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The following morning I boarded a train to Casablanca. We had dinner with his grandparents and aunty, devouring a freshly made Pastilla…. Pastilla is one of the gems of northern Moroccan cuisine. It is a sweet, spiced, chicken and almond pastry that makes love with your mouth in the most gentle way. Chunks of chicken meld with sweet cinnamon and flaky pastry to curate an oral orgasm that is both familiar and yet totally unique in flavour profile. It reminded me of a meat pie back home while simultaneously also carrying the flavour profile and textural elements of an almond croissant. A magical melding of my two favourite baked goods. After dinner Nour and I walked around the housing precinct, watching kids kick plastic bottles and men drink coffee. We spoke about Islam and the ways in which it gives Nour meaning in life, how it shapes his understanding of family and global politics. The war waging in the middle east had particular significance to everyone around me, including Nour. I saw television screens and mobile phones depicting violence and shared suffering. We tried to make sense of it all, knowing full well we were so far from ever truly understanding the complexities of it. As we walked we recognised where our differences lay. Our opinions on religion were evidently different, but we embraced that as we always have. Our perspectives on family and relationships were also contextualised by our religious beliefs or lack there of and as such we interrogated the space between us in these areas. We argued and debated in a way that reminded me how absolutely necessary it is to surround yourself with people who see the world differently than you. Neither of us changed our point of view, but we became aware of new ways of looking at the world, and that is always valuable. He dropped us at the train station and we made our way to Fes. After the taxi driver tried to rip us off as they often seem to do we spent the afternoon getting lost in the chaos. The energy was different in Fes. There was an intensity that was less regulated than in Marrakech. People were more aggressive with their salesmanship and directional deception scams. We spent sunset on top of some ruins overlooking the Medina. They loitered close by all the visitors of the hillside, many of whom gave up on their sunset intentions due to their aggressive directions and invasive intensity. It left quite a sour taste in our mouths, and we walked back to the hostel unsure of how we felt about Fes. We ate lamb tajine on the rooftop while an overly friendly cat tried to swipe each mouthful from our hands before it reached our mouths. The next day the realities of the old Medina and the tourism machine became much clearer. Everything was a game and nearly everyone in the area was there to hustle money out of tourist pockets. Even a tour guide we had booked left us after two minutes because he found a European couple that would pay him more. The energy of the city was overwhelmingly transactional. From a cultural standpoint, I have no doubt that the artistic practices of leather making, rug weaving and wood carving were historically significant but the integrity of the practices as they were presented seemed watered down by the tourist ecosystem. Most places sold the same few items, all of which appeared to be made en masse somewhere else or performatively constructed in store off of a standardised mould. As much as I tried there were few people interested in connecting deeper than the surface level. In contrast, what I found really beautiful about Marrakech is that in the main square there were many entertainers in the evening who were there to serve the local Arabic Moroccan and Berber various dialects speaking population. These storytellers would set up chairs and musical instruments and craft stories for crowds of people. This tradition is locally known as hikayat and dates back hundreds of years. The storytellers weave donations into their routine, asking for money to reveal the next part of the story in a very seamless and authentic way. They draw a huge crowd night after night, and I later found out that some of these storytellers have been doing it for over 25 years. This was the closest thing to theater that I witnessed anywhere in Morocco, and from all accounts it seems to pre-date the Arab conquest of the region, suggesting that it operates as a historically indigenous art form. The complex relationship between Islam and live art some scholars consider it haram, while others say it is not haram if it strictly adheres to Islamic beliefs , inevitably contributes to the lack of storytelling and theater around the country. Fes does have a long history of being a central point for Sufism, however its modern prevalence outside of a yearly Sufi festival appeared inaccessible. I struggled in Fes and across Morocco to delve deeper into the religious and spiritual practices because of the ways in which Islam is fairly closed off to non-believers. The tourism economy also creates an additional layer that hinders deeper penetration into the spiritual and cultural practices of the region. Tourism is an incredible privilege and a major economic boost for many countries around the world, but the ways in which the industry operates can often lead to the watering down of culture and problematic incentive structures that shift local populations to be in constant service of outsider needs. After a few days I said goodbye to Nour and ventured north to Chefchaouen. It became quickly evident that aside from the bright blue streets, the main tourist attraction was cannabis. It was a major turn off, that shed light on how monumental the cannabis industry had become in northern Morocco. The Rif mountains have, by all accounts, been a global provider for hash and cannabis products for centuries. Now, more than ever, the local product is a tourism tool, that is providing for hundreds if not thousands of families and otherwise impoverished communities. This further illustrates how the war on drugs disproportionally affects poorer communities around the world, while simultaneously leveraging their willingness to engage in the riskier roles within the global market. I leave my views on global drug politics behind as I venture up into the mountains. I follow a path past goat farmers and a small hotel. I witness the blue city from above as the call of the Mosques create a cacophony of sound. I walk through the hot heat of the sun and the cool breeze of the mountains, reaching a peak that reveals a glimpse of the mediterranean sea. I see Spain in the distance. I smoke a combination of hash and lavender and close my eyes