yet.
Our first stop of the day is Dar Ouzoud – an oasis of waterfalls at the base of the Middle Atlas.
Ouzoud is a year-round tourist mecca… my sense is for Moroccan urbanites as much as foreigners. It consists of a series of waterfalls powered by springs, little affected by seasonal precipitation. Around the waterfalls is a medium-sized village of local farmers (Olives, salad greens, squash, oranges mostly) raising subsistence crops, and providing tourist services.
Walid drives to a dusty parking spot where we meet Abdullah, who will be our guide to the Ouzoud waterfalls. Abdullah has lived his entire life in Ouzoud. He told us about his family. The tourist guiding work has been his life for 20-plus years. He speaks, at least at an adequate level, a half dozen languages. He’s pretty good at English.
Jean said that a big change in the last few years is the ubiquity of English. “No one spoke English when I was here before.”
We go on a winding trek down to the water’s edge and again down to the base of the falls. Venders selling everything imaginable line the path. We stop to see a demonstration of the grinding of argan seeds to make oil. Argan doesn’t actually grow in this area, but apparently the hand grinding of the seeds is a local tradition. Jean ends up buying some of the oil.
Abdullah leading Jean through the local subsistence olive groves. Bark of olive trees were colored to delineate which families owned each tree.
Abdullah and Jean above the falls.
The falls looking down.
Ouzoud Falls: The tourism sector grows around and within the village.
Is this the first evidence of earthquake damage? Abdullah claims this is a recent crack.
Water is diverted for local uses. Women were washing clothes just outside the view of this photo, by filling containers with water and clothes, stomping on the containers and wringing out the clothes by hand.
Hand grinding the argan seeds.
At the base of the falls, are restaurants; places to relax, and even a chance to hop in a boat and be rowed to the base of the falls to get wet.
We watch boys jumping from the cliffs into the water. Abdullah said some have died.
We get in a boat with a group of Spanish women. It is fun – and a bit of a relief – to be able to speak Spanish. It is also fun to be with a group of happy, screaming people.
With our guide, Abdullah, at Ouzoud Falls.
Climbing up the other side had more formal path structure and many more restaurants and shops.
Some bottled water and a shakshuka-like Berber omelet hit the spot.
Jean feeding peanuts to a monkey.
On the two-plus hour drive away from Ouzoud Falls to Marrakech, my eyes are peeled for signs of earthquake damage. A crack here and there along roadside walls, but really, I see nothing.
We are headed to our standard issue 4-star hotel in Marrakech’s Ville Nouveau. These VNs are in every major – and most medium-sized – Moroccan city. During the French Protectorate period, starting in 1912, the French pretty much left alone the ancient medinas and historic centers of the cities and built these “new towns.” To me, the VNs are replicas of European urban development. Heck, replicas of French new towns is more precise.
As we approach Marrakech’s center, we can see on our right, the walls and edges of the medina. My eyes are still peeled for earthquake damage… nothing to be seen yet.
A beautiful minaret on the drive into Ville Nouveau Marrakech.
We arrive at our hotel. Walid departs to go home – he lives in Marrakesh – and we decide to go out for dinner right away. We ask for a nearby, traditional Moroccan style restaurant, and are richly rewarded with a delicious first night meal in Marrakech.
The next morning starts with yet another gourmand paradise of hotel buffet eating. Which is where we finally see signs of the earthquake. No, not in the rubble of hotel physical damage. But in the language and manners of our fellow hotel guests. For we are surrounded by relief workers taking a well-deserved break from the front.
World Central Kitchen volunteers have sprinted to Morocco to feed the hungry in the High Atlas. The latest figures are close to 3000 deaths, almost exclusively in the small mountain villages southeast of Marrakech. Deaths due to falling stones, falling walls. Adobe-like clay-built homes simply disintegrated during the earthquake’s shaking.
There was lots of press about what relief help Moroccan authorities allowed in. But in talking with the relief workers around us, there are international institutions which simply respond to crises because that’s what they do. One lady was with Doctors Without Borders. A gentleman I rode up with on the elevator had 20 years of experience with another aid organization (I forgot its name), which sends its folks to sites of catastrophes, and they know how to organize relief. That’s all they do.
“Did you need approval from the Moroccan government to come?” I asked.
“Of course,” was his response. But his organization has contacts in place throughout the world who can be activated at a moment’s notice. This relief work was his entire life and he was good at it.
How bad is Marrakech’s medina, our site for the next day’s tour, I asked my relief worker elevator mate.
