68 hours in Madrid

Me in an interview at the US Embassy in Madrid.

I returned to Spain on Wednesday the 12^th of May, nostalgically leaving behind Morocco for only 68 hours. I had coordinated the trip so that I could travel with Carlos back to Madrid, go to a few meetings, give a few presentations, pick up some papers needed for Bachir and Hakim’s Spanish visas, and then return to Morocco with Margarita. The entire trip in Spain lasted less than 68 hours, from Wednesday morning to Saturday morning, but was just enough time to do what needed to be done and return to Mirleft without feeling like I had been gone for too long.

Madrid. La Gran Via

Mirleft. La Mosquee

I’ve been working with the Cultural Affairs Department of the United States Embassy in Madrid, who is funding part of the costs associated with the Gibraltar swim planned for the 26^th /27^th of June. They gave me the opportunity to give presentations at public bilingual schools around Madrid, and between Thursday and Friday (13th/14th) I gave three presentations to three classes of about 50 6^th graders at two different schools. I organized a of my Watson year to date, talking about training to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar, arriving in Mirleft, the Junior Lifeguard program in Peru, and what I called The Big Project: 5 swimmers from 3 countries, swimming from Europe to Africa. I used a lot of pictures, and because my project is about swimming, many of the images included men and women in swim suits, which made the presentation a bit more interesting to 12 year olds.

Ice-breaker activity with the kids.

The boys loved this picture of Marga. I like it also.

When talking about The Big Project, I asked for two volunteers and did an interactive demonstration where I put a “border” on the ground (which was a long rope), then blindfolded the kids and picked them up and placed them on either side of the border and asked them to guess which country they were in: A or B. Subsequently, I took off their blindfolds and placed a sheet over the border, which was supposed to symbolize a body of water, and then asked them to do the same thing as before: determine which country they were in.

Picking the kids up and taking them traveling

The kids laughed as I picked-up their friends and spun them around before placing them down on either side of a border, and definitely understood the questions I was trying to raise about the significance and often times arbitrary nature of political borders, especially when looked at from the perspective of physical geography. The final part of the presentation was to take the ocean (the sheet) and roll it into a river that crossed the border (the rope). I then took a plastic bag and threw it in the river on country A’s side of the border and let it flow downstream to country B, and asked the kids “Whose trash is this?”. There were a number of intelligent responses, but our only definitive answer was country A and country B would have to work together if they didn’t want trash in the river.

Describing the Big Project

The US Embassy provided transportation to the schools. A chauffeur and a really nice employee in the Cultural Affairs Department picked me up at Marga’s pad on both mornings. On Thursday, after presentation, I went to the US Embassy and met with Alan Solomont, the US Ambassador to Spain, who was also a Watson Fellow in the early 70’s. He was very nice and it would have been great to spend more time talking with him, but I understand that the life of an Ambassador is busy. In any case, I’d like for Hakim, Bachir, Marga and Carlos to be able to meet him and Laura Gould, who is the Cultural Affairs Officer at the US Embassy and the women who has been helping me significantly with this project. I was thinking that we could cook a Moroccan dinner for them at the Ambassador’s residence, but that may be too much to ask. What I liked most about the experience, was that I got to check out life at the Embassy, which was very interesting to me because I have considered working in international diplomacy. Medical school, however, is first.

Back in Mirelft at the weekly Monday market...the souk.

I spent Thursday and Friday afternoons getting papers together for medical school apps and the Strait of Gibraltar crossing to mail from Madrid. The more pressing paperwork was the visa application for Hakim and Bachir, which involved going to a notary, twice, and getting letters of support from the US Embassy and from Marga. I brought this paperwork back to Morocco, and while Marga was here, we all went to drop it off at the Spanish Consulate in Agadir.

Back in Mirleft...working on the visas.

On Saturday, at the wee hour of 4:30am, Marga’s mom Azucena took us to the airport for our 6:25am flight to Marrakesh, ending my 68 hour voyage to Madrid.

Carlos comes to Mirleft

Max, Carlos, Bachir, Hakim

Carlos and I kicking on the beach in Mirleft

Over these past 10 months, Carlos Alonso Ruiz and I have become brothers. We first met in August 2009 during a lifeguard training camp at a beach on the French side of the Spanish French border, and have traveled together through five different countries since this first meeting. After France, I next adventure came forth after I had mentioned to him and the teammates of his lifesaving team Alcarreno, that I would be going to Peru to organize a youth lifesaving program, and if any of them wanted to help out they would be more then welcome- they would be useful. Two months passed before Carlos wrote to me in mid October while I was in Mirleft, Morocco, and said that he wanted to come to Lima. Over the following two weeks we figured out the details of our trip, and on November 10^th 2009 we met up in Peru.

