after spending my last night in casablanca, i stayed on and spend another last night (which became my real last night). i thought i would easily remember the house of the man who i had left my bike with. it was only a few minutes walk from the Hussain II mosque - the largest mosque in africa somebody told me, build on a piece of land protruding into the ocean, and surrounded by crashing white waves when i first saw it. the minaret towered with grace into the sky, and i remember it could been seen from the street where the man lived, but many streets fanned out into the city, i realised that morning. i changed my bus departure to the next day and dedicated myself to walking the streets trying to jog my memory. many people took an interest when i told them what i was searching for, but nobody knew who Mustafah was, the man who attended cars parked on the street and who had agreed to store my bike in his house.
Abdul worked at a little sandwich bar, and he instantly joined me on my search. he had spent thirty years working as a fisherman on spanish boats, and spoke spanish just like a spaniard. he wore a thick moustache, and a friendly avuncular expression which made me instantly trust him. when we had gone along many alleys and realised that the search was futile, he told me why not spend the day sitting on a bench next to his sandwich stall. he said that he had returned to morocco a few years ago, and set up his sandwich stall in order to still be a part of society here. "if i didn't have any work i wouldn't have any contact with the people" i saw that he really loved the people of the neighbourhood, giving sandwiches to people half price if they only had a few coins, giving a young boy ruffled hair and asking him to go buy some tomatoes. i was happy to sit and observe the life on the street in casablanca, also happy to experience a hammam, where we went in the afternoon. abdul said, "all the tiredness of your travels will disappear in the hammam", and he was right. you move between three progressively hotter rooms, lying pressed against the hot tiles, washing, scrubbing the body all over, making an extra special effort to become extra specially clean - important for the muslims. i told Abdul how glad i was to meet someone so full of kindness. "ah, it is not me" he said, "it is God working through me". i was so impressed with his open-heartedness that when in the evening, walking along a street by chance, i bumped into Mustafah, a cry of recognition - ahh, who knows why i hadn't taken down his phone number - but i have got the bike back now, i decide to leave it with Abdul. i know that it will be very useful for him getting tomatoes and getting around the streets of casablanca, and i will be happy to go by foot henceforth, letting my rolling days belong to my little morrocan soujoun. i spend the night at Abdul's, eating a big tasty tagine made by his mother, and the next morning set off on the bus journey.
the bus seat becomes a sort of home for almost two days, you get to know in some way the fellow passengers who all get off at service stations every few hours - they become your fellow travellers in the convoy which rolls in a lulling way all through the night along the spanish motorways, you enter a kind of sleepy haziness, never quite sleeping but never being fully awake. i first meet Mustafah, travelling on another bus going to italy, when he passes me a bottle of whisky bought on the tax free ferry crossing. he has fixing eyes and is replete with self-confidence; his words will be the ones listened to. sitting on the pavement at the service stations or having a coffee inside, he tells me that we communicate using the language of the brain, but the language that the heart speaks is stronger. i meet his eyes there and consider his words and he tells me "i am like you. i am looking for truth" he says that catholicism is a true way but that islam is truer. he recites to me the ave maria in italian, and french, and english too. when i ask him why he has learnt those words, he says he will tell me at the next stop, but i never see him again.
getting off the bus in milan in the chilly early hours of the morning, i find myself a little bit bewildered, realising that the way of being in morocco and interacting with the people there has really entered me. on my subsequent journey north to switzerland, and then into austria, it has really struck me how much individualism is prized in europe. in one sense it is very liberating - one can do as one pleases (within limits) no one will interfere with you. it is also isolating, no-one looks at you in the street, passing by unobserved, uncommunicating it is almost like not exising, aside from your own personal experience.
big beautiful houses in the alps.
so much personal space.
when you have everything you need, there is no need to interact with others
(in a material sense).
no-body looks at me or says hello when i walk past.
maybe it was because i was such a foreigner in morocco i attracted so much attention.
it is not the case because i saw so many others being friendly and interacting among themselves.
i remember the night i looked for a place to sleep among the eucalyptus trees on the coast before casablanca. "ma kaynsh mushkill" the adolescent resting against a tree tells me in arabic (there is no problem). i meet him a little later on the beach and i feel his presence lingering around me. i want to be alone to light a fire and sleep peacefully, and push my bike further along the beach looking for seclusion. and in the dying daylight i see that he has followed the tracks in the sand and catches up with me in the trees, with a torch and another friend. later i realise is that all he wants is to invite me back to his house - in his mind that is better than the cold night, but i want to stay in the trees by the fire and he leaves me reflecting on my happiness in solitude and wanting to do things myself. a child of europe i am.
a friendly romanian family take me along the road in the north of italy. i find myself a little concerned by the cold and the coming night when a young italian chef picks me up and i feel like he fairly saved me, taking me over the 2,300m pass to switzerland where he works, where the snow is piled up higher than a car at the side of the road, snow everywhere, nowhere to camp. my italian lift giver tells me here the air here is dry and you don't realise how cold it is. it feels like minus 5 although it is minus 20. "that is when you fall asleep and don't wake up" i receive his words with wide eyes. he takes me further on to a town with a train station and there with only two minutes to spare i buy a ticket to innsbruck and rush onto the warm train. the trains and the train stations are one way to find warmth. hitchhiking leaves me jumping around the keep warm, very glad to meet the trembling old man, who asks me to guess his age and when i say "hmmm that would be difficult" (giving myself time to think), he says "sechsundachtsig" (eighty six). i don't speak german so much but we sit and flick through my pocket dictionary waiting for the church service on sunday morning. sleety snow i am pretty sleepy from lack of sleep, digging away the snow for to camp in the woods. the warmth of the fire to dry my socks and shoes and watch the smoke drifting up to the branches of the conifers silhouetted against the moon fulfills.