“Oh… it’s not too bad at all,” was his response. “Go on forward tomorrow. They need the tourists to keep coming.”
So… that’s what we would do (to be read about in the next blog installment.).
Jean’s three years in Morocco with the Peace Corps ended in 1983, almost exactly 40 years before she touched down again on its soil; this time bringing along a husband – that’s me – who’s Moroccan trip would be his first.
Our priorities were clear. Visit Khouribga, the dusty small phosphate mining town where Jean spent her first year teaching English at the local secondary school. Later, visit Rabat where she spent her remaining two years in the country. Visits to other Moroccan cities and sites were based on their specialness generally and the recommendations of our tour operator.
In Jean’s final year, she worked out of the Peace Corps country headquarters in Rabat, where she, among other things, helped put together training and educational manuals. In her second year, she was a program lead, given a car, and assigned the job of evaluating Corps volunteers throughout the country. Forty years later, we would be chauffeured around the country by Walid Naji, who performed that service as part of our guided tour organized by GATEWAY2MOROCCO. For the first time in each of our lives, we would have our own personal driver, personal guides at each of our major stops, and 4- or 5-star hotels throughout. We accepted – with greater ease I must say than I expected, or, frankly, am proud of – this level of luxury. Blog posts for the rest of the trip reflect this touring paradigm.
Leaving Casablanca, our first full day in Morocco included a lot of driving. First heading – southeast to Khouribga. Both Jean and I were excited to see what, if anything, remained of the school and residence that occupied such an important period of her life.
Leaving, Casablanca for Khouribga, the road quickly changes from urban to dry, flat plains. Occasional views of sheep and goats nibbling at the dusty, late summer’s earth.
We arrived in town and instantly it became clear – Jean recognized none of it. Khouribga had grown. Enormously. Single-story residences gave way to three- and five-story apartments. We stopped and got out of the car. Walid asked a man where the high school is located. Turns out that there were now more than one, but the man gave him directions to the nearest school – he said it had been around for a while.
Jean and Walid look around Khouribga, trying to get their bearings.
The town may have grown, but it is still important to stop for passing horse-powered loads.
We drove to the high school, and got out of the car. Jean looked closely at the school. There was a vague feeling of recognition. The color scheme looked about right. But something didn’t quite click.
The first high school we come to in Khouribga.
Walid saw a man walking by and asked him if there is another high school in town, 40 years old or older. The man said there was and gave Walid directions.
When we arrived at the new school, Jean looked out and said, “This is it!” She didn’t use the famous “Eureka, I’ve found it” line, but the situation was the same as was her enthusiasm.
The entrance to Jean’s high school.
A teacher returns to her school 42 years after she left.
It was a deeply emotional experience for Jean. Her eyes welled up, and the enormousness of the importance of this place came to the fore. It was here that she first taught English as a Foreign Language. It was here that she really perfected her French and got the basics of Moroccan Arabic. It was here that the direction of her professional life, and her world view, would be profoundly affected.
We were now hungry and thirsty and stopped for lunch in town. I went to the bank to get some dirhams (local currency) for the first time, and we found a simple place to eat. Some Coca Colas – refreshing! – a couple of sandwiches, a simple tagine (not particularly grand but tasty nonetheless) and we are ready to leave town. The neighborhood Jean lived in had been completely razed and redeveloped. With no more of the physicality of her stay remaining to be found, it was time to move on.
The rest of the day’s road trip took us past the large foothills’ city of Beni-Mellal, and then into the Middle Atlas Mountains. We ended the day, still in the mountains, luxuriating in the Widiane Suite and Spa.
Below are some images to give you a sense of our experiences.
Off from Khouribga, and driving past the large, foothill city of Beni-Mellal, recently renovated portions of Morocco’s highway system are simply gorgeous. Great pavement, bright dividers, beautiful lighting structures.
Heading into the mountains, the pavement narrows, and then narrows again.
As the elevation rises, so does the vegetation.
The roadway pavement narrows to about 1.5 lanes… and the grade steepens. Thank goodness we were not in the earthquake zone.
Arriving at the posh Widiane Suite and Spa, there is an other-worldly sense that we are somehow in a very First World European-style luxury hotel. This ain’t Khouribga anymore!
The hotel and spa we stayed at was completed in January 2020. It was huge. Multiple buildings stretching up a steep incline, affording panoramic views, and cascading down to an artificial (dam-created) lake where water recreation was available in season). But of course, two months after it was opened, it was shuttered tight due to Covid. It has only in the last year begun to recover. So, we found ourselves, surrounded by opulence, much staff, and few visitors.
