前途: A Year in Morocco

I have a pair of friends who have rented a beach house for the month of July. It is situated on the Atlantic coast north of Asilah, in a place that is basically farmland up to the beach with very little other infrastructure. I went to visit them and beach-bum for a few days, since it was my last chance to see them before I leave Morocco.

To get to and from this place, we took grand taxis. Basically, we paid for a ride from Asilah to Tangier, then told the driver to pull off on the side of the road. From there, we walked down a mild slope for about 5 minutes, through farmland with little other than a footpath. Getting back to town required flagging down a grand taxi, or hitchhiking and making local friends.

To complicate the transportation situation, there was nothing other than a small store with bread, milk, soft drinks, and snacks. Significant food shopping required hitchhiking into town, and it was most efficient to buy several kilos of vegetables/fruits and a large amount of eggs and then use them for several days.

There was also no refrigeration, so meals were made to be consumed in their entirety, and we didn’t cook any meat—although I did have some awesome fried calamari in Asilah itself for lunch before I caught the train back home today. We also went all the way to Tangier one day, and spent the afternoon drinking and having tapas/desserts at a hotel, a bar, and a cafe.

My friends were lucky enough to have running water in the place they rented, but most of the neighbors didn’t. They drew water from wells by hand, probably just for washing, maybe cooking, and possibly watering animals (we occasionally had chickens or cats wander into the house). However, in the lower part of the land, all of the water smelled/tasted bad, so drinking water came from a well at the top of the hill and got transported in re-used water/soft drink bottles.

We only had a squat toilet, and needless to say, there was no hot water. Showers could be done as bucket-based sponge baths with the toilet as the drain, or were skipped altogether. We tended to sleep late, eat breakfast (maybe), hit the beach with books, then come back for lunch (or not) and naps until dusk, when we would retire to the roof with candlelight, drinks, and dinner or snacks to watch beautiful sunsets over the Atlantic, repose, and reflect on our Fulbright experience.

The experience gave new meaning to the phrase “minimalistic existence.” It was a nice escape from the stress of city life and the emotional-ness of my impending departure from Morocco, as well as a good reminder of how stark class/lifestyle contrasts are in this country.