The Good Life in Mirleft

Diving under with the crew

I’m living an incredibly good life here in Mirleft, Morocco. A life where I am confidently understanding what I love and pursing just that. There are many times where I have felt as if I actively ran away from good feelings, and while I realize that most people I know wouldn’t say this about me, it is something that I have experienced in the past and that I trying to change in the present. This is part of the reason why I left Casablanca so suddenly- having tasted the good life here in Mirleft, I couldn’t reason myself to stay in the big city. And now that I’m back, after deciding to return because I just wanted to feel good, I find myself consciously accepting what I see as a bounty of positive feelings that I’m experiencing through an array of mostly aquatic activities, and it feels awesome.

Hanging

One of my most basic joys have been the moments after a wave crashes, when I’ve dove under the whitewash and resurface in a turbulent water full of sand, air, and currents. Instead of immediately lifting my head to breath and swim out of the post-wave mess, I’m beginning to rest within this chaos and enjoy getting tossed around on the surface. It feels like a million fingers moving all over my body, and there are times when I get the sensation of being tickled. Other times it feels like hands pushing me around, even pushing violently for a moment or two, but eventually settling down to a deep massage. It’s because of the way the waves break here. The lip of each wave breaks slowly, leaving a trail of whitewash , so that even when you dive under and swim to the surface, there is still a large swath of churned water behind. I feel like this heals my body.

The crew loves the

Bashir!

I’m basically a beach bum, but because I am so conscious of this, it somehow feels perfect. I wake up and go to the beach in the morning for one of two reasons. Either to harvest mussels and other mollusks with the newfound friends, or to run and swim and stretch on the sand. I return to the beach each afternoon, experiencing the water at a different tide and viewing the soft sand as a warm and welcoming retreat from the waves. Coming out of the water I run straight towards the sand to burry myself in its warmth, a familiar feeling to the California experience, but I’ve felt so relaxed these days that I often find myself falling asleep for a minute two, waking up with a sanded face and a smile.

Beach at Mirleft. Look at all that warm sand!

View of the plateau look over the cliff and into the Atlantic

I played a really interesting game the other day, that simply involved the feather of a seagull and some sand. As we were lying down in the sand towards the back of the beach, Bashir built a small mound and then buried a seagull feather within in, covering what had been left exposed with more soft sand. We then proceeded to take small drags of the sand with our fingers, slowly revealing the feather within. This continued, and you weren’t allowed to slow the movement of your fingers, until the feather fell to one side. If it fell towards your side, you lost, and were made to do something really funny and crazy at the beach, like climb to the top of a rock and yell “Allah al Akbar”, or go mess with some tourists, or simply run to the end of the beach and back. I found the game extremely delicate and awesome.

The crew after a Sunday surf session

The oasis of Mirleft

Language, or the use of language, has developed beautifully within my life during these travels to the south of Morocco. In most any other traveling experience, the acquisition of another language has been very important for me, and I’ve always attempted to restrict my use of language to that which I was learning. While I would like to continue to work on my language skills, I realize that this is not my project for the year, and that I can instead focus on using language for what it should be used for: to communicate and get things done. This is especially true in Mirleft, where everybody is essentially tetra lingual, speaking as a first language Berber (otherwise known as Amazigh), as a second dialectal Arabic, as a third French, and Classical Arabic as a fourth language. I usually speak in French, and randomly in the Classical Arabic that I know, which is always funny because it sounds so formal and stuck-up. I am, more importantly, extremely open to speaking in any language that I know, including mixes of them all, or helping people with their developing language skills. I’ve also come to enjoy simply listening to the locals speak in Berber. I love the way the language sounds, its full of Z’s and Ch’s and Mm’s, and how I can pick out a random word or two in Arabic or French. Really, I feel totally free with language, as if its only rule were that of utility.

Bisco, one of the best surfers in Mirleft

Tiznit, the bigger town 30km north of Mirleft

Our French language skills are usually the same, and I feel like we both speak the same post-colonial French, a language that I learned in Martinique and Tunisia. I remember a time when my friend Selena, who is basically French-American, came to Tunisia and spoke with her very proper Parisian French. Many people didn’t understand, and from time to time I found myself “translating” into this post-colonial French. We always thought this was funny. Here in Morocco, the same thing has happened with a few French Canadians that I’ve met, who, even when they tone-down their accent quebequois, still find it hard to make themselves understood by the Moroccans.

