NEWSFLASH! The year is 2412 and the location is some 6km from the old Arabic civilization once called Ma' Ahmid. Dune, after dune after dune of fine sand roll on and on throughout the Sahara Desert of Southern Morocco. A group of young anthropologists of northern European decent are scouring an area that has been proclaimed a primitive "tent city" of four milleniums ago. They find chards of glass, pottery, some rusted remanants of metal teapots and various patches of woolen fibers some preserved better than others in the dry sand. One young professional decides to begin sifting outside the established areas and comes across...could it be? A human tooth! And not just any tooth but a child's tooth! He runs back to the lab station and runs a DNA test to find that this tooth is not only from a child of some 9 years in age (with poor dental hygiene - must have been impoverished) but also is from a continent some 7000 miles away! What could this mean? Were there migrations that took place unknown to our historical references? How did they travel? All this time have we not learned the TRUE paths of the continental shifts? We've been bamboozled by FALSE HISTORY!
No, on the contrary, Myles Leo Chisholm, of northern California decent lost one of his upper canines in the Sahara Desert and while messing around-typical boy-(he chose not to put it away like his mom asked him to), dropped the tooth and forever it will remain. I wonder if it will ever be found.
We had a wonderful holiday this year! After our little Christmas celebration in Granada we headed south to Tarifa, Spain. Everything worked out just right for us to catch the 15h ferry to cross the Strait of Gibraltar arriving in Tangiers, Morocco around 16h. My dad wouldn't have done very well on this ferry ride. Hint-within the first 5 minutes the stewards were handing out barf bags to everyone...hmmm. The swells were easily close to 10 feet at times and I found myself hanging down below with our packs listening to songs like "Shake it Up" by the Cars and U2's "A Beautiful Day" while Brad and the boys tried to do some deep breathing excercises outside up on the main deck.
We were all a little apprehensive about this trip; Brad's last experience in Africa was in Senegal and he wondered if this time we would bare witness to pool-size ditches full of raw sewage. My last experience was that of being extremely ill and this time I made sure I had all of our medical papers with us in case of a hospital visit. The boys, having only heard our stories were scared to death for fear they wouldn't reach double digits in life.
Our first encounter in Tangiers was to be expected. He approached quickly and boisterously, flashing his badge and trying to speak in first French, then German, afterwards came English, Spanish and some Italian. They can't figure our family out. I dyed my hair dark but have blue eyes, Brad looks eastern block-like, Owen Irish and Myles French? For those of you who have ever traveled in Morocco and/or India or the like, you know what I'm getting at here. We tried to stay straight faced and not show any signs of wavering with each linguistical attempt to sway us. But, unfortunately the boys didn't know about this type of guard (only that of don't drink the tap water or drink a carbonated drink with ice) and as soon as he spoke English they responded quite happily.
So, yes, we were swayed, and all within 20 minutes of walking onto the port of Tangiers. Ug! I couldn't believe this was happening. I swore we wouldn't be haggled in spending Dirhams on a guide for the Medina of Tangiers. But, once again, el destino-fate happens for a reason. We walked through parts of the Medina that we wouldn't have found on our own: the fresh produce and meat souks-markets, our first taste of the Alladin shoes and Arabic clothing, winding streets so small only two people can walk side by side, and of course the couscous and Tangines. One of the highlights was wondering through one of the textile areas where they spin wool and weave wool djellabas (typical full-length pullovers for men and women-incredibly warm!) and silk bedspreads and table covers. As fiber arts hold a special place in my heart I was very intrigued with how they were weaving. We found two men who were so kind and allowed us to enter into their work room and let the boys sit with them and weave. Take note: the clip you are about to see is of two young men, maybe around 20 years old each. I asked them first if we could watch and then if I could take a picture. Although Morocco is quite modern, there remains to be a large population who do not like their photo taken. I always thought it had something to do with the belief that a part of their spirit was stolen and lost but after asking Abdou(you'll meet him later) we found out that the Koran simply states that one should not house or have visual images taken due to the possibility of that image becoming an object of praise for people wherein they lose the spiritual connection. In short, remember those Scott Bailey, Rob Lowe, River Phoenix posters you had on your walls when you were in middle school?...tsk, tsk, tsk, from the persepctive of the Mulsim religion.