And the team is......Insha allah we will swim across the Strait of Gibraltar together in late June.

Carlos, Max, and friends kicking it on a great roadtrip though Spain.

Together in Peru we worked with the lifeguard division of the Peruvian National Police to organize the first Junior Lifeguard program the country has ever seen, working together for approximately three months. We shared an apartment in a blue collar neighborhood of Lima and also extensively traveled the Peruvian coastline. Carlos returned to Spain in February to begin a master’s degree as a professional sports trainer, and upon my return to Europe in March, our brotherhood has flowered into a series of trips throughout Spain, Portugal, and most recently, his 10 day visit to Mirleft, Morocco.

Hakim, Carlos, Max...at Legzira beach south of Mirleft

To come to Mirleft, Carlos’s journey began by his mom taking him from their home in Guadalajara to the airport in Madrid, where he flew on a cheap flight to Marrakesh. Following his arrival in Marrakesh, he took an eight hour bus ride south to Tiznit. I was waiting for him at the bus station in Tiznit with Bashir, Hakim, Rachid, who stood with a sign that read CAR LOST, a joke I adapted from the stories he told of his Australian friends who made fun of his name. I watched from behind a wall as Carlost got off the bus and wandered over to a group of strangers holding a sign that had something to do with his name. After the first introductions and a joyful reuniting, we hopped in a shared taxi for the final 40 kilometers of Carlost’s journey from Guadalajara, Spain, to Mirleft, Morocco.

Grilling sardines on our rooftop terrace

After we had finally arrived in Mirleft, we collectively went to the small apartment I’ve been renting. Later that night we cooked a fish tajine and stayed-up late talking and laughing together.

Eating good food with great friends at our apartment

We spent our days at the beach and our evenings eating really good food that we either cooked at our apartment or we invited to at friends’ homes. I believe that the ease with which all of my friends connected with Carlos, and the way he adapted to life in Mirleft, was directly due to his focused vision of experiencing Morocco. Unlike many foreign tourists, he hadn’t come to Morocco to see something “exotic”, to buy things or to take unwelcome pictures of men and women (he actually didn’t even have a camera). Carlos came to Mirleft to be in the ocean, to help teach swimming, to surf, and specifically to meet Hakim and Bachir. After Carlos was initially introduced to my group of buddies, I often lost track of where he was or that he was my guest in the country. I would usually turn around to find him laughing and joking around with our friends, or spot him in the ocean catching some waves.

Carlos hanging with the homeboys

Carlos representing Berber culture with the symbolic Amazigh sign

Language and conversation was an interesting aspect of Carlos’s stay in Mirleft. Carlos’s knowledge of French is limited to an ocean centered vocabulary he’s learned over his summers spent in France, and he definitely doesn’t speak Arabic of Tashelit (the dialect of Berber spoken in southern Morocco). But between the English that he does speak well, albeit with a thick Australio-Spanish accent, and a little translating I did between Spanish and a Franco-Arabic lingo, plus the astonishing linguistic flexibility of most Moroccans (more on this topic later), he was able to communicate very well.

Karmous!!! My dog! Somebody gave him to me, and he lives on my rooftop and I take him to the beach. It is awesome.

During the first few days Carlos that Carlos spent in Mirleft, the ocean was a tumultuous mess of large waves rolling in short periods churned by heavy winds. This all calmed down by the weekend, and on Saturday and Sunday we were able to go for long swims with Bachir, Hakim, and a few other friends. On Saturday we swam from Tabu Greisht to Imin Trouga, covering the distance of about 1km that separates the two beaches. We started by meeting up at one of Ahmed’s houses. Ahmed is an older man that takes care a few beach-front mansions and lets us leave our beach gear and use the shower at one of these homes. Because we were 9 swimmers in total, we took a rescue board and rescue can with us on the swim, both turning out to be very useful.

Hakim kicking it outside of one of the houses Ahmed cares for and let's use.

Swimming from Tabu Greisht to Imin Trouga is something that you can brag about in Mirleft. While the ocean culture here is strong, going for long swims in the ocean is rare, thus swimming 1km from one beach to another is a big deal. The water was calm, although unseasonably cold, and we swam in groups. At some time during the swim, however, Bachir began to get really cold and didn’t tell anybody. Bachir is super skinny and was wearing an old and thin wetsuit, something that didn’t protect him from the cold. While his body temperature dropped, his reasoning skills did as well, and at a certain point he passed into hypothermia. I was patrolling the waters with the rescue can, and when I asked him how he was doing because I could see that he was really cold and had this glazed look in his eyes, he said “I’m doing great, we’re already done”.

