Clean as a Whistle, Have Dromedary, Will Travel

_{By Sonya Zalubowski}

                _{The shine in the lady’s eyes exploded into glee as she rubbed the stiff glove loaded with black soap made from olive oil back and forth across the top of my naked thigh.   The friction she generated had rolled a thin layer of my skin into a tight cigarette of exfoliation that she now held up for my eyes to see.  Her hands returned to kneading my now rosy skin,  sloughing off  more dead stuff, this round look of  satisfaction even purer in her dark eyes. It was almost as if she were saying, “see,” she’d saved me from some cruel fate, the result of a naughty neglect at not having peeled off superfluous layers sooner in my long life.}

_{Such was my first visit to a “hammam” or community bath in the ancient city of Fez in north central Morocco.  The woman was dressed only in shorts, her bare breasts looming in front of me. But she and her fellow female workers were unabashed by any nudity as they marched around the several rooms that made up the women's section of the baths.  Men had their own section. Feeling modest, I had worn a bathing suit but my attendant soon made short order of it, standing me up from my stool so she could strip me down to reach my nethermost parts.  I start my story of my three-week tour of Morocco here with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT)  because the baths, which date to the Roman empire of more than 2000 years ago, provide a clue to this enigmatic north African country that has been touched by so many cultures.}

_{The women, probably most of them illiterate, worked hard for their 20 dirhams (about 25 cents per customer), starting you in the hottest rooms first, where several of us foreigners sat with locals in steam fired by piles of burning wood. A splash of hot water from a plastic bucket over your head and the rough glove went on.}

_{Some customers, depending on their agility. were splayed onto the blue and white tiles on the ground for body-long scrubs, water flowing everywhere. We were all reduced to female bodies, a community of us, working to achieve cleanliness and freshness.  Once the ladies in attendance were satisfied they’d burnished our skins into bright red, they finished off with shampoo and dumping loads of yet more hot water over people’s heads.  We were then escorted  into cooling off rooms and finally the area where we dressed to go back outside. Several locals gave us the “hi” sign for all’s okay as lighter us collected our belongings.}

_{Our OAT guide, cheery young Mohammed Oujrid, had assured us before entering the building that we would be fully accepted at the baths which he said act as a kind of glue in keeping the community together.  He said women use the weekly baths as the occasion to get outside the home, turning a usual one-hour practice into three to four hours for gossip.  Oujrid himself admitted he went regularly with a friend, in a case of you rub my back, then I’ll rub yours.}

_{The baths, he said, are an essential part of Moroccan culture and a key to understanding  this fascinating country whose location has made it an historic crossroad of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  Every old town or “medina” as they are called required the existence of a hamman as well as a common laundry area and a common bakery where people who once had no ovens at home could bring their bread to be baked.  Oujrid said people would turn to the baker to find out if there were interest in an arranged marriage since he generally knew who was available and who was not and even more importantly who was prosperous and who was not.  The last necessary elements for a community, Oujrid said, were the mosque and the minaret from which the people are called five times daily to practice prayer in the Islam faith.}

_{This emphasis on community over individual, Oujrid said, has helped Morocco retain its distinct character, this blend of European, Arab and original Amazigh culture.   The country, which boasts the longest coastlines in Africa with the Mediterranean to the north and the Atlantic to the west,  has seen invasions that date all the way to the Phoenicians and Romans to the Arabs who brought the Islam faith to later incursions by Portuguese, Spanish and finally French explorers.  Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912 that existed until independence in 1956.  Moroccans still go to school and govern in the French language.}

_{It is a testament to the Amazigh people --  the world’s oldest Homo Sapiens fossils dating to 300,000 years ago were found in Morocco -- that they remain the predominant ethnic group in the country, which Oujrid estimated at some 98 percent of the population.  The name means “free” or noble people, a collection of different nomadic tribes that invaders called “berbers,” a corruption of the word barbarian.  That word, berber, has now come to be accepted but the people still prefer the original name Amazigh and still speak that language along with Arabic and French.  The various tribes own the land outside cities, while the cities are owned by the government.}

The Romans entered after the fall of Carthage in 146 BC.  Some of the best preserved on-site mosaics exist to this day in the abandoned Roman town of Volubulis near Fes. Rome saw its downfall in the third century and rule fell back to the Amazigh people.  Sultanates developed over the centuries until the Islamic invasion by Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries.  Warring tribes over the years vied for dominance until the French protectorate was established.  Oujrid said the country still pays off the French with unknown amounts of natural resources  under its current ruler Mohammed VI who took over in 1999. He runs a parliamentary theocracy, albeit more benign than the previous rule under his father Hassan II.