Our room.
With this view.
And this.
There’s even a view when you want to work out.
Or eat out. Here is the view from the hotel’s restaurant.
Where, of course, they offer to take our picture.
Our friends have asked us to show pictures of food. Here’s one of several to come. Jean loved this steak!
And here’s mine. Some kind of crispy thing above lamb and a carrot and some kinds of slurpy and creamy things. Delicious! Not shown – I ordered a mojito. Yup… with alcohol in a Muslim country. I’ve never had a mojito in my life, but the scene of decadence somehow called for it.
Breakfasts throughout the trip have included buffet-style gourmand fests. Here’s part of the view from Ben El Ouidane’s.
Jean’s favorite movie, “When Harry Met Sally,” contains several references to the movie “Casablanca.” Oddly enough, only days before we were set to take off by plane to that destination, we had never seen the movie. That lapse in pop culture was rectified before our scheduled departure.
We both loved the flick, but when it was done, Jean said, “look at the text from Laurie.”
My sister Laurie’s cryptic message read, “did you hear the news about Morocco?” As it turned out, we were watching “Casablanca” when the real place was shaking from the earthquake.
You already have read about our decision to move forward with the trip, and our first stop after sleeping at the airport hotel was in fact, Casablanca. The reality of the town was nothing like the movie’s foggy, small city vibe. Casablanca – the real place – is gigantic, a bit grimy and intense. It is Morocco’s biggest city, with over 3 million souls calling it home.
When one travels, there are two very different ways to explore the newness of a place. One is to reach for its superlatives. The biggest of this. The tallest of that. The oldest, the smallest, the “estiness.” Other traveling insights can come from understanding what is normal and common in a foreign land. How do, for this tour’s example, the lives of many Moroccans differ from our own and the lives of many Americans?
Both the superlatives and commonalities can provide insights. Each has its potential for awe. In Casa (locals drop the “blanca” ending), our prime destination was very much in the superlative category. For our first stop in Morocco, Walid drove us directly through the crowded, whirling street scenes to the Hassan II Mosque – the largest mosque in the nation and one of the few that allows non-Moslems entrance.
The royal Alawi dynasty has led Morocco for almost 400 years. They ruled principally under the title Sultan with claimed biological ties to the Prophet Mohammed. But since independence in 1956, three have ruled as kings, not sultans. Mohammed V, Hassan II, and the current ruler, Mohammed VI. All three, each in their own ways, have functioned as modernizers. They have also ruled with almost unlimited authority, complex “non-aligned” relations with other countries, plenty of repression and human rights violations, major investments in infrastructure and openness to foreign capital, sophisticated awareness and accommodation to ethnic differences, modicums of parliamentary independence, expanded rights for women, and many other complimentary and contradictory directions. Since independence, it appears that the overall direction is one of increasing stability and economic growth and development. Like many places in the world now, the trend toward economic inequality too is a disturbing reality. Finally… direct criticism of the monarchy is not permitted in the country.
There is much more to say about the monarchy, but we’ll just focus here a bit on the middle king, Hassan II, and his decision to erect a “superlative” in Casablanca. He ruled from 1961 to his death in 1999. In 1980, he declared:
I wish Casablanca to be endowed with a large, fine building of which it can be proud until the end of time … I want to build this mosque on the water, because God’s throne is on the water. Therefore, the faithful who go there to pray, to praise the creator on firm soil, can contemplate God’s sky and ocean.
What would eventually be called the Hassan II Mosque would take 7 years to build. Upwards of 14,000 workers would be employed at any one time in round-the-clock construction. It would become the largest mosque in Africa. It’s minaret, the second tallest in the world. Completed in 1993, during Hassan II’s reign, it could accommodate 25,000 worshipers inside its walls, and another 80,000 outside in its plazas. Its roof retracts to allow its worshipers to view the stars when the sky permits. Its walls and floors are adorned with intricate artisan flare.
Now THAT’s a minaret! The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca.
As Jean and I went through the guided tour of the mosque, led by a “no nonsense” woman who had clearly been giving the same tour a few too many times to allow for gracious spontaneity, I wondered about its location.
“Why Casablanca,” I asked the guide. “It is not either a religious or governmental center of the country. Why would Hassan II want it here?”
I loved her answer. “Hassan was a practical man. He believed that the country’s largest city was perhaps a bit boring. It didn’t have any significant tourist attractions. If you built this here, people would come.”
After the tour of the mosque, it was time to head to our next destination, Khouribga. “Is there anything else to see in Casablanca,” I asked Walid.
