far too much writing, far too many photos Friday, February 27, 2004 Touching down in North Africa Oops. In all the hubbub my little life has seen recently, I forgot to mention I was heading to Morocco this weekend. I write this sitting in a smoky, poorly-lit cybercafé in Casablanca, butt planted in a sophisticated instrument of torture posing as an old, old office chair. Nothing but Arabic males share the café with me, apart from the elderly French-speaking woman planted behind the rickety desk by the door; a teeny, ancient black & white television behind her plays a French channel (the picture actually a distressed-looking, nausea-inducing dark lavender and white), its murmur a constant in the background. I knew I was in for a different trip when I boarded the plane this morning in Madrid, finding myself among Spaniards, French, Moroccans, a handful of young, partying Germans and (I am not making this up) the Namibian national rugby team. All of them. And me -- the only native English speaker in the bunch. Though I spoke Spanish, so no one knew. This talking-Spanish thing is great -- it completely confounds some folks, and my accent is decent enough that they can't place me from that. One of the Spanish flight attendants seemed to be checking me out, trying, I think, to figure out just where the hell I hailed from. Or maybe simply fascinated by my sheer animal magnetism. (Insert laugh track here.) But I digress. The plane landed beneath turbulent skies, dark gray clouds trading off with bursts of sunlight. Inside the terminal, things were grimly serious. The unsmiling old fart who seized my passport took a good long time inputting my info into a 'puter. After which some burly uniformed types made me (and everyone else) put baggage and coats through an x-ray machine. After which I joined crowds of loud, hyperverbal families trying to maneuver carts piled high with suitcases and monstrous duffel bags through grimly serious customs types, the inspectors barking orders at many of the over-baggaged travelers, ordering them to nearby tables/counters for forced unpacking. Me and my two teeny carry-on bags tiptoed through, unharassed. Out in the terminal: plenty of signage, all in Arabic or French. No Spanish, no English. All signage, all conversation: Arabic, French. No one spoke anything I did, which gave them all license to ignore me. I managed to get cash, managed to wring a bus ticket out of one functionary, a large framed photo of King Mohammed VI (an image found all over Mohammed V Airport) propped up atop a nearby filing cabinet. Asking where the bus might be found produced vague arm gestures in the general direction of outside. Outside: no signs indicating a bus stop (I'd begun getting the hang of deciphering French signage). No bus stop visible anywhere, in any direction. Tons of taxis, though. Mostly stressed-looking Mercedes Benzes. I saw a pair of older Spanish women from the plane, asked one about the bus. She strongly recommended forgetting the bus -- unreliable, slow, with apparently no guarantee of actually getting where you want to go. Take a taxi, she said. The one big hitch: the taxi drivers. A wild bunch who seemed bent on ignoring me. I watched one of them move his Mercedes when his turn came to inch forward to the head of the line. He opened the door, got out, pushed the car ahead, straining against its dead weight. Not a great omen. This, of course, turned out to be my driver. I get in the car. The driver speaks Arabic, French, nothing else -- we blather ineffectually back and forth. He will not negotiate and quotes a price, substantially above the figure the Spanish woman suggested. Take it or leave it. On impulse, I go with it, hand over the cash. He has no idea where my hotel is, begins quizzing other drivers, a crowd quickly collects around the car, arguing, debating, arms waving, voices raised. I manage to raise my voice above theirs, I mention the hotel's street address, they all go, "OHHHHHH!", begin arguing about the best way to get there. A consensus is finally reached, the other drivers drift off, my driver gets going. Out on the road, he gives his Mercedes the gas; I find myself flying down a foreign highway, well over the already-high speed limit, the driver drifting back and forth across the lanes, riding the white line when no other cars are near, hitting the horn when we get within several hundred feet of other vehicles. Riding right up on their rear bumpers, complaining until they're out of the way, flying ahead when they are. We stop at a small row of toll booths, he pulls a card from his pocket, hands it to the attendant. There is no conversation to be heard anywhere outside, from anyone. Dead quiet, eerily so; the quietest toll booths I've ever passed through. The airport is 20 or 25 kilometers outside of