Meeting Morocco

At first glance, Morocco is the country of the picture postcards, right down to the palm trees. Yet to say one knows an entire country at first meeting is a naïve as saying one know everything about a person with one look. 

Morocco is an ancient country, counting time in millennia rather than centuries. Its people have seen the coming of the Romans, Portuguese, Spanish and French, who pulled Morocco into empires that no longer exist. But Morocco remains. Amid the bustle of the marketplaces and the quiet of the mosques, there is a feeling of steadfastness and calm. No matter how transient the world and the people who pass over her, the heart of Morocco will stay the same.

As much as we might love to place people and countries in neat categories, Morocco seems to defy definition. Although we know it as Morocco, its official name is Al-Mamlaka al-Maghribya – The Kingdom of the West. It is a crossroads of Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the traditional Berber, or Amazigh, tribes. The country has been a gateway for differing cultures to convene. Signs are printed in Arabic, French and English.

The remnants of the French Protectorate which dominated the country from 1912-1956 are still visible. French is widely understood (though people have had challenges understanding my high-school-trained French. I am not certain I could speak with a 3-year-old in France). Those picture-perfect palm trees? They were imported by the French and British. Another lesson in how travel presents a time to learn and re-learn what we think we know.

Today marks the beginning of a journey to meet Morocco. Our group from Illinois Wesleyan will travel down the coast tomorrow to several towns, and then head east to meet with colleagues in the capital of Rabat. After that, we will journey to Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, up in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Today, however, is Casablanca.

Casablanca is busy and bustling. The greatest of the ports in Morocco, it is also home to one of the royal palaces. One look at the serious soldiers our front was enough to deter pictures, but we forged onto to the old marketplace, or medina. Shopkeepers called to us to see gorgeous fabrics and cooking ware, such as the traditional tajine.

After 24 hours of travel to gather together in Morocco, many from the IWU group are sitting at a corner café in Casablanca, practicing ways to pronounce the Moroccan version or Arabic, rather than the way it is spoken in Egyptian or Jordan. Sipping mint teas and cafés au lait, we quiz Dr. Zahia Drici, who grew up in France and spent time in nearby Algiers. She smiles with the same patience as many of the shopkeepers as we try to fold our clumsy tongues around the elegant language. Almost all shopkeepers know a smattering of English, and offer to translate when they can. I am hoping I can translate more than words I might not understand, but a people I do not yet know.