“Well, are you interested in seeing Rick’s Café? They play “As Time Goes By” every evening.”
“Perhaps, we can just drive by it on the way out of town and I’ll take a picture,” was my reply.
And that’s just what we did.
Of all the gin joints, there’s Rick’s Cafe!
It would be a three-hour drive to Khouribga; a Moroccan center for phosphate mining and Jean’s residence for the first year of her three-year Peace Corps tour. “It’s known as an ugly city,” Jean told me, “but it was my home.”
As we drove away from Casablanca, I couldn’t help saying to my wife, “Well, here’s looking at you, kid. This has been the beginning of a beautiful visit.”
A last bite in France. It was appropriate to view it as an eager transition to Morocco. For Pret a Manger means “Ready to Eat.”
The plane was late to take off from de Gaulle to Casablanca’s Mohammed V International Airport. The stated cause was bad weather over Spain.
As the boarding line began to move, a 30’ish Moroccan woman behind us, gently interrupted our conversation: “Excuse me, are you tourists going to Morocco?”
“Yes, we are,” was my reply. I felt a bit concerned. Who likes being called out as a tourist?
She hesitated briefly before beginning to speak. Her voice, now clearly emotional and her eyes increasingly watering. “Thank you so much for coming to our country right now. Bless you. We need courageous support from people like you.”
The international news about the 6.8 scale earthquake was dramatic and frightening. Thousands were dead and reports out of Marrakech were of massive damage to the old Medina. While our tour operator assured us that the reports were inaccurate – at least for Marrakech and all the places we had planned to go – we nevertheless had some worries. Obviously, the tour operator had a business interest in downplaying problems.
But the weight of evidence as we boarded our plane to Casablanca was on the side of full speed ahead, and that’s what we did.
We arrived late and tired at Mohammed V Airport, but fortunately caught a shuttle to our hotel quickly. Unfortunately, there was long wait at the hotel reception desk (one guy handling slowly 10 customers) before we could made it to our modest room and hit the sack.
The next morning, we encountered the first of what has turned out to be a fantastic Moroccan standard hotel breakfast. Amazing variety of dishes… all one could eat and drink, and uniformed staff moving in and out for your comfort.
At 9:30 am we met our driver, Walid, who would chauffeur us around the country for the next 9 days. He has been gracious, accommodating, and very helpful. And even able to negotiate Moroccan traffic without anyone dying (so far!). More on Moroccan transportation later.
What we worked up with our new tour operator, Brahim, owner of Gateway2Morocco, was a plan of attack that contained three objectives. First and foremost, we wanted to visit the places where Jean had lived for three years in Morocco. That included her first year in the phosphate mining town of Khouribga, and the latter two years in the capital city of Rabat.
Our second objective was to go to some classic internationally renowned sites. While Jean had visited these places frequently during her stay, she nonetheless wanted to return. This included the cities of Marrakech and Fes.
Finally, there were places that we were recommended (well, Cousin Shirley kind of makes her demands) to go, including the “Blue City” of Chefchaouen and the take-off-to-Spain city of Tanger (Tangiers).
The tour we arranged represented the most luxurious trip of our lives. Four- and five-star hotels, tour guides along the way just for us. And the aforementioned personal driver. But – assuming we get our insurance to cover the Road Scholar Moroccan leg – the cost of our 9 days will be less than RS’s 19 days. So, we are simply going to accept this level of luxury and appreciate its pleasures.
The legs of our trip will serve as an organizing structure for succeeding blog entries. Though, dear reader, assume diversions. There are always diversions.
Even the cats get tired when waiting for connections at Paris’s de Gaulle Airport
This is the 21st Century, a time when the world’s nations are being put through a whirling ethnic blender. Borders are pierced, and then pounded. Historic national identities are a seeming anachronism. We all work hard at cultural literacy and compassion. And yet… and yet, it’s still fun to make fun of the French!
Berate them at will. There’s seemingly no downside.
This is especially true, I think, in Morocco. From 1912 to 1956, most of it was under the euphemistic name of the French “Protectorate.” Who wants such protection from an outside militarily more powerful country?
Yet, the French influence on modern Morocco is dominant, irrefutable and by no means all negative. The French stood up a universal public education system – a system that was taught in French, not the native Arabic and Berber tongues. The Protectorate built roads and bridges and water systems and other modern civil infrastructure. And through the French language and culture, opened the Moroccan people to the world and vice versa.
