Taroudant, Part 2: Entrez!

Last month I met an old man who totally hijacked my vacation.  You can meet him here.  And now, the rest of the story…

We sleep comfortably on the third or fourth floor of the mid-medina palace. It is plain enough on the outside, but on the inside it is equipped with no fewer than five salons, each capable of seating at least twenty friends and relations. Hospitable people, these. The sunshine from the terrace skylight shines down all three grated floors, so even the bowels of this vertical mansion have natural light. And yes, on this penthouse floor, there is a waiting toilet. It only takes a few twists and cranks to figure out how to flush. Easy.

Breakfast awaits three floors down. Bread, eggs, and that yummmmmmy, buttery blend of argan, almond, and honey. Oh, but it’s good. I say so, in decent French. They nod approvingly. I am mangez-ing. My honour is restored, and theirs.

“Vas-y! Vas-y!” There’s the old man again, herding us out the door and to the argan shop. Three litres of pure argan oil, three litres of argan/almond/honey yumminess, and a litre of beurre de cacahuete — a hot commodity in an inexplicably peanutbutterless land. Don’t worry, covetous ones. I will share. The price is right.

We leave our bags at the argan shop and head out into the medina. This is no filthy, exploitive Casablanca medina. This is a medina with class. Cobblestones, laid-back vendors, interesting wares – a potentially perfect shopping venue.

But no. “Vas-y!” Too much to do. We must visit the dentist-relative, who spends his days in his medina tower making scary-looking prosthetic teeth. I guess the nation’s dentures must be made somewhere. Why not here? I am glad I still have all my teeth.

“Vite, vite! A la voiture!” Yes, sir.

We are whisked away to another banana farm, where we somehow completely lose each other deep in bananaland. Eventually we hear a honking horn. The old man has called a search and rescue operation. He is shaking his head. Stupid tourists.

Haji loads his trunk with enough bananas to carry the nation through a minor acopalypse, and off we go. More relatives. More tea. More food. But today I am wise. Today I am pacing myself. Today my digestion will do as it’s told.

These relatives are also jolly, beautiful, and kind. Their children are jollier still, laughing like bleating sheep at the sound of my ridiculous name. “Natasha,” apparently, is hilariously close to “matisha,” the Arabic word for “tomato.” I am a scrawny Canadian who must be made as round as a tomato by the time I leave. That is the all-consuming ambition of every Moroccan in this room. Mangez.

We stay a very long time. We play funny games with the children, who cry when we eventually leave. We have never had so many families all at once.

Are we finished with the family visits now? We are not. After the usual bang-bang-bang we are ushered into another multi-level mansion, where the garage morphs (naturally) right into the salon. We drink tea and eat sweets. Bio. The madame of the house blushes with the pleasure of being photographed with her Canadian “copine” (dear friend). What a winsome, habitable place this Morocco is. I have not met this Morocco in Casablanca, although I have had whiffs of it.

I am beginning to seek out washrooms with amused curiosity rather than trembling trepidation. With some guidance from one of Haji’s English-speaking relatives, I am developing some acceptable squatting and flushing skills. You know, when you squat, your bum does not make contact with any surface upon which another bum has been. If you can keep your pantlegs out of the way, it really is a superior practice. For now I just hang my pants on a conveniently-placed hook. Just to be on the safe side. These being the only pants I have for this two-day adventure.

Oh… Did I say two-day? Oh, no. It’s much too late to head back to Agadir now. We’d best stay another night. In the morning we’ll have tea and breakfast, then visit the market, the tagine-place, the Kasbah, and another friend or two. I’ll buy a custom-fitted wool coat and a berber bridal crown. Anwar will get nail clippers and underwear. His needs are far more practical, and frugal, than my own, it seems. But the crown can double as a belt, and who could not use a multipurpose berber bridal belt? And a henna vine imprinted on my hand? Like many Westerners, I am a sucker for anything that appeals to my vanity, and all of Morocco knows it.

On the way “home” (yes, home was in the itinerary all along, it would seem), we eat about half a lamb, and everyone chortles (again) at the spectacle of a Canadian tomato failing miserably at eating with her hands. They sigh and ask the waiter to bring me a fork. And a plate. Because I’m pathetic like that. But they love me anyway – their own personal Canadian copine.

When I planned this vacation, I had envisioned a quiet, private retreat, characterized mainly by lounging in the sun and cooling off in the sea. I had thought it might be a reflective, book-filled week, seasoned daily with intelligent adult tête-a-têtes in my native tongue: seven days of lazy, sanitary, introverted bliss. I did not know that I would be thrust into the homes of countless strangers, all interrogating me in everything but English. I was not planning to eat until my insides fell out, or to entertain mischievous, bleating children, or to embark on a futile three-day quest for the holy toilet.

Sometimes, though, a seismic shift in expectations is in order. Sometimes the universe decides to make you a little uncomfortable, so that you can see what you are missing when you spend your life looking inward instead of outward.

What beautiful, beautiful people we met this week. They nourished us, and made us their own. It brought them so much happiness just to share their lives with us. What a gift it was for them, to give us this un-buyable gift; what a gift it was for us, to step into their world.

If you come to Morocco, I hope you get to see more than beaches and boulevards. I hope you get to meet an old man called Haji, who will infuse your contemplative retreat with sharp-wittedness, energy, amusement, and spontaneity. I hope you let your vacation rearrange itself around him and his adoring kinfolk, who will understand you more than you realize. Don’t let an ominous hole in the ground keep you from experiencing the full palate of Moroccan life. Bring an open mind and an empty stomach, and don’t fixate too much on passports and signatures. Some borders are better crossed without them.