The group before a swim

Hakim...swimming

Shit. I screamed for the rescue board and Carlos paddled over, pulled Bachir onto the board, and paddled him to shore. Because I was swimming, it took me longer to get to shore, but when I did, I found that Bachir was sitting there on the sand without his wetsuit on, cold stiff and not past the shivering point, and his friends were just laughing at him. This would have been fine if Bachir were “just cold”, but he was hypothermic and couldn’t even think clearly enough to know how cold he really was. I yelled at his friends for not helping him and ran with Bachir to Ahmed’s house where I placed him on the shower floor and put hot water over him for 30 minutes. I would have stayed with him in the shower for longer, but the hot water ran out, and so I had to dry him off and dress him in all of the clothes I could find strewn around Ahmed’s place. He came back to life, but definitively learned that he can get dangerously cold.

Bachir getting ready for a swim

Meskine. Bachir getting warm after a swim.

The next day I went on a swim with just Hakim and Bachir, but we were accompanied on the paddle board by Boosein. I didn’t expect Bachir to swim considering that he got hypothermia from doing the same swim the previous day, but he was determined to get back in the water. Hakim wanted to do a round-trip swim from Imin Trouga to Tabu Greisht and back, and so we started in the water with Boosein on the paddle board, me and Hakim swimming, and Bachir waiting for us at Tabu Gresiht. It was a great swim on another beautiful day of clear and calm waters, and Bachir was able to swim the whole way back without getting hypothermia.

Hanging in old French ruins on Hakim's birthday. Always swimming

One of the most memorable experiences of Carlos’s stay was celebrating Hakim’s birthday at the French ruins on a hill overlooking Mirleft. In Muslim culture, birthdays are not recognized with a celebration and many Muslims I’ve met in Morocco, Tunisia or Yemen don’t know their birthday, only the year they were born in. Because Carlos was here, however, we decided to celebrate Hakim’s birthday in a fusion of European and Moroccan tradition. We hiked to the ruins towards sunset with pieces of cake and everything necessary to make tea- a kettle, sugar, water, sugar, tea, sugar, charcoal, sugar, a lighter and a little bit of sugar. What ensued were a few hours of singing, dancing, taking pictures, drinking sweet tea and eating cake. It was awesome and simple and highly memorable for all of us.

Drinking tea (what they jokingly call Moroccan whiskey) to celebrate Hakim turning 23.

During the 10 days Carlos was in Morocco, we went to the public bath house twice. The first time was with Mohammed and Hussein, and the second was with Hakim and Bachir. Going to the public bath house for the first time is a very intimate experience. You feel lost inside layers of rooms that extend into the deep and hottest abyss, where steam flows out of a hot water well and men lay relaxed on the floor in their underwear. Eating a communal plate of tajine of couscous for the first time is also an intimate experience, where hands shoot out from all directions and dive into an aromatic dish. But Carlos was so comfortable and open with it all that he fit right into the cultural experience and I believe had a very enriching time in Mirleft.

Getting ready to dive into a plate of couscous at Hakim's house. Carlos and Yousef (Hakim's brother)

Couscous. The Friday tradition.

I returned to Madrid with Carlos, going first from Mirleft to Tiznit by shared taxi with Hakim and Bachir. In Tiznit, we spent the afternoon training at the pool. Carlos was Bachir’s trainer and I worked with Hakim. Afterwards we went shopping for a few boxes of dates to bring back to Spain as gifts, and then hopped on the bus for an eight hour ride to Marrakesh, arriving at the lovely hour of 3:30am. We went directly to the airport and slept on the cold tile floor until our 8am flight. Arriving in Madrid we separated, Carlos getting picked up from the airport by his mother and me taking the metro into Madrid to meet up with Marga, the other Spanish swimmer involved in this project. When we bid farewell, Carlos gave me four kisses in the traditional Moroccan manner of two on each cheek followed by a long hug. We laughed and he asked if that was how it was done in Morocco. I laughed again and gave him another four kisses.

Returning to Mirleft, Morocco

The road to the beach

Hakim, Max, Bashir. At the pool in Tiznit

Mirleft is a small town on the southern coast of Morocco, with a population of about eight thousand, half of which is concentrated in a small center about 500 meters from the sea. The remainder is dispersed in small clusters of houses in the surrounding hills and seaside cliffs. I first came to MIrleft in early October of 2009 on a chance visit from Marrakesh while I was in limbo on my way to Casablanca, waiting for a meeting with the Moroccan Swimming Association. Instead of describing why I returned to Mirleft again in late October after what became my short visit to Casa, and now why I’m back here five months later and planning to stay in this town for two months, I’d rather paint the picture of my first week in Mirleft and leave it to the reader to interpret why I love this place so much.