That all said and true, it’s not only easy for the Moroccans and others to mock and “hate” France and the French people, but also for them to say it out loud. “I hate the French,” said Walid, our Moroccan driver for our 9 days in his country. He laughed when he said it. We laughed when he said it. Najib, our guide to the Marrakech medina, said the same thing.
Our own personal French troubles started, where else, at de Gaulle Airport. What a confusing, dysfunctional place! Upon departing the airplane – onto the tarmac mind you, because after a 30-minute wait, they couldn’t get another plane out of the gate that we were supposed to use – the signs leading to our next gate were incomprehensible. But it got worse. When we finally saw a sign that had our flight’s upcoming gate, the gate was wrongly listed.
It kept getting worse. Even though Jean was speaking with the airport security staff in perfect French, they kept giving us incorrect directions. We took a shuttle train back and forth a couple of times and we were finally told to go through security… removal of shoes, metal objects, computers, the whole nine yards. The “coup de gras” was insistence by a security officer that we gulp down all the water in our water bottles (there being no place to just empty the water into a sink), and then seeing drinking and water filling stations 100 meters away where we could fill the water back up. Incredible! And this is WITHIN the airport security area. We were just going from plane to plane. There is a reason that bureaucracy is a French-based word!
One more French airport thing. The toilet paper still sucks. Better than the wax-based stuff of my first 1960’s experience with French hygiene. But not much.
In preparation for this trip, I took on French language learning in two ways. First, I started on Duolingo. I’m up to 43 straight days of it. Second, I took Jean’s Olympia Recreation Department’s French class. The results? Je ne sais pas Français! I don’t know nothing! And can pronounce less than half of it. The darn language requires 7 letters for every sound. Impossible!
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, France’s President Macron, offered to help Morocco in any way needed. But he did it in such a patronizing fashion, that his offer was completely rejected. Morocco would accept help from Spain and England, and from some Arab lands. But France… no way. Several of our Moroccan guides denounced Macron in no uncertain terms.
Ok. Ok. Here’s one positive interaction with French. Moribund for several years, Jean’s three years of daily use in French-speaking Morocco is roaring back with unconcealed joy. She is speaking French all day every day. We have not met a Moroccan, young or older, who speaks any English who doesn’t speak French better. And we have met many who don’t speak English at all. Virtually everyone here speaks French. And, according to Jean, does so in a lovely accent and not overly fast (it is, after all, their second language for the most part).
Jean can tell people in French that she lived here for three years, 40 years ago. Everyone is instantly captivated by her and this experience we are on.
So, while we must not say “Vive la France!” around these parts, we certainly can still say about the language: “Vive la Français!”
As a college student, my wife Jean decided to do a year abroad in Paris. She studied French at the Sorbonne, was an au pair for a two-year-old next to the Jardin de Luxembourg and was left with fond memories of wicked French men trying to pick her up. That year in Paris transformed her life.
A few years later, living a cautious life in Chicago as a publishing editor, she sought adventure again. This time in the Peace Corps. Using her strong French background, she asked to be located in a French-speaking country. And 43 years ago, she got her wish.
At the time, Jean was admonished for considering the adventure by her aunt. “Why would you do something so crazy?”
Yet, Jean plowed on, spending three years in Morocco, finishing in a flourish with a year as the coordinator of an English scholastic program, traveling the country in a Peace Corps-supplied car. Again, the experience transformed her life. She ended up speaking fluent French, some Moroccan Arabic, and developed a love for and strong background in teaching. A profession – teaching – she would go on to master for the remainder of her professional life, including to this very day in the city of Olympia’s adult recreation program.
But she never made it back to Morocco. Until now. 40 years later. When she easily convinced her enthusiastic husband that a return to the extraordinarily diverse and important North African Country was the next marital adventure they had in store.
As I sit here at SeaTac airport, dashing off a quick blog entry before we board the plane that will take us to Paris and another plane to Casablanca, I will admit to some trepidation. My Jewish identity comes with some wariness of visiting a predominantly Arab country. Because of that, we had agreed to do a rigorously organized Road Scholar program. But problems arose.
First, we both contracted COVID three and five days before we were scheduled to depart. We had to cancel the entire program – thank goodness we bought travel insurance, for it was too late to get our money back from RS.
We quickly realized we could salvage at least some of the trip with a quick Covid recovery by booking a private tour of Morocco that would be 9 days, not 19. That would still allow us to complete our planned trip with a RS tour of southern Spain.