for a moment. I reflect on a conversation I had yesterday…. I met a tour guide who had grown up in Chefchaouen and yet his mind existed well beyond the confines of the small town. He was not religious but deeply spiritual, reflecting on life and culture and his place amongst these fields of energy. He spoke with a genuineness that was refreshing. I felt seen, not as a tourist but as a short-term friend. We reflected on our vastly different lived experiences and he showed me photos of how this place used to be, well before it was known as the blue city. He described the roles of women and of men, and how culture and custom formed around these distinctions. He spoke of prayer and of education. Conquest and colonisation. It is through moments like these and people like this that you come to understand the true weight of the world and the disparities in heaviness and history that mark the edges of barriers and borders. By being exposed to new ways of life, new practices and momentums, new energies and languages, you discover parts of yourself that tie you to people of vast difference. Travel is a unifier. It shows you your privilege and your lack there of. It reveals to you your position and your agency in a world of complexity and vibrant individuality, while simultaneously exposing the thread of humanity that connects you and all that you know with the strange unknown of everything and everybody else. I walk back to my hotel. I buy some food and a bottle of water and I sit on the rooftop, and live out another moment watching the sunset as the sounds of people and birds and animals and vehicles morph into one loud hum. I try and find stillness amongst the chaos wherever I go. Primarily because I have to. I try and take moments to appreciate the profundity and complete absurdity of my lived experience. Through this experience of maintained aloneness I have found such a miraculous sense of courage and confidence. There are things that I do now that I could have never imagined myself doing. For the first time in my life I am learning to know what it is like to not fear awkwardness but to instead embrace its warmth. I eat alone many nights. I walk alone and I plan alone. I sometimes have several days where I barely make contact with other human beings. Sometimes I go a little crazy in that aloneness and so I seek out grounding connections, but sometimes I want to delve deeply into that weird space of self and explore who and how I am there. I drive to Tangier with a beautiful man with two children. He takes the back roads to avoid the police. We speak via translation apps for the entire two hour drive. He spends more time on his phone than watching the road because he wants to tell me about all of the sights we are passing. A dam. A village market. A military base. Another famous town. He struggles to make money to feed his family, and I know he is far from alone in that struggle. I can tell he is kind, and gentle and that if he could he would give his family everything. This is that thread. Woven between the space of two car seats, we find our shared center. His love for his family reminds me of my own. His kindness reminds me of the kindness I wish to reflect in my own life. People become mirrors and they become reminders of who we truly are and what we truly value. He tells me he is happy and that makes me happy as well. I spend a few nights in a hostel in Tangier. I meet some characters. A man a little younger than me is running away from something. I can tell because he avoids questions about where he is from and why he is travelling. His plan is to take a bus down through west Africa. He is chasing the adrenaline of discomfort. Another man is a regional politician in the UK. He is well educated and jokes about his lack of a sex life. His humour is dry and full of wit. I enjoy his perspectives on the world and his love of banter. Another man has just finished college in the US. He is travelling for the first time before settling down with his girlfriend. I can see that his vision of the world is changing. He is quiet and pensive, figuring things out in his mind as he reads a book from a local bookstore. I spend one morning chatting with a British couple who are following the migratory path of endangered birds from the north of Spain down into the Atlas Mountains. They are warm and genuine, and their love of one another and of life itself is apparent. They have spent nearly two months on the road and share stories of chaotic bus trips and brilliant hiking trips through uncharted mountain ranges. In the evening I wander off to a popular seafood restaurant, made famous by Anthony Bourdain. Wherever I can I try and follow in his culinary footsteps and this stop was one of the highlights of my tour of Morocco. I ate bread and olives, a cast iron plate of sizzling seafood, a whole fish and some beautiful desserts with a group of three middle-aged guys from Wales. They were on a boys trip, the first in a good few years. One of them was a television producer and a musician. The others a theater-maker turned filmmaker and a furniture maker. We chatted about travel and life and the role of art. They reflected on their lives and the decisions they wished they had made, and those they hope to one day make. They told me about life in Wales and shared stories over a few beers. Once again I was reminded of the beautiful serendipity of shared meals. They told me to keep travelling and chase opportunities as they appear, reminding me of the drive to settle that will inevitably reveal itself as I age. We laughed and we connected in that beautiful way that strangers laugh and connect on a first meeting, and then we shook hands and said goodbye. I spent the following day in a bookstore with a man from Cameroon. He told me of a book about Voodooism in West Africa, and I bought a local magazine as well as an anthology of Berber music. I got lost in the Medina and ate as much moroccan food as I could. My final afternoon was spent on a large rock looking across at the Spanish coastline, wondering how I had managed to navigate my way to the space between two vastly different continents. I smiled and cried a little at the realisation that this was the end and the beginning all over again. I caught the train to Casablanca the next day and then boarded a flight to Tanzania the following morning. Beginnings and ends. Always beginnings and ends, all of the time. Share this post. Trains, Storytellers and Hash Dealers absolutelybrilliant. Copy link. Zed Hopkins. Nov 23, Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Previous Next. Discussion about this post Comments. Ready for more? 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