La Grande Maree Base

Mohammed harvesting mussels and running away from the waves

Mirleft is a town of about 5000 inhabitants on the southern coast of Morocco, about an 11 hour bus ride south of Casablanca, and the buzz on the street was that today was going to be la grande marée base, or what I’d translate as the big-ass low tide. Everybody was talking about what they were going to harvest, from mussels to clams to octopus to sole to this random mollusk I don’t know what is called in English, but in French it seems to be pousepille and in Spanish it is percebes. Yesterday the folks went out in the morning, and in the evening there were mythological tales being told of what was harvested from the sea. All were ready for today, where the tide was going to be even lower than the day before, exposing the rocks and small tidal pools where the biggest mussels are and the octopus have their dens. Last night I was invited to go out with numerous people to experience this grand event, but when it came time to fix an hour and a place to meet this morning, the best that I could get was an insha allah I’ll see you at your house (I’m actually renting a small apartment with two French Canadians that I randomly met, and it’s great to have a kitchen). So this morning I woke up at 5:22 am with the first call to prayer, turned on the porch light, packed my bag, opened the front door, and waited drinking tea.

The low tide scene from above and from below

Mohammed was the first person to arrive. He came with a faint and timid knock that I only heard because I was actively listening for it. We left with two others, whom I knew from before but am having a difficult time remembering their names (I’ve been meeting a lot of people during my time in Mirleft). There was a calm and heavy air extending over an empty plateau of desert shrubs, deserted plastic bags, and red rocks, which blended with the blue-grey Atlantic horizon ahead. You could see the faint silhouettes of others wandering towards the shore; their walk seemed so peaceful amongst this pastel backdrop of the first light that it could have been a pilgrimage.

Mussels and more mussels!

After descending the path down the cliff and to the beach, we took off whatever top layer we had on, grabbed some burlap bags, and head out towards the rocks at the edge of the sea. The dress code of the day was as follows, from top to bottom: any old short-sleeve t-shirt, preferably wide and stretched out (you’ll understand why in a second) and usually with some random logo of an American sports team or an 80‘s promotion for roller-skating, a pair of shorts, often board shorts but many times long denim or canvas shorts, and now for the best of all, long socks pulled up and over the calves with cheap plastic sandals on top.

Check out those feet

It was quite the scene. People; mothers, children, young men, old men, grandmothers and fathers, backs bent over and arms outstretched holding chisels, all over the rocks, scavenging the fruits of the sea. They were mostly collecting mussels, and would chisel them off of the rocks, and holding the end of their tee-shirt in their teeth to create a nice pouch, they would stash the bounty. When they had collected enough mussels to either fill their tee-shirt pouch, or enough weight to hurt their teeth, they would transfer the mussels to their burlap bag, and continue on with their work.

The morning crew, returning with the bounty

My job was to help Mohammed, and also to enjoy the scene. I carried a plastic bag that Mohammed would put the mussels in, and I would then transfer them to a burlap bag we had stashed on some higher rocks behind us. In such a way, we were able to work off of the furthest seaward rocks, or the place where from time to time big waves would roll in and over the rocks (and anything else, including human or burlap). We made a good team, or probably the only team, because it seemed like most everybody else worked alone.





The morning continued as such, with people slowly leaving as their burlap bags reached maximum capacity and the tide rolled in. We all retreated to the back of the beach, admiring our bounty as we loaded the bags onto donkeys. Mothers escorted the donkeys and men carried long poles with hooks on the end, used to pry octopus out of their dens, and plastic canvas bags with the octopus inside.