My incrementally elevated concerns about the less established tour quickly exploded in worry and risk a day after we finished the new booking. Morocco experienced a devasting earthquake. As the death toll mounted, we attempted to contact our tour operator. He wrote back that he was “sleeping in my car” in his hometown of Marrakech. But within a couple of days, he got me on the phone to assure me that the tour could go on, that we would be safe, and frankly, the best thing for the country is to keep the tourists coming.
Risks and adventures. They sometimes go together. They usually go together.
I am sitting across from Jean at the airport. She is thrilled to be going on this adventure. Thrilled to see what has changed and what has not from her youth in a place of exquisite meaning.
Soon, we will be immersed in a different world. And whatever concerns and even fears I have about these next two plus weeks are not its side story. They are the very point of this trip. I’m gulping it all down, and ready to plunge.
One of the obvious downsides of the aging process is the piling up of losses. Loss of friends and family. Loss of sense acuity and fitness. Loss of innocence.
There is also a condensing of experiences. Events and tasks and insights just seem to tumble more rapidly into – and onto – themselves. One consequential, emotion-provoking “thing” after another.
Including the good stuff. The fine stuff. The happy stuff.
The last couple of weeks… so much to take in.
For this blog entry, I think I’ll let readers experience in outline form, much of what has been hitting my mind lately. Does life come at you, dear reader, in the same scattershot, overwhelming manner?
Within one week, I saw four women who knew me when I was a boy or young man.
My best friend from high school, Alice, came to visit Jean and me overnight. She lost her beloved husband, Bob, two plus years ago, is about to retire, and she had never stayed overnight at our house before. What a joy to be with her!
My college girlfriend Kathy, who, along with her husband Mark, are current friends of Jean and mine, came by the house when Alice was there. But also, a couple of days earlier, shared a long walk with me. What a joy to be with her!
My mother met a troubled young woman in a London laundromat named Debbie in 1972 while we were as a family living there during Dad’s sabbatical. Mom and Dad, and later Grandpa Charles, took her under their wings. Debbie contacted me recently – we hadn’t seen each other for 10 years or so – and we had a Mexican meal last week in Castle Rock. She described Mom as saving her life. What a joy to be with her!
My father’s best friend at work, Hy, had three children. His youngest, Jennifer, attended a workshop in Olympia connected to her employment and stayed overnight at our home. She had never done that before. What a joy to be with her!
Oh yeah, I started the blog talking about losses. One by one, folks who knew me the most have been dying.
Last week, my dear first cousin, Jess, died after a long battle with cancer and lung disease. Zac described her as “a very sharp light — humane, funny, sweet and thoughtful.” He was so right.
Last week I got a letter from my Uncle Ted’s grandson. Ted’s cemetery stone unveiling is coming up and I’m invited. I miss him terribly. We had long, insightful, humorous talks over the phone, bridging our 3000-mile separation.
My blessed cousin Sybil died last month. I had just spent a week with her in South Africa in March. She too was someone with whom long, deep, conversations were regular enhancements to my life. Do you know when you feel like someone knows you, really knows you, and cares about you? Loves you? That was Sybil, and it wasn’t just for me, but it seems like she was that way with many.
And then, there are the regular, daily and weekly events and persons and debates and questions that consume my brain-time.
What is the city of Olympia doing about downtown homelessness, drug addiction, and street deaths? As chair of the Olympia Downtown Alliance’s Vibrancy Committee, I was working on our agenda with the Executive Director to bring in the city staff to provide a comprehensive summary of city efforts.
Today, as I drove back from a medical appointment, I saw, lying down on the ground, face away from the street, a man not moving. Garbage was strewn around him. This scene was at a bus stop in front of the St. Peter’s Hospital emergency center. What should I do? What would you do? I decided to call 911 and report it. The operator asked the usual questions. “Where is the man located? Did I intervene in some way? What is my name and phone number?” The call ended with the dispatcher saying dispassionately “I’ll report this to the police.” And I drive on home. Coping with the daily reality of a society in seeming free fall.
As secretary of the Board of Temple Beth Hatfiloh, I’m putting agenda packets together, worrying about the upcoming negotiations with the Rabbi, the completion of our courtyard and parking lot expansion construction project, and my plan to comprehensively review all previous Board actions to assure we are up to speed on basic governance functions. I’m also shepherding an Artworks Policy for Board consideration tonight.
Jean and I just put a new will together, and we’re communicating details to our kids and personal representative.
Jean and I are getting ready to spend over a month in Morocco and Spain, leaving in two weeks. We haven’t got all accommodations and transportation arranged yet. I’m spending a bunch of time working on that.
