So much for ladies first. That concept is completely foreign to the culture of Casablanca, probably as foreign as the Casablanca culture was to me. Amanda, one of my American friends from Boston, and I traveled to Casablanca, Morocco last Friday. When we arrived at the airport, it was quite easy to get our passports stamped, which was good, because once we arrived, I realized I wouldn´t be making a scene if we hadn´t gotten them stamped. A few things we should have learned how to do before we arrived: cover our heads, not smile, not be offended. We learned to do the latter of the two, but never got the hang of properly tying the scarves over our heads, without looking like we were mocking them, so we went sans scarves for our adventure.
We immediately noticed the overwhelming male population as soon as we left our boarding gate. Men were everywhere, and women, if they existed, were with a man. Immediately we felt out of place, without a male escort. We knew that we had to catch a train to the city, which we could not pay for with a credit card, so we had to take out Durhams, the Moroccan currency. A Durham is about equivalent to 13 American cents, and thus when we had to pay 25 Durhams for a sandwich, it wasn´t too bad.
We then got in line to buy our train tickets. I should rephase that, we got into the flooding mass. Lines honestly, do not exist in Morocco, we didn´t see a single one. Instead we saw mobs, pushing themselves to the front of the "line", which was rather terrifying. Men were allowed, for the most part, to go before any woman, which caused us to miss our train because we couldn´t buy our tickets in time. Which was alright, as we needed that extra 30 minutes to recompose ourselves before we jumped on the train.
When I say jumped on the train, I mean just that. I don´t think the trains really ever stopped, and for the entire duration, the doors are open. Great. Also, we boarded the train in pitch black. We were in an unlit tunnel, and the train had no lights. We were second guessing what we had gotten ourselves into for the weekend.
We then met a gentleman on the train, who wanted to practice his English. We didn´t really have a choice as he was sitting right next to us. We took advantage and asked him some things about the city. He was rather informative, but at the same time had a hostel feeling towards the city. When we asked him what areas of the city we should try to avoid, and which ones were the most dangerous, he quickly retorted "all of them". Perfect.
Our train ride gave us an insight into the poverty we were expecting. The houses looked like they hadn´t been rebuilt since they were decimated in WWII--yet people were still living there. This was far different than the city itself. Casablanca is a city. The biggest in Morocco. It is dirty, and apparently dangerous. We had a preview into both of those, quickly.
We finally arrived at our destination, which was written and announced in Arabic, so we had to ask our friend where we should jump off. Luckily he told us the right station. We were rather glad to get off the train, as the man was making us both feel incredibly uncomfortable. We walk through the double doors to find rush of taxi drivers bombard us, throwing out prices in every language possible. We looked at each other and broke through them in a quick jog. We were then being followed, so we started to run. One even decided to follow us in his car, so we decided to sprint, while being heckled by every male on the roads. We found a back road, which was deserted to finally catch our breathe. Quickly realizing that the main roads would be preferable, we headed towards them. We had no map, nor any sense of direction. We knew our hotel was near the mosque and the ocean, but that meant little to us when we couldn´t see either, or read Arabic.
We were warned before we left that we should not address men without first being spoken to, and since cat-calls didn´t count, we opted not to speak with any of them. I decided that I took enough years of french to communicate what we needed to know, and began looking for women to ask. We found one, with her hair uncovered. Perfect. I ran over to her, asked her how to get to our hotel, and she immediately hailed a bus, and took us to our hotel, and pointed out places where we (as women) could get food. She was wonderful. Without her help, we would have had to hail a cab, which at the time, was petrifying. At the same time however, we knew that a cab would be better than the streets, which were virtually void of women, and grounds to be followed and groped.
When we got to our hotel, they gave us a wonderful room, which a perfect view of the city, as it was on the 9th floor. We oriented ourselves, finding the direction of both the ocean, mosque, and markets. When we left for the afternoon we asked if they had a map, which of course they did not. All they said was, be back before night fall. Great advice.
The markets were closest, so that was our first stop. They had everything. Raw fish, full sized cow carcases, shoes galore, jewelry, any type of wooden knick-knack, pretty much anything that you wanted, you could find in this market, which took us over an hour to find an exit, and we didn´t even retrace our steps. The market experience was interesting. All the vendors are men, who know that if they want us to buy something, they have to be relatively polite, so instead of the normal comments, we were not receiving the "upscale" ones such as "I like your sex". Honestly, that just completely wooed me. Really? Does that actually work? These vendors knew more languages than I could identify, which I thought was impressive, considering we were told that nearly no one in the generation above us had more than 5 years of schooling.
After we finally escaped the market we headed toward to ocean, passing numerous soccer matches in the streets, which of course, we were not allowed to play in. Boys only. We found the ocean, which had some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. Quiet impressive. We passed the Royal Moroccan Navy, which was heavily guarded, but housed some rather impressive ships. Though Casablanca is not the capital of Morocco, it is considered at least the economic capital, as it is far larger than any other city in Morocco, and the 6th largest in Africa.