I'm going to digress a lot in this blog because there were so many things on this trip that I want to share with you....and remember for years to come. I still get a queasy and sad feeling in my gut when I think of these two young men. After I took the video of Myles and Owen (he's in there you just can't see him very well) weaving with them I asked if I could leave them a tip. They smiled beautiful smiles and said no. If I were to leave money it would be taken away immediately. Then I asked if I were to buy one of the table linens they made would the money go directly to them. No, was their response again. I then asked how much they make a week...some 80 Dh (dirhams). That is equal to 8 Euros or $7.00. I'm sick to my stomach writing this. I thought of how lucky our two boys are even though we are scared of the future for our children many times. Their will most likely never be even close to that of the weavers we met in Tangiers. This was the beginning of an ongoing feeling I had this entire trip and it was not due to all the bacteria I was eating and drinking.
Even though it was hard to stomach, we left a poverty stricken country as a richer family. The conversations we had with our kids ranged from: world poverty, child labor, the politics of a bourgeois society and capitalism, geography, geology, personal hygiene, French and Arabic language crash course, sign language of the Berbers, indigenous peoples of the world and their choice to etiher assimilate or not, education (is not always a given in life), oh, and of course, many hours of discussion about men, women and children in the muslim society we lived in for 10 days.
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| La Medina de Tangiers |
Our first encounter in Tangiers was to be expected. He approached quickly and boisterously, flashing his badge and trying to speak in first French, then German, afterwards came English, Spanish and some Italian. They can't figure our family out. I dyed my hair dark but have blue eyes, Brad looks eastern block-like, Owen Irish and Myles French? For those of you who have ever traveled in Morocco and/or India or the like, you know what I'm getting at here. We tried to stay straight faced and not show any signs of wavering with each linguistical attempt to sway us. But, unfortunately the boys didn't know about this type of guard (only that of don't drink the tap water or drink a carbonated drink with ice) and as soon as he spoke English they responded quite happily.
So, yes, we were swayed, and all within 20 minutes of walking onto the port of Tangiers. Ug! I couldn't believe this was happening. I swore we wouldn't be haggled in spending Dirhams on a guide for the Medina of Tangiers. But, once again, el destino-fate happens for a reason. We walked through parts of the Medina that we wouldn't have found on our own: the fresh produce and meat souks-markets, our first taste of the Alladin shoes and Arabic clothing, winding streets so small only two people can walk side by side, and of course the couscous and Tangines. One of the highlights was wondering through one of the textile areas where they spin wool and weave wool djellabas (typical full-length pullovers for men and women-incredibly warm!) and silk bedspreads and table covers. As fiber arts hold a special place in my heart I was very intrigued with how they were weaving. We found two men who were so kind and allowed us to enter into their work room and let the boys sit with them and weave. Take note: the clip you are about to see is of two young men, maybe around 20 years old each. I asked them first if we could watch and then if I could take a picture. Although Morocco is quite modern, there remains to be a large population who do not like their photo taken. I always thought it had something to do with the belief that a part of their spirit was stolen and lost but after asking Abdou(you'll meet him later) we found out that the Koran simply states that one should not house or have visual images taken due to the possibility of that image becoming an object of praise for people wherein they lose the spiritual connection. In short, remember those Scott Bailey, Rob Lowe, River Phoenix posters you had on your walls when you were in middle school?...tsk, tsk, tsk, from the persepctive of the Mulsim religion.
I'm going to digress a lot in this blog because there were so many things on this trip that I want to share with you....and remember for years to come. I still get a queasy and sad feeling in my gut when I think of these two young men. After I took the video of Myles and Owen (he's in there you just can't see him very well) weaving with them I asked if I could leave them a tip. They smiled beautiful smiles and said no. If I were to leave money it would be taken away immediately. Then I asked if I were to buy one of the table linens they made would the money go directly to them. No, was their response again. I then asked how much they make a week...some 80 Dh (dirhams). That is equal to 8 Euros or $7.00. I'm sick to my stomach writing this. I thought of how lucky our two boys are even though we are scared of the future for our children many times. Their will most likely never be even close to that of the weavers we met in Tangiers. This was the beginning of an ongoing feeling I had this entire trip and it was not due to all the bacteria I was eating and drinking.
Because we have so many photos and videos from this trip I'm going to divide posts into little segments. I'm also hoping to embed slide shows to include more photos on the blog. Let me know how they all come out!
I wouldn't forget ending the blog with a few quotes. I could't write them down fast enough on this trip! Enjoy!
"I'm worth more than 2 camels and a rug, aren't I?" "Well, at least it's not 2 goats."
"You go to McDonalds. You like. It's delicious." - Said with thick Arabic accent but in English.
"I can't believe there are so many cars and people and mopeds."
"If they're going to use 1 scrawny little donkey to pull the heavy loads, they could at least put air in the tires!"
"It's like the Mario Car Game where you try not to slip on the burro pooh."
"Would you really trade us in for Dirhams?"
"You good person. I be your friend. Where you from? You good friend."