_{Under the present king’s rule, there have been numerous reforms but certain issues, such as the legitimacy of the king, are not discussed openly in a sort of self-censorship.  Women saw in 2004 a new family law that established rules for marriages, allowing those at age 16 only with parental approval.  There have been attempts to require basic education as well but Oujrid said inadequate facilities have resulted in most rural women still being illiterate and choosing marriage over other roles in life. The country is still basically agricultural, with rural areas in a 55 to 45 percent split over urban areas. Women’s groups that we met in our travels around the country from the north coast to the interior and southeast in the Sahara Desert are still campaigning for more rights. Fatima Habti, an English teacher who works for women’s rights in north Morocco, told us in Chefchaouen that it takes testimony from two women to equal one man in the courts.  She also said a woman only receives half what a brother receives in inheritance.}

_{In 2011 after the Arab spring swept through the Middle East and other North African countries, Mohammed VI moved to grant more constitutional rights for the people but he  kept a firm hand on defense and the army.   Morocco is still in dispute with Spain over parts of the West Sahara and Spain still retains rights in the northern city of Ceuta. The king has worked to develop industry, including expansion of the port at Tangiers.}

_{All of that said, Morocco with its up to 38 million people.  spread over an area the size of France that includes mountain ranges,  deserts, oases and beaches,  is a delightfully exotic place to visit.  I started my journey with OAT in Casablanca, the home of a pseudo Rick’s café from the movie “Casablanca” (the actual Rick’s was filmed on a Hollywood set), and quickly moved on to the northern Rif mountain city of Chefchaouen, known for its blue washed walls and manageable clean medina that tumbles down narrow streets.}

_{Among other highlights in our three-week-long journey by bus and train:}

_{We watched smugglers at Ceuta allowed daily by both Spain and Morocco to move freely from nearby Gibraltar with their forbidden wares in a wink to the economy, taxis stacked up waiting for their users.}

_{In Fez, the skinny often short lanes of its medieval medina,  all 9000 of them, are crowded with vendors offering everything from camel heads to leather jackets and dates.  It can require hiring a guide just to find your way through the maze back to your hotel, all the while watching out for sputtering motorbikes and donkey carts.}

_{When we headed to the Sahara we experienced lush oases with date palms before finding our camp in the desert at Merzouga,  where original caravans once plied the sands with their loads of salt and other goods.  There is nothing quite like approaching a dromedary, sitting on its knees, its face not looking too happy as it shows its yellowing teeth and you approach to get on top.  The animals are different from camels which have two humps on their backs, the dromedaries instead with one giant hump of fat on top.  It’s a wide  girth to get your legs around.} 

_{The nomads with their small herds of dromedaries now often make their livings giving tourists rides on their animals.  It is quite a swell of up and down until the animals are upright.  We rode for an hour among the dunes with the quiet of the winds and the open horizon a treat.  But I have to admit relief at getting off at the end.}

_{Nomads, who travel the desert with their sheep and goats to find pasture, may no longer exist in a few years,  Oujrid said, drawn away from the hardships of their lives to more urban settings.  We met one nomad, Fatima, under the rough brown wool tent she’d woven of camel and goat hair, in the desert.  She’d lost her husband, and the rest of her clan had helped build a mud brick home out on the flatland for a more permanent existence. Her son rented out his seven camels to tourists for rides.}

_{I had never met such poverty, the joy with which the woman accepted the least of gifts as she poured for us the ceremonial tea, the sweetened green mint tea that is the national drink.  Our gifts of hotel soap and shampoo samples, and even worn Chinese laundry shoes, was accepted with such graciousness.  Along the way we had seen the makeshift graves of nomads in cemeteries, marked only by piles of stones.}

_{A word about the religion.  Oujrid said Islam is practiced in its own particular Moroccan fashion. For one thing, he pointed out that alcohol is allowed for tourists but the 182 million liters consumed every year certainly was not just drunk by foreigners.  The hijab or head scarf is seen more often lately but more of a fashion statement, he said, imported from other Arab countries rather than a religious symbol. Women are still seen wearing veils and the djelabas of old, especially in the countryside, but there were not often full burqas, he said.}

_{Coming out of the Sahara, Ouarzazate in the south is the country’s answer to Hollywood, dating back to the filming of Lawrence of Arabia there. Many studios now operate out of the city.}

_{Marrakesh with its insane huge plaza known as Jamaa el-Fnaa comes alive at nightfall with performers like snake charmers,  dancers and musicians and food stalls for the hot harira soup and freshly squeezed orange juice.}

_{The greatest current problem the country faces is water, Oujrid said.  Over a third is now believed lost in sloppy use, which if not corrected can lead to more desertification.  It is compounded by the country’s still high birthrate  of 4.5 rurally vs 2.3 in the cities. Oujrid said still, Morocco is more democratic than the Middle East.}

_{“We prefer this slow way, through education,” Oujrid said.  Not the chaos of areas where the Arab spring overturned governments.  “TIA,” he said.  “This is Africa.”}

_{I am left with this late afternoon memory of Chefchaouen, sitting in the sunshine at an outdoor café watching the people go by on the community square, brilliant pink bougainvillea in bloom on a nearby wall.  Old men with canes picked their way forward in their woven djelabas while young men chased tourists with their sticky worn plastic covered menus trying to get people to go to their restaurant.  Flies were everywhere along with stray cats underfoot, hoping for a handout, many of them pregnant. People threw them bread.}

_{A woman in western dress came in leading a small baby goat on a leash.  It proceeded to eat the leaves on a nearby potted plant and then climb on the table before the woman led it off and interested it in some food she placed on the ground.  No one said a word. Everyone seemed to tolerate everyone else.}

_{Such is my memory of this mellow country.}