I promised the Crisis Clinic that I would make another effort to dive into the legislative challenge of linking the new 988 crisis line with the local crisis response networks, such as our local 50-year-old non-profit. I used to volunteer there and have gone on hiatus for awhile due to all this traveling and my own energy levels. But I told them I’d work on this legislative dilemma and… haven’t yet.
Weighing on my mind are yet more unfinished writing projects. A story of my dad’s life, as a companion to the piece I wrote on my mom. A re-write of a piece that I had drafted about the FOIA request on my parents which had much to reveal, and still more to contextualize. A book-length analysis of how state parks get created and built, using my professional experiences to build case studies.
Old friends are coming to stay next week for 4 days. My writing group is holding a reunion next week.
The week after, Jean and I are taking the RPod for a penultimate trip with the trailer to SW Washington. We’ll go again in October and after that, halt our arrangement with friends for joint use of the Highlander and trailer.
Do we need vaccinations for our trip? Kaiser told me that it is too late for me now to get an appointment with a travel nurse. They suggested contacting a pharmacist.
As a committee member, I have to prepare for the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting tomorrow. We will be reviewing the city’s capital improvement program.
And then there is the exercise that I am supposed to be doing? 10,000 steps a day? Uh… sometimes. 5 days a week at the Y? Yeah… well… dismal failure.
I got an idea for a book about “Creative Districts” that I shared with my land use publishing friends Ling-Yen and Jon. They showed it to a writer who may or may not get back to me for more details.
There’s more. Always more.
In an earlier blog post, I talked about the value of slowing down. Appreciating the moments. Not over-committing. There have been some things lately that I have dropped. No longer doing weekly English lessons with my Ethiopian Israeli friend. Stopping my Crisis Clinic shift. Every drop seems kind of like a failure. But then every commitment unfulfilled seems like a different kind of weight.
I’ve got no magic answers here. Like much of Daniel’s Derekh, simply writing it down provides mere documentation of the thinking and feelings of this stage in my life.
We’ll call this entry an exposition of the whirlwind of loss, renewed connections, and daily obligations that constitute a peek into one old man’s mental and emotional fortnight. What drops in the inbox tomorrow?
My Francophone and Francophile wife Jean (Jeanne,en Française!) got to celebrate Bastille Day this year with her best friend, Cathy Anderson, and Cathy’s extended family in the wondrous natural playground that is Glacier National Park. It was an opportunity for the Floridian and Washingtonian to meet at the continental divide (la division continentale).
Ok, the French angle on this trip wasn’t really that important to the experience, but I’m now taking Jean’s “Intro to French” class at the Olympia Center and had to get a word or two of French into this blog post.
Best friends, living a nation apart, meet at the continental divide.
Let’s begin again with the basics.
Cathy Anderson is a terrific organizer. She got the idea to meet Jean and me for a family gathering with her husband Ron, and two of their children’s families at Glacier National Park. She also arranged housing, activities and transportation, and a great time was had by all.
This was a wonderful and unusual traveling experience for me and Jean because it was filled with the energies and inclinations of young children. With the temptations of differing ages, being what they are, we found ourselves at once exploring rocks and dirt, then on to astrological explanations for personal behavior, followed – or preceded – by varying athletic challenges. Fun stuff.
Dramatis Personae
Three Floridian households, together at Glacier National Park
Cathy – Best friend of Jean, and sister to Jean’s first husband
Ron – Cathy’s second husband
Brad and Valerie – Ron’s son from previous marriage and spouse
Stacey and Carlos – Ron’s daughter from previous marriage and spouse
Maddek -14 yo son of Stacey and Carolos
Savannah – 10 yo sister of Maddek
Jaelyn – 18 yo daughter of Brad from a previous marriage
Bryce – 6 yo son of Brad and Valerie
Izzy – 4 yo brother of Bryce
Jean – 68 yo wife of mine
Me (Daniel) – 68 yo husband of Jean
A National Park in Crisis
Early Summer at Glacier National Park
From a natural system protection viewpoint, Glacier’s in trouble. Big time. If the summer of 2023 feels like the time that the world-wide impact of human-caused climate change presented itself in a leap of fear-inducing obviousness, Glacier National Park has borne witness to decades of profound climate change impacts. Fully 1/3 of all the Park’s glaciers have disappeared completely since the park’s creation in 1910. Park managers are now projecting elimination of ALL the remaining glaciers by 2050. Yikes indeed!
Forest trying for a comeback after massive fire.
