Le Maroc

            I tried a few times to write something profound about Morocco, but I ended up shelving everything I wrote. It was too complicated, too convoluted; I tried too hard to make a point. There was flowery language describing non-flowery things, there were myriad lamentations of sociological phenomena and philosophical problems that I felt like we were encountering. However, a couple good friends of mine gave me some advice that I can more or less paraphrase in the following words:

            “Dude, I think you’re taking your blog too seriously.”

            Dude, they’re totally right.

           Now, I don’t want to do a disservice to Spain’s nearest African neighbor and say too little about the country, but I’m going to do the best I can to do Morocco justice in fewer words than Absalom, Absalom!

((()))

            Morocco is a place of contrasts. First of all, the flight from Madrid to Tangiers (“Tánger” – “tahn-herr”, with a nice, guttual ‘h’ thrown in there for full Spanish effect) takes only one hour, but as far as I know, I’m not aware of another flight that short that will take you somewhere so different.

            One huge difference is that there was Arabic writing everywhere. I know this sounds obvious being that Morocco is an Arabic speaking country, but I have never been to a country that does not use the Latin alphabet before, so to see words that contain characters that looking more like drawings than letters is very shocking at first, and becomes somewhat entrancing later on. I think the Arabic script is one of the most beautiful looking typesets on the planet and to see it everywhere, especially when it’s been written as graffiti on dusty car windows, or scratched into the side of a building with a stick, or carved by mischievous waifs into drying concrete, it adds a level of humanity that’s often missing in Western portrayals of the language.

“Oh yeah, it’s just a bunch of somewhat arbitrary symbols used by other human beings just like me, and it just happens to congeal together and mean stuff like ‘Wash me’ or ‘Real Madrid sucks balls’, just like we write in English!”

Again, obvious as it may sound, it’s something I didn’t really think about much until I was in Tangiers, surrounded by Arabic everywhere. I think it really took the dirty car window to make me fully realize how alike we human beings truly are.

            Now, Morocco is not just a country that uses the Arabic alphabet, but it’s also a Muslim country, and so it was also the first time I had ever been to a country where Jesus-ians did not predominate. Although Morocco is a “liberal” Muslim country in comparison with some of its fanatical neighbors, it is still a much more conservative, pious society than any I have ever experienced in my life. Five times every single day – beginning at 5 AM, to the chagrin of would-be lazyheads everywhere – a member of the clergy called a muezzin chants the Islamic call to prayer from the minarets of every mosque across in the Muslim world.

 It’s a fascinating and hauntingly beautiful phenomenon, and at risk of causing Edward Saïd to roll over in his grave, I think it’s one of the most “exotic” things I’ve ever experienced. That is to say, it caused me to have another one of those “Toto, I’m not in Valladolid anymore” moments.

I wanted to explore more of the religious buildings and institutions in Morocco, but alas, as a non-Muslim, the buildings I’m allowed access to are few and far between. However, I was able to see through the gates of a few of the Muslim cemeteries, and one of the things I noticed was an abundance of cats sunning themselves within.

            For those who don’t know, in Islam cats are seen in a favorable light due to the Prophet Muhammad’s own affinity for the furry felines, and unfortunately for us dog-folk, he was not down with the canines. Because of this, there are more than a few feral-but-well-fed-looking cats wandering around, and I’m guessing a lot of people give the poor bastards food. Specifically, several times when we were dining in the Moroccan aire libre, there were prowling kitties showing up ASAP after we had begun. 

And, like good tourists in a Muslim country, we paid alimentary alms to our feline hosts. Some of them, I must admit, were pretty goddamn cute, and their wiles were exceedingly difficult to resist and if I’m dropping the “c”-word, you know I’m not joking.

            So it was perhaps due to this VIP treatment in Moroccan society that the cats were so profligate everywhere we went, and it was especially interesting their residence in the aforementioned cemetery. I won’t lie, it was somewhat surreal to see an orange tabby sunning himself on a crumbling, granite tombstone, and one adorned with what looked like several paragraphs of Arabic calligraphy. It was a real contrast for me, a perfect mix of lo rutinario, the routine – the complete banality of a cat stretching out on a rock; and lo extraño, the strange or different – the afterlife of a culture that I don’t understand and probably never fully will.

Here's another example of that phenomenon:

More to come.

For another great interpretation, check out mi compañero Dave Palmer’s blog here.