Taroudant, Part 1: Mangez!

“Ask him if you’ll need your passport,” I suggest smartly. Smartly, because this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask when an 81-year-old Moroccan offers to take you to his village to buy argan oil. Never mind that his village is only an hour away, and you’re just going for the day, and there are no border crossings in sight. Moroccans in uniforms of various sorts like asking for passports. It’s their way.

Haji, our esteemed elder, is holding a red vinyl bag and gesturing towards his argyle cardigan. “Deux,” he says. “Two.” One for today, one for tomorrow.

I guess we are staying overnight then. I’d best get packing. Toothbrush, underwear, just the essentials. Quick. He’s waiting. Tapping his watch. “Vas-y! Vas-y! Go there! Go there!” Yes, sir. I’m going, sir.

We drive for a little while. Twenty minutes, maybe? And then we stop outside these big metal doors in the middle of Moroccan nowhere. Haji starts banging. Bang, bang, bang. Finally the monstrous gate opens and we drive through.

Inside? Paradise. Orange trees. Grapefruit, clementine, lemon, cocoa. Banana trees in sweltering greenhouses. “All B.O.,” he says proudly. “B.O.?” we ask quizzically. “Oh! Bio!” Organic. All organic.

We sit down with Haji and his friend, who welcomes us heartily to his tropical nirvana. Mint tea: the best I’ve tasted yet in this decidedly minty land. Tagine. Bread. More fruit, just plucked off the tree. Bio. All bio. Yum.

I ask for a washroom. It is missing some key features for a woman’s ablutions. Awkward. I improvise, using my hat briefly for I-won’t-tell-you-what. Never mind. It’s none of your business.

Finally we leave. Okay. We’re on our way to Taroudant. That was a nice stop. But the village awaits.

Five minutes? Maybe ten? Another set of large metal doors. Another “bang, bang, bang!” Another super-friendly pal with a tour to give. Olives, this time. Mountains of olives, piled like snowbanks throughout the building, moving up conveyor belts to giant vats, where they are ground and pressed by hulking, spinning stones. A big, bad, scary olive bath. Olive smells everywhere. Tanks of oil, bottles of oil; oil, oil, oil. And olives, of course, to eat with the oil.

Here it comes. Mint tea. Bread for dipping. Clearly this oil has not been sitting in my cupboard for eight years waiting to be consumed. What fresh, fresh oil. Yummm. What nice tea. What nice men. Everyone is laughing and bantering in animated Arabic. We are welcome. Very welcome.

We leave. We drive. Not far. And then we stop. Big doors. Bang, bang. Welcome, welcome. This is the home of one of Haji’s family members. Children look up at us with big, serious eyes, unspeaking. Their parents are jolly, glowing people. Beautiful and kind. I ask for the washroom, and am shown proudly to a room with a hole, a pop bottle, some pails, and a tea kettle. Panic. What to do? Which vessels are for what? I stand in the room long enough to make it seem like I might have done something, and then leave. “I can’t use that,” I whisper to Anwar. “Why not?” he asks. “Go, look!” I say. “I don’t know how!” This is highly tricky. He doesn’t know either. That’s okay. I can hold it, sort of.

Help.

Mint tea. Bread. Sweets. Fruit. Yum. Feeling a little on the full side of full. But Moroccans love their hospitality. Must not offend by declining tasty edibles. “Mangez!” they insist. Okay.

Time to go. Good-bye, unspeaking children. Good-bye, obligatory gluttony. “Vas-y! Vas-y!” Good-bye.

“Taroudant, 15 km,” reads the sign. “That’s a good indication,” says Anwar, “that we will be there soon.” Indeed. Except that we promptly turn around and start driving the other way. What the???

Oh, of course. More doors. Bang, bang. More relatives. Another tour. Tea, bread, fruit, full, full, full. Eat a little. Do not offend. “Mangez!” Oui. Je mange.

It is getting dark. We are not at Taroudant. We are not sure where we are. Wait, this looks familiar. Back to the first set of relatives. Back to the mystery un-toilet. I am getting desperate. I make a secret, silent plea to my facebook friends for instructions. Oh, I see. The pop bottle is to keep the cockroaches from crawling up out of the hole. Of course. Of course.

Perhaps we are staying the night here. I was hoping for more of a seated-toilet-sort-of-place, but I am getting tired. Time for bed. Right?

No. Time for tagine. I was afraid of that.

I am so full now. I am fuller than fuller than full. I am feeling that yucky, burpy, nauseous feeling that I feel just before I have to take a sick day. Oh, no. Please, no.

“Mangez!”

“Non, merci… C’est bon, mais non…”

“MANGEZ!”

Plop.

A giant hunk of chicken lands in my plate. Eggs. Vegetables. Bread.

Everyone is looking suddenly fierce. I look around. “MANGEZ!!!!!!!!!!” Oh, help. Je mange.

The state of my insides is worsening. Rapidly. I cannot mange. I simply can’t. Please, don’t make me mange some more. Please, God. Please.

If I run around the corner into the courtyard, could I vomit discreetly behind a tree? Would anyone notice? Yes, people would notice. It is dark, but not dark enough. I sit stoically and concentrate with all my might on keeping everything where it belongs. Mangez.

And then I don’t. I simply can’t. I discretely make my way to the pop-bottle-hole, and up comes tagine, fruit, tea and bread; tea and bread and oil; tea and sweets; tea and tagine; up it all comes, with blessedly perfect aim, and not the nicest sound.

I exit. The entrance to the room is surrounded by concerned Moroccans. Am I okay? Yes, I’m okay. Really. I’m fine. Fine.

“Vas-y!” The be-cardiganned old man is tapping his watch. Go, go, go. Time to go. Okay.

“Taroudant, 15 km.” Could it be that we will actually head in that direction this time? What next? One never knows. One can only hope. Please, no more mangez.

We pull into town. We disembark at a lovely little hotel. I am ecstatic. As ecstatic as one can be with one’s insides on the outside. The washroom in the lobby is fully equipped for my every need. Soon I will be in a nice, quiet hotel room, with another nice, private washroom. Soon I can brush my teeth. Oh, to brush my teeth…

“Passport?” asks the man at the desk. Oh, no. Please, no. I take mine out of my purse, but the man doesn’t touch it. “It’s illegal for me to let you stay here without a passport,” he says to Anwar, with genuine reluctance. “Police,” he shrugs. Of course. Police. Did my nausea just worsen?

Even the intrepid Haji cannot negotiate his way around this one. “Ah, well,” he says. “No problem, no problem.” We will go to his family. Which one, I wonder? And will the washroom contain something on which to sit?

We drive through the cobblestoned medina. We park the car and bring our bags into yet another family home. I begin my preliminary investigations. Yet another hole. I am tired. I am very, very tired.

We sit down around a table laden with relatives and tea. Out comes the bread.

“Mangez!”