the city, the countryside consists of low, rolling, scrubby land. Most houses are built within walled compounds, the buildings looking like impoverished cousins to the adobe houses of New Mexico. Yellowish and brownish-greens predominate the landscape, with stands of orange wildflowers. The occasional mule or horse stands out in the middle of it all, grazing. As we reach Casablanca's outskirts, traffic increases, most everyone driving like my guy. Mopeds abound, I come to appreciate the piloting one of those teeny buggers through the increasing vehicular chaos as an act of massive, demented courage. My driver uses his horn any time he approaches another vehicle. Also any time another driver appears to be thinking of changing lanes. Also any time another car turns onto the main drag from a side street. Also any time he breathes in or out. (Most drivers around us seem to have been trained at the same Academy of Four-Wheeled Aggression as my cabbie.) My driver engages in one life-threatening maneuver after another, me sitting quietly in the back seat, having reached a blissful state of detachment -- almost clinical disassociation -- as a way of coping with imminent death, laughing quietly to myself in well-mannered amazement at the video game unspooling outside the cab's windows. We have one especially close brush with a major accident, my driver must have interpreted my terrified, rictus-like grimace as smiling approval of his skill. He asks me, using a combo of French and big gestures, how many days I'll be in the city. I answer two, he immediately commences a hard sell re: hiring him for my return drive to the airport. I briefly debate saying something about snowballs and hell, let it go, smile, answer his continuing shpiel with a pleasant, noncommittal 'Quizá, a ver' ('Maybe, we'll see'). I made it to the hotel alive, found out there that no one at the desk spoke either of my languages. The desk people summoned a young woman from the office -- hair under a shawl -- she spoke a bit of English. We sorted things out, I soon found myself in an eighth-floor room. A room that struck me right then as a cousin to the dungeon I shared with G. in Sevilla -- dark, no windows, with a mysterious, stale odor. A hallway extended off from one side, leading to the bathroom. A hallway with windows looking out over the city. I dragged a chair out into that passageway, sat down to catch my breath and get an eyeful of Casablanca. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Twilight over a tired-looking Moroccan city: [continued in next entry] rws 2:15 PM [+] BLATHERINGS August 2001 September 2001 October 2001 November 2001 December 2001 January 2002 February 2002 March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 June 2009 July 2009 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . MORE FOCUSED BLATHERINGS Travels: London '01 Pamplona Italy '03 U.K. '03 Sevilla Casablanca Stoke-on-Trent Barcelona Québec/Ottawa Boston/Lisbon/Madrid Italy '04 Montréal La Sierra Events: Madrid -- arrival 9/11 Emergency Room I Holidays 2001 Holidays 2002 Holidays 2003 Holidays 2004 Holidays 2005 A neighbor's passing Madrid -- March 11 bombings   and aftermath Emergency Room II Israeli friend/Madrid Marathon Madrid -- Royal Wedding The DELE exam GONE, a novel: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF JOE ROCCO, a novella: -- Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 BURBANK SHRUGGED, a screenplay: -- Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 Short stories: Murphy's Wife Another Autumn La Queja de Una   Hermanastra Muy Conocida Autobiography -- Personal History -- Hormones On Parade -- Accidents, Random Mishaps,     Personal Problems .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . OTHER SOURCES OF WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT People/Weblogs: dooce foxvox fudge it fear not rebekka bookslut 802online idle words madhaiku wockerjabby grow-a-brain rebel market letting me be out and about kung fu grippe fanatical apathy baghdad burning wfuv's music blog kexp's music blog mimi smartypants between the miles just a hippie gypsy the impossible cool tomato can brushes vermont homestead sugar mountain farm Good Clean Fun: gizmodo futurismic postsecret dave barry human clock mcsweeney's spaceweather book-a-minute internet archive self-portrait day my cat hates you out of context quotes surrealist compliment   generator strindberg and helium Makin' Musical Whoopee: last fm stereo8 pandora soma fm .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . ABOUT RWS/CONTACT This page and all its contents copyright © 2001-2011 by runswithscissors unless otherwise noted. runswithscissors would like to thank everyone who's ever lived for everything they've ever done. 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