Casablanca is home to this mosque that I keep referring to. The mosque is called Hassan II, named after the King who had it constructed. The construction stated not to long ago, 1986, and was built 24/7 until 1993 when it was completed enough to be inaugurated. It is the tallest mosque in the world, and the third largest. The best part is, we were allowed in, which is rare considering that we are not Muslim. Shoes off, headed in. We actually entered on Sunday morning, so I´m jumping around a bit, but we´re on the mosque topic, so why not.
The architecture definitely had some thought put into it. All of the materials used to build the mosque came from Morocco, with the exception of the chandeliers, and the white marble--both came from Italy. The main prayer room can hold 25,000 prayers, which is genially only filled during the Ramadan. At this time, the sliding roof opens, so that the prayers are more directly connected to Allah. The floor in many parts is glass, and as it is built over the ocean, you get quite a view of the water. Impressive needless to say. It kind of reminded me of Wright´s house built over the river.
The basement is for the washrooms, as they are required to wash three times before prayer. Separate fountains for men and women. The best part of these rooms were the pillars. They looked like white marble. Nope, wrong. They are cement covered in a combination of: sandstone, black sand, and egg yoke. This consistency absorbs humidity, so the washrooms are free of it--very important, as summers in Morocco are excruciatingly hot. The also have a public sauna/ Turkish bath, that is 5 feet deep, and looks knee Lent, very deceptive little pool. Over all, the mosque is impressive. Very impressive.
On Friday, we left the mosque after only taking a few pictures from the outside. This was a rare opportunity, as we were yelled at continuously every time we took out our cameras, thus I do not have as many pictures as I normally would. Sad.
So we left the mosque as the sun was setting, and were again, rather lost, so I began whipping out my french skills again, asking police officers for directions. We arrived at the hotel safe and exhausted. We headed to bed early so that we could catch the morning train to Rabat--Morocco´s political capital.
After having quite a large breakfast at the hotel (free food is always wonderful) we headed to the train station after negotiating with taxi drivers the price to get there. We jumped on our train to Rabat and found that the markets were the best things that they had to offer. Ready for the masses, we headed in. We were quite successful in bargaining, a skill I doubted I would ever obtain. It was easy. Walk away, and they lower the price. Give them your price, and come to an agreement. This was numerous as I couldn´t remember numbers in French. I understood the ones they were saying, but couldn´t formulate ones on my own--at first anyways. Therefore we ended up paying too much for our first purchase, a whole 2 Euros for a necklace. What were we thinking?!
We were rather hungry by mid afternoon and knew we needed to get something. We were a bit turned off by the fly infested market food, so we headed out to the main roads to find, gulp, a restaurant? The first dozen or so we passed were only men, per usual. We finally found one that not only had women, but had unescorted women. Perfect. We were fed, and off the the races we went again.
We now completely figured out our conversion rates, and what we were willing to pay for what, so we ventured back inside the labyrinth. A few 100 Durhams later, we were done. This was after meeting a wonderful man, who we spent about an hour with, talking all about our cultures. It was a great afternoon. We however, wanted to get back to Casablanca before sunset, so headed back to the train station, only after passing a protest.
Supermarket for dinner sounded good to us, as we didn´t want to wander the streets finding a suitable place to eat, so we lugged out grocery bags to the hotel, where we met our final friend. We asked the receptionist what time the mosque opened, and he didn´t know so he told us he would call them, then call our room. 5 minutes later he´s knocking on the door, which we entered, the shut behind him. Personally, I was a bit creeped out, especially after he sat down and started getting comfy. Well over an hour later, he finally left, after we told him that we´d meet him the following morning at 8am so he could show us around the city.
He seemed nice enough, but still, I was rather uneasy. However, the benefit of having a male escort for the day out weight my apprehension, so we met him at our designated location. He brought us to the mosque, where he prays daily. We toured it, while he got some breakfast. He then carted us around the city, paying for all our cab rides, and showing us everything that he loved. We talked about the generational differences between the women, and who and why they covered their heads. It was quite interesting actually. Though he knew some English, he preferred French, and therefore addressed me in French, quite often. Funny how quickly it came back.
As nice as he was, there was still an uneasy feeling, so Amanda and I lied about when our train was to get out of the rest of our tour. It backfired, as he came to the train station with us, and watched us board "our" train. It was going too fast to jump off by the time he stopped looking, so we ended up taking the train an hour early. Oh well. That gave us time to eat the Moroccan cakes we were given, as well as get some lunch. The mob-mentality was most pertinent at the airport, but the treatment of women was at least tolerable there. Therefore, we were safe, and ready to go home, and practice all the french we learned in Paris (where we´re going on Thursday).
Overall, it was quite an experience. Arabic/Islamic culture is now rather high on my list of things to investigate. Though it perplexes me, I´m intrigued. It was a good first experience into this foreign land. Next time though, I´ll opt to take an escort. And, learn how to cover my head.
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