The town mosque

Boubkar and Mohammed drinking tea at my apartment

I spent my first night in Mirleft Hotel Abertih, a place I’ve stayed at before, and was warmly greeted by the receptionists that remembered me from the last time. Even before I put my bags in my room, a few of the friends made last year saw me arrive in a shared taxi and came to greet me with hugs and kisses. We shared some stories before I went to my room to sleep and recuperate from 18 hours on a bus. When I awoke, I simply went out to the main street in town and easily bumped into all the people I had met last October. Reuniting with these friends was a heartwarming experience, and everybody was friendly and excited to hear what I had been doing the past few months. They helped me find a small apartment to rent, which I’m still in now, and we made plans to go to the beach the next day. Aside from a lot of winter rains, the only thing that had changed in their lives was that a few of the younger friends physically matured much more than I could have expected, going through these grand growth spurts that had converted them into men.

At the beach with Bashir and Hakim

I had arrived on a Friday, so I was greeted by a great weekend at the beach. I took my rescue board out on both Saturday and Sunday morning, going for long paddles up and down the coast. Each afternoon I would hang at the beach and catch up with the locals, playing games on the sand and going for short swims in the waves. One night, a few friends came over and we cooked a great fish tajine for dinner. Other nights, we would sit at the local snack shop and eat a typical fish sandwich. Because Mirleft is so small, walking the streets you are greeted by everybody, and the familiarity of this town made me feel at home amongst family.

Checking out the surf.

Sunset view from my apt. window.

By Monday, I was fully settled in Mirleft and began to get more serious about a training schedule with Hakim and Bashir, the two Moroccan swimmers that plan on swimming the Strait of Gibraltar with me and the Spanish swimmers Carlos and Margarita in June. Throughout my time in Peru, I had stayed in touch with Hakim and Bashir, and our brief G-chats and sporadic emails were enough for me to communicate the necessary details of our projects progress. We got a pass at the local gym and created a training plan that includes time in the ocean as well as the pool. Likewise, we began to discuss how we were going to document our project, and of course, we’ve continued the detailed process of getting Hakim and Bashir visas for Spain.

Haha. If only swimming in the water were this easy.

Throughout my first week, I adjusted to the slow pace and peaceful attitude of Mirleft, conforming to the small but sufficient list of activities, the basis of which is, of course, the abundant ocean that is 500 meters away and the numerous friends that are all around. My second weekend in town, however, was full of activity. On Friday I went to Hakim’s house to eat couscous, the Friday tradition, and we spent the afternoon walking the quiet streets. On Saturday, I went to part of the wedding ceremony of Bashir’s sister, which consisted of a bunch of older men sitting in a circle in a small room, eating really good food and drinking really sweet tea. On Saturday night, there was a festival celebrating Berber culture and the coming of spring, with good live music, traditional dancing, and a few cool exhibitions, all connected to a shaky electrical grid that came and went throughout the night.

Men dancing in the Spring festival.

With Ahmed and the dudes. Ahmed takes care of some nice mansions and let's us leave our surf equipment and take showers there.

As I said before, things are peaceful and slow around here. I believe that this pace of life is dictated by the fact that this is a small town where everybody knows each other and the most consistent activity is to simply walk out your front door and talk with the people around you. This is mixed with a coastal surfer vibe, where what you do, whether that be fishing or surfing, is regulated by environmental conditions and so can never be fixed or exactly planned. Add to this the fact that this is a culture of insha allah, where any plans are subject to change given the will of god (or your will). None of this has facilitated a strict training regime for Bashir and Hakim, both of whom need to get serious about our upcoming swim, but we’re finding a balance between my American work ethic and the pace of life around Mirleft.

Hanging with the crew

It is great to be back in Mirleft, this time for two months, and I’m feeling really good about how things are going thus far. I’ve started to teach a course in English and Environmental Education at a local Berber cultural association, I’m talking with the town council about painting a series of murals, and am living in a small apartment nestled amongst friendly neighbors. I feel a part of this community and appreciate that people recognize that unlike many tourists who come here to simply swim in the lovely waters or take pictures of the veiled Berber women, that I am here to create, and give, and build, and share, and learn.

As for upcoming plans, Carlos arrives from Spain next week, and we have a whole set of activities in mind. For now, it is great to be back and living the good life in Mirleft.