Nur Dean and Mohammed

I walked through the front door with three octopus, each one hanging by their heads on the index, middle, and pointer finger of my left hand, ending the morning of la grande marée base. We arrived at my house followed closely behind by the mothers, and there was a moment as we were saying good-bye and making plans to see each other at the beach in the next hour or so, that the mothers with the donkeys stopped to go around us. The women in the south, especially the older women, are very traditional, usually wearing the full head scarf and loose clothing that covers all, and usually stay at home. Now, they were in clothes, wet from the sea, sleeves and pants rolled up from the intense harvesting of mussels, hair held back by small handkerchiefs, and I could sense their modesty as they looked bashfully towards me and the ground. I finished saying good-bye to the men and I said that I would only take the octopus and other fruits de la mer if they came over for dinner tonight. For now, I’m off to the beach to catch some waves after an awesome morning with la grande marée base.

And the awesome dinner of fruits de la mer

Running Away from Casablanca

View of agricultural plots and the beach Imil Tourga in Mirleft, looking down the dry river basin

I ran away from Casablanca yesterday, traveling through the night to the south of Morocco. It shouldn’t have been hard to leave, but it was. Feelings of failure and that I was simply giving up made the trip to the bus station longer that it was, a nervous sweat poured down my forehead accumulating particles of pollution that floated from the streets, and I kept turning my head to look behind me for a sign of what to do. Waiting in line to buy my ticket seemed like an eternity and I continued the round-about process of self-questioning followed by unsatisfying answers until someone tapped me on the shoulder to let me know that I was next in line. This actually surprised me, because most any other Casablancan would have simply cut you in line if you weren’t paying enough attention to realize that you were next, or at least this is what I would have expected from my experience in the city thus far. Yet despite this random act of kindness at the queue, I didn’t change the affirmative decision I had recently made, and I pursued my purchase of a ticket for an 11 hour night bus ride towards the southern coast.

View from my hotel room in Casablanca

I had come to Casablanca with a purpose. I wanted to accomplish something, and yet soon found out that I was only another one of the many people trying to do the same. The city was full of people with grand ideas who had come from all over Morocco with the dream of finding good work , and throughout my time there, I didn’t meet one person that was actually from the city. I was told that anybody who was actually born and raised in Casablanca left when the French did, and those that have come to fill the old French colonial buildings have done so out of an obligation to find work and fulfil their moneymaking dreams. There was no sense of patriotism for the city, no hint that people actually liked where they lived, only that they were there to work and send money home to their families. Understanding this made it easier to explain the general grudge that most people seemed to carry with them. It was a grudge against anybody that has had better luck than them in the city. A grudge that makes it almost impossible for one person to help another- unless it is for money, of course.

Looking for the path. View from the top of the hill in Mirleft

The idea was to work with the Moroccan National Swimming Federation on what I had hoped to be a continuation of the general enthusiasm and support for the international Gibraltar team I was trying to put together. I wasn’t really asking the Federation for that much, simply to be put in contact with some swim teams in Casablanca so that I could find swimmers, train with a swim team, and make some friends in that big city. They played with me as if I were a dog, or so I felt, although I may have poorly interpreted our interaction due to cultural misunderstanding, because I am further learning the pace of how things work in Morocco, which is, compared to the U.S. or even Spain, is slow. Basically, my meeting with the Federation started by them telling me to come to their office on a certain date and time - normal, right? When I arrived they made me wait a while, only to tell me to return later that day. And when I did, I was given five minutes of time with a man who had his briefcase packed and sunglasses on his head as if he were already out the door. I had only been in Casablanca for one day, but had already had a string of unpleasant experiences that made me desperate to begin to find some kind people, or I should say find nice people that weren’t only nice because they wanted money. This together with my experience at the Federation, which as I have described was highly unproductive (I came out of it with a phone number and an email that were written in such a sloppy and rushed print that I can’t even read them), made me immediately feel like I needed to leave that city. But I, like the other three million people that walk those streets, had come to Casablanca with a dream, and I didn’t want to simply give up.

