Morocco Memories

morocco desert

The first time I ever walked across a border, meaning the first time I ever passed on foot from one nation-state to another via a regulated border control process, was in 2001 when I went from Spain to Morocco. "Spanish Morocco" consists of the cities of  Ceuta and Melilla, and the Moroccan government sees Spanish control over these areas as foreign occupation. We took the highspeed ferry from Algeciras on the Spanish mainland to Ceuta, and then crossed the border into Morocco. The actual crossing was fascinating and terrifying, terrifying mostly because the experience was such a completely new one that no imagined expectations could have prepared me for the reality.

My memories of the crossing are hazy, though interspersed with distinct images of what we saw and experienced. I don't really remember leaving the ferry and getting to Spanish immigration, but I clearly remember walking from the Spanish check point to the Moroccan one. Until this lived experience my mental image of walking across a border meant simply stepping over a line drawn in the sand; now you're here and now you're there.  This walk, however, was long. It took at least 7 full minutes as we moved, packs on backs in true Western Adventurer style, along a wide dusty road with fences on either side. On the other sides of these fences were dusty mountains, and I vividly remember watching people scurrying to and fro with all manner of goods on their backs and in their arms. Of course, the scurrying went more in the Morocco => Spain direction as opposed to vice versa.

When we reached the Moroccan check-point we were let through easily, and I'm sure ahead of other non-Americans who had been waiting. In fact I don't remember other Americans or Westerners crossing at the same time we did, and Christina and I definitely stood out. Once in Morocco I remember moving past immigration and into a field of taxis, all ready and waiting to take us to wherever. The process of getting a taxi, explained so simply in Lonely Planet, was scary. There were at least 7 drivers vying for our business, we tried to barter, the drivers were aggressive and loud and handsy, their friends joined the commotion, two men were starting to fight, and so we stopped trying to be nice and just hopped into a car and went. Bartering the price from within the taxi was a pain in the ass and we paid too much. The language barrier, wherein the drivers were speaking Arabic (I spoke French and Christina spoke Spanish, both languages that are somewhat common in this northern region given the history of colonization) coupled with the gender differential between us and them also contributed to a sense of having no idea what the hell was really going on. But it all ended fine, and we made it to Chefchaouen, a beautiful mountain city of blue where we commenced our Morocco adventures.

I don't have pictures of the border, but I have many memories of that crossing and the ten or so days I spent in Morocco.  I remember hiking (and perspiring) in the summer heat to here,

and looking out to this,

and hearing the enormous wall of noise Chefchaouen projected in front of me, collide with the silence filling the space behind me.

I remember starting at the top of this waterfall,

and hiking down its several steppes to the pool below

and trying my competitive-high-school-swimmers-best to get under the fall, but the impact of it hitting the water was so strong I could not get within 50 feet.  I remember watching as adventurous boys climbed the rocky cliffs and jumped into the water, and making sure that I was not inadvertently exposing too much skin from under the t-shirt and shorts I wore over my swimsuit. 

Going to Morocco was travel of many firsts for me.  It was the first time I went to a Muslim country and the first time I set foot on the continent of Africa. It was also the first time I saw landscapes like in the first  picture of this post.  It was the first time that I felt really, really, almost fundamentally culturally different from the people I was surrounded by. It was the first time I road-tripped with some locals, and the first time that while in a foreign country, I felt that my movement and choices were restricted because of my gender. I was often uncomfortable in Morocco, because it was the first place where I was conscious of the fact that I did not know the rules, but as I've learned since, that's what happens when you cross borders.

Border-(S)hopping

Borders fascinate me. 

The Senegal River is the natural as well as official border between Senegal and Mauritania, and in this panoramic picture between the small city of Matam, Senegal on the right and the village of Tofunde Cive, Mauritania on the left. Along the beach on the Mauritanian side is a row of small shops selling goods such as tea, fabric, personal care products and cell phones. Senegalese shoppers cross the river in pirogues to shop in the boutiques, which exist in Mauritania almost primarily for Senegalese consumption on the other side of the river.

I made the pirogue trip across the river on three occasions. I went the formal route, taking the government-sanctioned pirogue seen above, as opposed to one of the many informal, smaller pirogues that make the 10 minute journey throughout the day. On two of the occasions, I too was going to do a little shopping, to check out the boutiques and to buy some fabric. While the trip across is pretty seamless for the Senegalese, not so for a Toubab like me. I did not have a visa to enter Mauritania*, you see, and there is a border agent that sits in a hut on the beach to check for this documentation. Now, I wasn't really that pressed to go into the shops, and even less interested in paying a couple dollars bribe in order to be allowed to walk 100 feet, so when I was rebuffed on my last trip I just went back across the river.

While I did not get very far onto Mauritanian territory, I was amazed during these brief excursions how different this side of the 250 meter-wide river felt from the other. But then again, despite some strong similarities that exist between Senegal and Mauritania at this little crossing, the two countries are very, very different places. That is part of why borders fascinate me, because despite the often arbitrariness of their creation, their impact is real and can mean everything depending on who you are, what you look like, where you come from, and where you are going.

*I have a fascination with Mauritania too, which emerged after reading Kevin Bales' Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. During my time in Matam I had a few encounters with the continuing practice of slavery that exists in Mauritania today.