Otis Redding lives

Date: May 1, 2010

In 1968 while stationed in Germany doing my patriotic duty as a soldier, I worked nights at the Enlisted Men’s club. Instead of taking pay, I received my recompense in the form of cases of beer which I purchased at Happy Hour prices awaiting the imminent birth of my child back in California. Night after night, week after week, the beer piled up in the storeroom cooler and when the word came that I had a son it was the grandest party the Kaserne had ever seen. Everybody got drunk that night. Even the Colonel and Major came down and got stuck into it. I’ve always suspected that they were actually celebrating the fact that I was getting out of the Army rather than Jeff’s birth. However, it was a memorable experience for all. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that there are those erstwhile GI’s who still fondly remember the night, as well as some who remember it not so fondly. Night after night, on the juke box the requisite song that was played ad infinitum was Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.” And so it was today I found myself sitting on the dock of Tangier Bay waiting for our ferry to take us back to Spain. My thoughts rambled without any coherent order about what we have seen over the course of the last week here in Morocco. Some reflections.

What we saw was like an Hors d'œuvre. A tasty treat to start with and the promise that there is to come. Morocco has so much to offer that we didn’t get to see. There is the Sahara to the south of the Atlas Mountains. This fascinating area is literally alive with adventurous possibilities. There are a lot of tours doing very interesting things in the desert from camel tours to 4 wheel trekking.

The Rif Mountains are supposed to be spectacular. They seem to change color with the different setting of the sun and are called Magical by those who visit.

The Berber areas are completely different from the Arabic areas. These peoples who have been able to maintain their own identity with all the successive conquerors would be very interesting to see. They never developed a written language and so all the stories are handed down by verbal lessons.

And there are just too numerous areas which would call us back to mention here, but, to be sure, we’d love to have the main course along with a good bottle of wine.

Speaking of Alcohol, I mentioned once that they weren’t big on alcohol here. While that is true in the essence of the thing, it doesn’t mean that the Moroccans don’t drink. They don’t drink in public, but they must know how to party. We went to a store one night to get our breakfast goodies for the following morning and there was a group of 20 or so men who almost bought the place out of beer, wine, vodka and other assorted alcoholic goodies.

Moroccans, both men and women, love slippers. They have them for all sorts of occasions and for every possible color change. Naturally, women are more into them than the men who own a pair or two, but I asked a gal at a hotel how many pair she had and she laughed. She said she didn’t know but when I asked? “Ten – twenty?” she simply said: “More.” They are normally made 0f leather with pointed toes sometimes with the toes curled upwards making them look like elves shoes. They are plain, bejeweled, leather, silken fabric to match the jallabas, and cheap.

They seem to have mandatory education for the children, but we saw tons of kids who worked in the fields, on the street, driving oxen carts down busy highways and tending flocks of animals. You could always tell the adults who had been to school because they spoke French, which is mandatory from the 1st grade on. Those who couldn’t speak were the ones who hadn’t attended school.

There were villages where time seemed to have stopped. I couldn’t tell any difference in them from the villages I saw 50 years ago. Horse carts and donkeys are the mode of transportation and they work the fields just as they always have. At the same time, satellite dishes dot the roofs even in the smallest of towns. This is their connection with the outside world. We kept wondering what the white circles were as we whizzed down the highway that first day. Later as we got some vistas from rooftops we could see that they were the dishes.

This may show our cultural naivety, but it did come as a surprise to find how clean things were. Cleanliness is very important to Arabs. They wash their feet, hands and face before entering the mosque and I can honestly say that we were a lot more offended by the smell of unwashed bodies in parts of Europe than we ever were here in Morocco. People constantly clean the area outside their houses. Brooms are used to sweep, and then water is used to scrub and wash down their area. Not once did we find a “Dirty toilet.” They were sometimes the porcelain squares with two raised platforms for your feet and you squat, but we’ve seen those in Europe and Asia as well. There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just different. We still remember the wide-eyed looks of some of the girls we took to Europe when they first encountered them. There are trashy areas in the big cities, but in general even they are kept clean. There is a major civic effort to keep the streets and sidewalks clean. Each shopkeeper maintains his area and public workers are seen everywhere sweeping and picking up trash.

One staple of any meal is olives. They come in all different forms, some black, some green, and some as Carol says: “Who stepped on my olives.” They look like someone forgot they weren’t crushing grapes, and did it to the olives instead.

The tagine meals were especially nice as I mentioned in another email. We had lamb, fish, chicken, and beef all fixed in these pottery dishes. There was some responses that wanted more info on them so I’ve included a link which shows them:

Moroccan Tagines

The food comes still sizzling in them and everything was especially tasty.

Orange juice could be the staple of life here. It is always fresh squeezed and for the equivalent of 40 cents, you get a tall glass of deliciously cold juice sweet like you’ve never tasted.

The national drink, however, is mint tea. Leaves of mint are put into a glass and then tea poured into the glass. If they serve a pot of tea then the mint is put into the pot. It is served very sweet of course.

These were just some of the random thoughts I had while waiting for the ferry. We’re back in Spain now and head for Sherry country tomorrow. Life could be worse.

Love to all
Carol and Jim