Saturday, November 26, 2011

Le Maroc, Pt. Trois: Para enganchar a un americano / To hook an American


            So by now I’ve had it pointed out to me, by people who’ve read Dave’s blog and by folks whom we’ve told what happened, that the “sinister” goings-on implied by the end of the last blog entry were not, in fact, all that sinister. It was more just highly uncomfortable and frightening to be in the situation at the time. All the same, it sucked for us. We were hundreds, if not thousands, of miles (kilometers) from anything we considered remotely familiar, and so having such a high level of uncertainty in such a remote and strange place was definitely what I would call “sinister”. At least, it had malevolent twinges.
Was that the first time anyone has ever written the phrase “malevolent twinges”? Let’s do a Google search and find out.



Dammit, one other asshole had already said “malevolent twinges”, and it was in a LIVEJOURNAL, for God’s sake. Figures.

Anyways, let me continue the most-interesting narrative here.

            -----------

Marrakech, Morocco. The Red City. It was more a kind of ochre if you asked me, but then again, I was never big on color swatches back in the day, so what do I really know? 



Marrakech, to say it briefly, is an insane place. At particular times and locations in the city, is a place that stimulates every sense of the human body at once, causing so many neurons to fire and so many distinct neurotransmitters to scoot around your nervous system that you kind of just want to go to sleep. The most famous part of the city is called Djemma el-Fna, which is a huge open square, about the size of six or seven American football fields (have to make that distinction over here). In this square, which is the center of the Moroccan sensory overload, there are vendors selling every type of ware you could imagine, from counterfeit iPods to counterfeit Lionel Messi jerseys to authentic Berber handwashes to real-life Jackson’s chameleons. Interestingly enough, the chameleons are actually sold so that they can be burned alive in a particular local ritual that, if I remember correctly, is supposed to cure impotence. It seems like the coolest animals are always killed for such stupid reasons. (Pangolins, anyone?)



In addition to Djemma el-Fna, the old city of Marrakech (the medina) contains an absolutely mind-boggling labyrinth of streets and alleys that house an even more extensive market. If you are not careful, these markets will disappear at night, and you will be left behind in a maze-like network of nearly-identical streets, and you will need some time and more than a little luck to get out of there. Really, I don’t know how you would get out – there are no street signs, few landmarks, and not a whole lot of well-intentioned locals to be found who would be willing you come to your aid given the situation.
This brings me to our strange and disquieting experience. Now, we all know full well that in Morocco you’re not supposed to follow people who offer you their services as guides. Fine, that’s easy enough to understand. But the problem is, some of them are damn tricky about not offering you anything, but instead just starting to show you around without you even assenting to anything. Such was the case with Mustafa.
One afternoon, we were doing the Frogger-like traversing of the main street – I want to say Rue King Mohammed the V – to get to the Medina. By the way, the crossing of the street in and of itself is always one of the most dangerous things to do in Morocco that I’m aware of, and actually, I’d be willing to bet it’s single activity that kills the most people every year in Morocco. More than any terrorism, opium, crime, or rogue guides. But I digresss
As we intrepidly cross the street, we notice that a man has joined us. He’s well dressed, wearing some pretty new looking Levi’s, sort-of-real-looking RayBans, and a non-threatening blue pullover. He’s sporting a pretty well-trimmed mustache. Other than the fact that people who are not Tom Selleck with staches can be scary at times, he seems pretty harmless.
It was a particularly harrowing crossing-of-the-street, and the man looks back at us, smiling, seeming to say with this gesture, “Wow, that was a particularly harrowing crossing-of-the-street, huh? Even I as a local Moroccan would agree with you Americans on saying this, if you were to say it out loud!” Of course, owing to his gold-rimmed RayBan-accessorized slickness, he did not say this exactly, but rather said something to that effect but with many fewer syllables. To use Spanish grammatical constructions, that thing has caused me to forget it at this point. It’s not my fault. Third-person singular, impersonal se, ya’ll.
However, this guy does say something quite strange to us, and this is precisely where red flags should have gone up in all of our heads.
“Hey, don’t you guys remember me from the hotel this morning?”
No, dude, we do not remember you from the hotel this morning. At least, we are pretty sure we don’t. Although we should be concerned at this point, more than anything, I think we’re just confused.
So we keep walking a little bit, and this RayBanned dude is walking a little bit ahead of us, safely not part of our group. However, after about thirty meters, he stops, waits up for us, and points to a large building across the street.
“That is the nicest hotel in Africa right there.”
Uh, sweet.
“Yeah, Winston Churchill stayed there, and Sarkozy, whenever he’s in Marrakech,” he says as he scans are not-that-impressed-but-just-confused faces, “that’s the only place he stay.”
Uh.
“You should stay there sometime if you get a chance.”
Uh.
So at this point, we think this guy must work for the hotel. We think we’re all in tune with the locals now, understanding what they’re thinking, seeing the other sides to their games. We’ve got ‘em figured out, this guy is totally trying to get us –
The guy keeps walking ahead of us, acting like he doesn’t care at all whether we follow him or not. And that right there, my friends, was the kernel of his genius. The nonchalance, the lackadaisical gait, the aura that he gave off, that he had better things to do than to hang out with us. But the thing is, that we should have noticed right away, is that he kept stopping to conveniently point things out to us, give us nice historical tidbits. The problem was, he adroitly skirted the line between “I don’t really care, I’m just a nice guy” and “tour guide”. He had us hook-in-mouth from the beginning I think, and I think he knew it.
            After about seven minutes of off-and-on walking towards the medina with this shadow-character, this short-of-stature but tall-of-poise man, we make the fatal mistake of letting him know we’re hungry, somehow, I forget either directly or indirectly.
            “I will take you to the finest restaurant in Djemma el-Fna. Riad Omar”
            Shit, now we’re stuck with him.
            He continues on, “You see, most tourists go to the stands in the square, they get sick, they don’t like it, they don’t know what they are doing.” (He spoke in these chopped sentence fragments. That was pretty awesome, actually. For a linguistics nerd like me at least.)
            So “Mustafa”, as we soon learn he calls himself, oh-so beneficently guides us through the libertine madness of Djemma el-Fna to a relatively hole-in-the-wall establishment on a smaller side street. The door to “Riad Omar” is non-descript and is a place no tourist would ever select without prior knowledge of its existence. Or, of course, someone leading them towards it specifically. Despite all of these signs being presented to us of what was happening, we continue on, ascending the stairs to the restaurant. Mustafa presents us to the waiter and said, “Here, he will take care of you. And oh, if you want, I’ll come back after you all have finished desert and I can show you around a little bit more.”
            Uhhh. We all look at each other. What do we say here? Do we tell him “Hey, no thanks, we’re good. We don’t need any more help!”
            Nope, we sort-of nod our heads and assent.
            Mustafa smiles and says, “OK, great. I’ll be back in a little bit to get you. Enjoy your meal!”
            Shiiiiit. We are terrible at this! However, the food is really, really good. I would safely say that it is one of the best meals I have ever head. Cous-cous, veggies, and young-n-tender-just-how-I-like-it lamb. Mmmm.



Plus, the restaurant is on the roof of the building and we can see all around Marrakech, all the way to the Atlas mountains standing sentry over the city to the west.
            


So we eat and enjoy the view and we talk about how maybe, just maybe, Mustafa is in fact legitimate, and just wants to show us around. Interestingly though, like clockwork, as soon as we finish our meal - as if he were called from the heavens - Mustafa shows up on the roof of the restaurant, all smiles. "My friends, did you like the food?"
Uh.

Almost done. One more part coming up.


No comments:

Post a Comment