Une suite des gentilhommes

My journey began on Saturday evening when I met two of the three other people on my program for the first time during our seen hour flight to Casablanca. Thankfully, we really hit it off and have many similar interests. Also thankfully, my compatriot Julia had a massive guideook for all of Africa, so we planned ourselves an excursion during our eleven hour layover in Casablanca.

Our experience trying to find the train to get from the airport to the city pretty much summed up our experience in Casa (as it is known to the locals): we spent a good long while wandering around looking hopelessly out of place unsure of what the train line was or where exactly we were supposed to take it, until we serendipitously stumbled upon a great big sign flashing "WELCOME TO THE TRAIN" in French, English, and Arabic.

The train dropped us off near the city center, and we were approached by a swarm of petit taxi rouges upon exiting the station. Not wanting to be duped, and unsure of our abilities to barter, we decided that we could walk to our first destination, the big mosque. Its name escapes me, but it is the third largest mosque in the world (but not the oldest; it was built starting in 1987, we are the same age!). We left the train station and tried to find ourselves on the world's tiniest map, which probably made us look like the most obvious tourists of all time. We looked undeniably lost when a taxi driver walked up to us. He evaded the task of showing us where we were on the map by promising to take us directly to the mosque for 50 dirham, which is about 4 dollars. That seemed like a fair price, so we agreed to let him take us. En route, he tried to sell us on a 300 dirham two-hour tour of the city, which we hesitantly declined. After finding out later that we were way closer to the mosque than he had led us to believe, and that the fare could have been something like 10 dirham, we were glad we had passed.

The mosque was gorgeous and had the world's largest sunroof. Seriously, they have a button to oen up the roof when it gets hot. We took a tour with a hilariously sassy tour guide who seemed very indignant to have to be waiting for a Romanian translator to repeat her spiel to his group (although the Romanian tourists were inexplicably even more indignant). Sometimes she would whisper us facts so that the translator couldn't hear; I guess she like us better. She gave us drections to the old Medina where she assured us that we would find a good restaurant for lunch.

We followed her directions and found ourselves in the middle of a claustrophobic maze of alleys with nary another foreigner in sight. We Were again very obviously lost when a friendly man approached us and introduced himself. Our new friend, Reda offered to help us find a suitable place to eat. After following him through the windy back alleys for about fifteen minutes, we decided that this might not have been the best idea and asked him to bring us somewhere to get a taxi. He kindly complied and said that the next time we are in Casa we should be sure to visit his family's store. Now we know where he was going with us.

We again tried to get our bearings with the map and spent another half an hour trying to find the restaurant suggested by Julia's guidebook as a cheap and good place to eat. Despite its purported fame, no one seemed to have ever heard of it and/or gave us completely unhelpful directions. Finally, we were approached by Walid, who gave us directions but told us that the restaurant was a complete tourist trap. He offered to show us a more authentic place in exchange for the opportunity to practice his English. We enjoyed authentic couscous and delicious Moroccan tea and talked about religion, politics, and language. Walid said he would show us the king's palace and then send us off to the train station to return to the airport. Things were going well for a while, and he was an excellent guide, but when he pressed us to lend him money and we did not comply, he pointed us to the train and took off in the other direction. We decided to take a taxi back, to ensure that we made it safely, and even managed to catch a glimpse of the palace along the way.

Waiting for the train, we talked to an older French couple who were retourning from Toulouse after a week-long trek through the Sahara. They commended us on our French and wished us luck with our studies. On the train we chatted up our seatmate Haleel, who told us of his travels all around Europe. He gave us advice on things to do in Dakar and congratulated us on our adventurousness. While waiting for our plane, we befriended François Gerard and his older sister and younger brother. They were returning to their home in Dakar after a week of skiing in Maine. It was also the eve of François' fifth birthday and he promised that if I came to his party he would give me lots of presents and even make me a surprise cake. Unfortunately, I had to decline his generous offer.

We came to Dakar many friends richer but more exhausted than ever. We were met at the airport and driven to our apartments where we crashed for the night. The accomodations are very nice, and we have hot showers and comfortable beds. In the morning we were greeted by a delicious breakfast of bread with jam, cheese, and chocolate and coffee. We were joined by Samba, who was to take us to the Baobab Center, the organization hosting us in Dakar. Samba, in addition to doing cross cultural orientations for the Baobab Center, is an accomplished documentary film maker and promised to put us in contact with the most interesting people to help us with our research projects.

If you made it all the way to the end, congratulations! I have so much more to say, but I've already burdened you with this novella, so I'll save the rest for later.

A bientot!