Large portions of the park have experienced massive stand-altering forest fires. While fires and succession are natural, the extremes are not. It remains to be seen whether the young growth now coming up will be consistent with what natural succession pre-climate change would have produced.
The top of “Going to the Sun Road” means going to find a place to park.
Then there is the National Parks’ systemwide challenge of accommodating the hordes of visitors wishing to see America’s natural gems. The Covid pandemic brought an explosion of demand for outdoor recreation, and with the easing of pandemic restrictions, a now heightened pent up demand to get out and see the world and connect with people. In our visit to Glacier, very much at peak visitor season, we were active participants in the roamings around overflowing parking lots and the stride-breaking of overcrowded hiking trails.
Yet, one could, by simply getting a bit off the beaten track, pretty quickly experience wilderness, or at least view it. And Glacier still is, during the summer flower bloom, a sub-alpine paradise.
If you look the right direction, there is sublime wilderness.
Activities: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly
Cathy researched and provided options for activities. Jean and I said yes to most of them.
Jean and Cathy went rafting down the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. Meanwhile, Carlos and Maddek in one boat, and Ron and I in another, floated down the very same river engaging in catch-and-release fly fishing.
I had never fly fished before, and this being Montana, it felt like a necessary right of manly passage. Each boat had an oarsman/captain/fisher maven. For us elderly fishermen, the young-buck crewman also tied our flies and advised as to casting technique. He also shared his vision of an outdoor recreation career in Paraguay. To which I say, “sure, why not?”
When they are that small, you really don’t mind throwing them back.
There is something about fly fishing – both on the boat, and watching practitioners cast in their waders from the near shore, that forces one to calm down and enjoy the tranquility of repetitive motion. Wrist flipping for hours. Again, to which I say, “why not?”
On another day, our entire crew – 8 adults and 5 children – boarded a tour boat on MacDonald Lake. The tour guide, who had been doing this for a few years, was friendly, clever and knowledgeable. It was a well-executed park history and ecology tour on a perfectly cool day.
Here’s an activity tip on what to avoid at Glacier. Don’t take the cute red bus tour. It costs an arm and a leg. There are free bus shuttles taking you to exactly the same places. The free shuttles run frequently, so you can hop on and off at different places all day long. No hopping on the red buses. And worst of all, the red bus tour guide we had was a climate-change denying, anti-government, troglodyte who talked a lot about her personal life story, and riders were stuck with that for over an hour. When I got off the red bus at the top of Going to the Sun Road, I never got back on for the ride down. Jean and I split at that point, with me walking with our younger family group up into the subalpine pastures. Later, we took the free shuttle back to our cars.
Save your kopeks and don’t take the Red Bus Tour. Use the free park shuttle instead.
Eating
The whole crew got together for a few meals. Often locations and mealtimes didn’t coincide. But when we did get together, it felt like a real Montana BBQ kind of experience. Bison. Filet mignon (Ya see, got some more French in this blog!) steaks. Corn on the cob. Roasted red peppers with melted mozzarella. Oh yeah… and monstrously large burritos. Happy eating.
A tiny bit of Land Use Planning and History
West Glacier, where we stayed, had a commonality of architectural design. I found it quite attractive. But I kept asking folks, “are there some kind of design guidelines that assure continuity?” Finally, after some research, I found out that in fact, the entire “town” is really owned by one corporation. It is the same corporation that has the concession for various accommodations within both Glacier National Park and the bordering Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada.
West Glacier had previously been named Belton. It was a residential area for railroad workers when the railroad was being constructed to serve the masses who wanted to get to the new national park in 1910. The railroad created a depot which still operates. There were various ownership changes over the years. One of owners worked with the state to officially change the name to West Glacier a few decades ago to emulate, I presume, the success of West Yellowstone as an accepted commercial entry point to a national park. Overall, I’d say they met their goal.
A Final Take
For the first 65 years of my life, I had never been to Glacier. Now, I’ve been there a couple of times in the last 3 years. It’s got some glaciers. Mt. Rainier has more. It has some sub-alpine meadows. Mt. Rainier has more. It’s got some tall mountains, but… you got it. Mt. Rainier is higher. There is a forest of Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir at Glacier. It is the easternmost extent of that forest type. Yeah… well, we got the real thing in our neck of the woods.
Surprisingly, the entire road trip can be done in a day. A long day, mind you. But a day. What made this road trip worth it was not, however, the spectacular place that is Glacier. It was the opportunity to spend some relaxing and fun time getting to be with Cathy and her family. As usual, it’s about the people. Always about the people.
Daniel's Derekh 