La Grande Mosquee de Hasan II in Casablanca. Very big, but with little warmth

What began to drive me crazy about Casablanca were the number of beggars on the streets. It wasn’t a normal kind of begging, where people sit with their hand out. The type of begging here followed you as you were walking ,or was a small child that clung to your leg, or were hands in your face or fingers on your shoulder. It was a begging that was abundant and overwhelming- it was something that I didn’t know how to deal with. I’ve experienced countries more poor than Morocco, places like Yemen or Bolivia, and consider myself somewhat accustomed to poverty. Now I don’t think that this is a good thing, and by accustomed it is not that I don’t have a problem with, and definitely not that I accept poverty, only that I know that in places where real poverty exists, I always walk around with my pockets full of small change to give away. This, I feel, is the only way to be somewhat comfortable as a tourist in a place where people beg (and even this level of comfort I have a problem with). But it wasn’t enough in Casablanca, because not only did people consistently beg persistently, but the city was also full of people asking me for money because they had given me directions or showed me a restaurant- people being nice and then asking you for money because of it.

Imil Tourga. The beach at Mirleft

The Senegalese soothsayer who had followed me around my first day in the city, attempting to coerce me into becoming his business partner in a fucked-up plan that he had which included creating some type of magic perfume out of herbs unique to Morocco, but which was really just an attempt at getting me to give him a lump sum of money for his “start-up costs“, found me after my great meeting with the Federation. It was Saturday and I had arrived in Casablanca on Thursday morning. By that point I was so jaded by the city that I found the soothsayer as a stroke of comic relief from the desperation that plagued me. He found me on my way to the coastal section of Casablanca, where the beaches and boardwalk are, and invited himself to come along. Then came the first hints of another scheme. On the bus ride towards the water, he said numerous times “Il faut que je te dis quelque chose”, but every time that I said “Vas-y, dites-moi”, he would just shake his head in some pitiful attempt to look sorrowful. At the beach he finally told me that he was really sick and needed money for antibiotics. He held is side in pain and shook is head in that sorrowful, but really pitiful way. 300 Dirhams. I ran into the water when we got to the beach, and stayed there until I had my head together, for at that point I was about to go crazy. The thought crossed my mind that he may steal my stuff as he sat on the sand waiting for me, but I only had with me my clothes and enough money for the bus ride and maybe some food, and possibly could have cared less if he left me stranded at the beach in my board shorts, and not going for a swim was simply not an option.

Legzira Plage. Awesome arches descending into the sea

Mansour was his name, and I invited him to tea after I got out of the water (only because I wanted to stay near the ocean to watch the sunset, otherwise I would have returned to the hotel to get rid of him). The complaints about whatever illness he had invented had slowly faded and we began to share stories of Senegal and Califonria, making me think, obviously a bit to optimistically, that he had left the antibiotic story behind and in the sand where it belongs. But when we returned to the centre of town and were walking down the streets towards my hostel, he began with that same story, the same side-holding and head shaking stance followed by an I need 300 Dirhams, please. This on top of all the other begging I had experienced drove me momentarily crazy, not that crazy, but I did yell and curse enough for him to look scared and walk away. I haven’t seen him since.

Main street, Mirleft. Vew from the hill

I think that I would have tried to make things work with the Swimming Federation if it weren’t for the desperation I felt in the streets of Casablanca. My project seemed futile, or without purpose compared to this begging. Neither did I feel like I could live a healthy and active life there, and I began to question what my project actually was. In sum, I questioned, and obviously continue to do so, whether I should live my life for an ultimate goal (which in this case is the organization of an international team of swimmers and a traverse of Gibraltar in relay fashion), or do I simply follow what feels right and live where I feel most healthy and alive? I should have prefaced this by saying that prior to arriving in Casablanca I had spent five amazing days in Mirleft, a southern town on the coast, where I passed the time swimming in the ocean and playing in the waves with the locals, feeling extremely good but not really thinking about the project. Thus going to the bus station and buying a ticket out of Casablanca and south to Mirleft, was, for me, filled with these existential thoughts of how to live my life.

Hakim, aBoubakar and Max

I came to the decision that my project must be an expression of my immediate goals, but always taking into account the fact that I have already paved a path in life to become a doctor. Thus for my project to have true meaning and value, for me to feel like through it I am living a good life, I either need to be doing something that benefits the community around me (and the swim didn’t seem to have any purpose in Casablanca), or I must be cultivating my individual potential for this later purpose. So I’ve decided to return to Mirleft, where the ocean seems to be a healing force for my body and spirit; the beach here is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen and the waves are perfect for body surfing.

