Morocca

The Mint Tea Diaries

(page 1 of 4)

 I arrived in Morocco on an April morning after a long but pleasant flight from Qatar. As the terminal in Casablanca filled with the morning’s soft golden haze I felt as if I had traveled back in time. To be precise it felt like I had traveled back to the 1960s (or at least the version of the 1960s that existed in my mind after years of absorbing several archived portraits of pop culture, both conscious and unconsciously). The set up was compact and minimal with long hallways and low ceilings. The linoleum floors stretched outward toward nondescript passages, the monotony of the Pollack-like tile designs broken only by a strategically placed Moroccan flag here and a generic potted plant there. None of the airports adornments were exclusively African or telling of the location. The beige walls were lined with black and white photographs of dignitaries thatappeared to be both foreign and domestic. The sensation of displacement was so overwhelming that I would not have been surprised if a small group of men, each resembling some manifestation of Lyndon Baines Johnson, walked past me in the hall wearing black and blue suits, their leery eyes tucked behind thick horn rimmed glasses. There would have been mutters of bowling scores, vacations to Pismo Beach, duct tape and pot roast dinners. As my girl friend and I waited for the train into Casablanca and flipped through our travel guides trying to decide where we were going to stay for the night, I couldn’t help but think how disappointing the terminal had been, and what a bad omen my disappointment might ultimately amount to. As a traveler I had never been in the habit of judging a city by its airport, but honestly, even La Guardia maintains a certain New York character. This building held nothing of distinction. It was about as plain as the waiting room in my dentist’s office (minus the back issues of GQ Magazine).

This being my first venture into an Islamic country and into one of the oldest places I had ever been to in my life, my expectations were high. In my own mind this journey had become something more then just a holiday. Ever since I planned the trip and started researching Morocco, I had been presented with countless examples of a cultural landscape that many western sources had garnished with ardent but ultimately to me unjustified doubts. Some of the conservative Italians I spoke with portrayed Moroccan immigrants as a burden to their state. In private (and public at times) they were described as a hapless bunch of potential criminals, religious fanatics and thieves. In Italy, to call someone “Morocc” is the equivalent to calling some one “ghetto” and in some extreme cases “nigger”. These types of judgments never sat well with me. Perhaps it was because I’d heard similar indictments thrown at African Americans. So, there I was in Morocco, the hustler’s paradise, Europe’s gateway into the motherland, this was my opportunity to see it for myself and form my own opinions and understandings about the people and their culture.

In the trailer to classic American film Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart’s character was described as “the most dangerous man in the world’s most dangerous city”. It did not take long for me to realize this city had long since ceased being the home of French Patriots and one-liners. As the train distanced its self from the banal government building that facilitated our arrival the city slowly began to unfold the ugly beauty that makes a place worth remembering. The initial ascent into grandeur ran as such just outside of my train compartments dusty windowpane: