a lighthouse in the Oudaya in Rabat
Then plans changed and I ended up going for a run in Parc Hilton with a friend. It was my first real exercise excursion since I have been here for a month! Earlier in the week I got to play tennis at the British Embassy, but my run was deffinitley a better workout. After my run I did manage to go get my massage in which I felt ever single knot I have accumulated over my entire life in my back! The masseuse was gentle on me, but it made me think that I need to do this every week. I am in pain the following day...
Unfortunately the hamam and sauna were foregone and instead I decided to take a look at the mega grocery store here called Marjan. It was like a great big Wegmans attached to a K-Mart. Quite nice and I ended up buying 8 bags of groceries. Unfortunately I underestimated how difficult it was going to be grabbing a taxi on a Saturday, at the end of the month when everyone was out spending their paychecks. I waited in line for about 8 minutes, when I saw a couple taxis come by, drop people off, but refuse to pick people up because they wanted to go shopping themselves! Then more and more people started cutting the line (as usual here) and I decided to walk over to the highway and try to hail a cab.
Walking with 8 bags of groceries was painful and I felt like I had just erased anything that the massage had down to relax me. Fortunately, another man who had just bought a vacuum, which he was very proud of, despite having missed it when it was on sale, started chatting to me as we were both trying to hail a taxi. He informed me that we wouldn't be able to grab a taxi on the highway because the police were around and taxis could not stop for us (logicial, as stopping to pick someone up on the highway is dangerous, but this didn't cross my mind as being something that cars wouldn't do here).
So we ended up walking the (nearly 1 mile) back to the area I live in! The man told me he was Berber and that Moroccans and Americans are good friends, and the same. This is actually the second time that I have heard a Moroccan tell me how close Americans and Moroccans are to one another...I don't think I would ever here this back in the states. Sad. He told me that Morocco is undergoing great changes, as I have noticed by all of the construction projects happening all over Rabat. Then as usual, he brought up religion, and told me that all Muslims, Christians, and Jews are welcome in Morocco and we are all the same in that we are all sons of Abraham.
What I heard from this man was really uplifting. I have not had any experiences so far in which I have felt unwelcome or even had people act ambivalent towards me. On the contrary everyone has been incredibly welcoming, friendly, and what seems quite sincere in their interactions with me. I can't imagine as a Moroccan running into someone in the states and having them say to me after greeting me that Muslims are welcome in the US and all people on earth are the same no matter what they believe. Historically, the Berbers, the original Moroccans, have been used to different groups invading Morocco, from the Romans, to Spanish, Arabs and French. Or would it be typical that in the US I run into someone that speaks for languages like this man did, Dhirija, Arabic, English, and French. Again, he related his language competency to Islam, telling me that Mohammed urged all Muslims to speak as many languages as they could, so that they could communicate and dialogue with all types of peoples. Being a conflict resolution student, I reveled in this last statement he made.
Must be that I ran into an extraordinary Moroccan...or did I?