a few hitches advance my progress on the road to graz, but it mainly consists of waiting, so it is the train that helps me cover the last section for the happy encounter with brother gerry.
in his warm flat of cosiness, cups of tea and colin steele.
ja gern
Abdul worked at a little sandwich bar, and he instantly joined me on my search. he had spent thirty years working as a fisherman on spanish boats, and spoke spanish just like a spaniard. he wore a thick moustache, and a friendly avuncular expression which made me instantly trust him. when we had gone along many alleys and realised that the search was futile, he told me why not spend the day sitting on a bench next to his sandwich stall. he said that he had returned to morocco a few years ago, and set up his sandwich stall in order to still be a part of society here. "if i didn't have any work i wouldn't have any contact with the people" i saw that he really loved the people of the neighbourhood, giving sandwiches to people half price if they only had a few coins, giving a young boy ruffled hair and asking him to go buy some tomatoes. i was happy to sit and observe the life on the street in casablanca, also happy to experience a hammam, where we went in the afternoon. abdul said, "all the tiredness of your travels will disappear in the hammam", and he was right. you move between three progressively hotter rooms, lying pressed against the hot tiles, washing, scrubbing the body all over, making an extra special effort to become extra specially clean - important for the muslims. i told Abdul how glad i was to meet someone so full of kindness. "ah, it is not me" he said, "it is God working through me". i was so impressed with his open-heartedness that when in the evening, walking along a street by chance, i bumped into Mustafah, a cry of recognition - ahh, who knows why i hadn't taken down his phone number - but i have got the bike back now, i decide to leave it with Abdul. i know that it will be very useful for him getting tomatoes and getting around the streets of casablanca, and i will be happy to go by foot henceforth, letting my rolling days belong to my little morrocan soujoun. i spend the night at Abdul's, eating a big tasty tagine made by his mother, and the next morning set off on the bus journey.
the bus seat becomes a sort of home for almost two days, you get to know in some way the fellow passengers who all get off at service stations every few hours - they become your fellow travellers in the convoy which rolls in a lulling way all through the night along the spanish motorways, you enter a kind of sleepy haziness, never quite sleeping but never being fully awake. i first meet Mustafah, travelling on another bus going to italy, when he passes me a bottle of whisky bought on the tax free ferry crossing. he has fixing eyes and is replete with self-confidence; his words will be the ones listened to. sitting on the pavement at the service stations or having a coffee inside, he tells me that we communicate using the language of the brain, but the language that the heart speaks is stronger. i meet his eyes there and consider his words and he tells me "i am like you. i am looking for truth" he says that catholicism is a true way but that islam is truer. he recites to me the ave maria in italian, and french, and english too. when i ask him why he has learnt those words, he says he will tell me at the next stop, but i never see him again.
getting off the bus in milan in the chilly early hours of the morning, i find myself a little bit bewildered, realising that the way of being in morocco and interacting with the people there has really entered me. on my subsequent journey north to switzerland, and then into austria, it has really struck me how much individualism is prized in europe. in one sense it is very liberating - one can do as one pleases (within limits) no one will interfere with you. it is also isolating, no-one looks at you in the street, passing by unobserved, uncommunicating it is almost like not exising, aside from your own personal experience.
big beautiful houses in the alps.
so much personal space.
when you have everything you need, there is no need to interact with others
(in a material sense).
no-body looks at me or says hello when i walk past.
maybe it was because i was such a foreigner in morocco i attracted so much attention.
it is not the case because i saw so many others being friendly and interacting among themselves.
i remember the night i looked for a place to sleep among the eucalyptus trees on the coast before casablanca. "ma kaynsh mushkill" the adolescent resting against a tree tells me in arabic (there is no problem). i meet him a little later on the beach and i feel his presence lingering around me. i want to be alone to light a fire and sleep peacefully, and push my bike further along the beach looking for seclusion. and in the dying daylight i see that he has followed the tracks in the sand and catches up with me in the trees, with a torch and another friend. later i realise is that all he wants is to invite me back to his house - in his mind that is better than the cold night, but i want to stay in the trees by the fire and he leaves me reflecting on my happiness in solitude and wanting to do things myself. a child of europe i am.
a friendly romanian family take me along the road in the north of italy. i find myself a little concerned by the cold and the coming night when a young italian chef picks me up and i feel like he fairly saved me, taking me over the 2,300m pass to switzerland where he works, where the snow is piled up higher than a car at the side of the road, snow everywhere, nowhere to camp. my italian lift giver tells me here the air here is dry and you don't realise how cold it is. it feels like minus 5 although it is minus 20. "that is when you fall asleep and don't wake up" i receive his words with wide eyes. he takes me further on to a town with a train station and there with only two minutes to spare i buy a ticket to innsbruck and rush onto the warm train. the trains and the train stations are one way to find warmth. hitchhiking leaves me jumping around the keep warm, very glad to meet the trembling old man, who asks me to guess his age and when i say "hmmm that would be difficult" (giving myself time to think), he says "sechsundachtsig" (eighty six). i don't speak german so much but we sit and flick through my pocket dictionary waiting for the church service on sunday morning. sleety snow i am pretty sleepy from lack of sleep, digging away the snow for to camp in the woods. the warmth of the fire to dry my socks and shoes and watch the smoke drifting up to the branches of the conifers silhouetted against the moon fulfills.
a few hitches advance my progress on the road to graz, but it mainly consists of waiting, so it is the train that helps me cover the last section for the happy encounter with brother gerry.
in his warm flat of cosiness, cups of tea and colin steele.
ja gern