The souk scene at Marrakesh

I still don’t know where the project of an international Gibraltar team and swim is headed, although it may still have a chance amongst these Surfing Bebers. I didn’t leave to forget the desperate chaos of Casablanca, or because it was simply easier to give up on my project. I left because I want to feel great in my life right now and not struggle to find meaning in the big city- I‘ve done a lot of that type of thinking in my life, and believe that I‘ve found my own answer.

Small town in the Ourika Valley, outside of Marrakesh

I’ll have to return to Casablanca on my way back to Spain, and I’m sure to use the pockets of coins strategy to survive. I’m very curious to know whether I’ll bump into Mansour once again, and what type of story he’ll come up with this time. I’m going to the ocean right now, there are bunch of people waiting for me in the waves. They are crazy about my waterproof camera and all want me to take video of them surfing. I obviously will want to body-surf on my own without the camera, but I’ve got the whole afternoon to do it all.

Ourika Valley

Leaving Madrid

The beautiful pool at Pio XII: Madrid

The first signs of fall have arrived in Madrid: the outdoor pools are now all closed and the air is crisp and fresh. People are wearing pants and coats, and the city is back to the routine of work and school, a grand transformation after the summer vacation. I’ve been in Madrid for the past week or so, staying with Marga and recuperating after swimming the Strait of Gibraltar. The day after the Strait, when I was back in Madrid, I felt as though a truck had run me over, or something. I hadn’t slept the two nights prior to the swim, nerves and excitement kept me awake, which only added to the fatigue of swimming 20km in cold and choppy waters. I felt a tired from within my bones that manifested itself in corporal pain, which at times I imagined was just an aurora of energy that was trying to find a way out of my body. What really hurt were by neck, upper back and shoulders. These muscles were so tight that to the touch some of them seemed like bones. It must have been because of the ocean chop and how I had to lift my neck to breath by anchoring my arms in the ocean to raise my upper torso out of the water. This for 3.5 hours, but it felt magical the whole way. I remember riding the ocean chop at times, or loving the way that the lip of a small wave in the middle of the ocean would fold over and crash a cool turbulence of white over my back!

Another outing with Angelon before leaving Spain

Now, a week after the Strait, a week in Madrid sleeping and recuperating, my body feels whole again, stronger than before and with a newfound confidence in what I am able to accomplish with my body. I’ve also spent this past week contacting the cultural affairs department of the U.S. and the Moroccan embassies here in Spain. I’m looking to get formal, if not financial support for a project I hope to organize for next June/July 2010. My goal is to collect a team of swimmers from Morocco, Spain, and the U.S. to complete a round trip traverse of the Strait of Gibraltar as a relay. I’m thinking two swimmers from each country, meaning that each swimmer would swim around 6km, or if I can raise enough money, then maybe there could be more than one team. These meetings have been very successful and so far I have felt nothing but support from both U.S. and Moroccan officials. The first thing that has to be done, however, is to find some Moroccan swimmers that are interested in the cause, and to do this, I’m off to Morocco in two days. I haven’t made any formal contacts as of yet , and am not sure what I will encounter, but I am excited to pack my bags and head out on a new adventure.

Heather Evans! Grade-school friend from California

I will miss Spain and the people that I’ve become close to. Nacho and Marga. Angelon and all of those lifeguards from Toledo and Guadalajara. Luis Palen. Gonzalo, Xavier and David. Pilar. Siguenza as a whole. Madrid as well. The family of Marga. Amparo, the beautiful mother of Nacho. El Ruso, or Don Emilio. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Nacho’s mother, Amparo, told me that I was very fortunate to be having such a wonderful experience here in Spain. Yes, I do feel very fortunate. But when she told me this I had an instinctual reaction to say that I would return all the good that has come my way when I am a doctor. In the meantime I hope that I can at least give back to the karma pot through cultural exchange and organizing this international relay of swimmers that will swim from Europe to Africa and back. Hasta luego España, y muchísimas gracias.

View from La Casa del Campo