A land of contradictions

After about two weeks in Morocco, I have to say it is both one of the most amazing places I've been and also one of the most difficult places I've been. I now understand the extreme reactions I got from people when I told them I was going to Morocco. Just when you think you have the place figured out, something happens that totally contradicts everything you thought about it.

Some of my observations in no particular order...

1. Gender separation - There is a huge gender separation here. Rarely do you see groups of mixed gender hanging out. It is either a group of women or a group of men. The interesting thing about this is that I think it makes people more affectionate with each other. Women almost always walk arm in arm, which isn't too surprising, but you will also see men be just as affectionate with each other. Never have I seen men hugging each other more than here, it's also common for them to walk hand in hand or to sit with an arm around another's shoulder, and the standard greeting is a handshake, hug, and a kiss on each cheek. But, in order to prove their manliness and heterosexuality they make an extra point of cat-calling every single woman who walks by.

2. The Cafés - This kind of goes along with the gender separation, but the cafés seem to be male territory. Makes getting a cup of coffee in the morning rather difficult and sometimes intimidating. But the cafés here are huge, always packed, and only with men. Some of them seem to be more like sports bars minus the alcohol. They'll have tvs on the inside showing football (soccer) and the place will be packed with men drinking mint tea or coffee and watching the game. There's usually also an outside terrace as well, which is slightly less intimidating and good for people watching.

3. Neccesity vs. Luxury - Satellite TV = necessity. Modern plumbing, including flush toilets and hot water = luxury. Seriously, EVERYONE has a satellite dish on their roof.

4. Friendliness vs Salesmanship - One of the hardest things to judge is whether or not people are being genuinely friendly to you or whether they're trying to sell you something. Almost everyone says hi and tries to engage you in conversation, but some people are looking to get you to come to their store, while others are actually being genuinely nice. For example, the woman at the hotel I'm currently staying in. Yesterday evening I came in and she was asking me if I had seen the whole medina of Fes. I said, some of it, but not all of it, because it's pretty huge. She said she could show me around a little later if I wanted. Whenever someone offers to show you around, immediately warning bells should go off, because it's usually just someone looking for money. This city is full of "guides." Some are officially registered guides, others aren't. Sometimes the unofficial ones will follow you for a few blocks trying to get you to go in a certain direction, saying they just want to practice their english, etc etc. So when she offered to show me around, my first instinct was to say no. But then I thought about it another second, and decided that she wouldn't try to rip me off because then she would lose a paying customer at her hotel, plus I hadn't gotten the chance to meet a lot of Moroccan women, so I took her up on her offer, which turned out to be sincere. But the whole time I've been here I've felt like I can never really let down my guard, especially when dealing with people.

5. The "Gringo Tax" - As Pete pointed out in another post, the luggage fee that I had to pay for my bus ticket was not in fact an actual luggage fee but a "gringo tax." That's happened several times - I got another last minute luggage fee on the last bus I took, this time 5 dirhams instead of 10. Also prices for things tend to vary, sometimes even within the same store. Sometimes a bottle of water costs 5 dirhams, sometimes 6 dirhams, sometimes 5.50, and all from the same store. Nothing is actually labeled with a price, so who knows what the actual price is, which is frustrating, but hard to justify arguing over 1 dirham, which is something like 12 cents (not sure the actual exchange rate). But I've also noticed that some vendors seem to go out of their way to ensure me that I'm not being overcharged. Yesterday I bought some postcards, stamps, water and a magazine (I got pretty excited about finding a magazine in English) and when he rung me up he went through each item telling me the price.

6. Making change - Another issue here is making change. In general people don't have much cash on them so if you have to pay for something with a large bill (which often happens because the ATMs only give you 100 and 200 bills), then chances are the person won't have change. Surprisingly though, they can be trusted to give you change when they have it (either later that day, or will go down the street and make change with another vendor) or will alternatively trust you to pay them when you have a smaller bill. Despite sometimes being charged a "gringo tax," no one has ever tried to rip me off by not giving me the correct change, even when it is something as small as 2 dirhams.

7. Religious piety vs. Modernity - Some of the funniest sights I've seen include women dressed in their full floor-length robes throwing back a beer or two; women who make fashion statements out of their head scarves and robes by sporting hot pink or all leopard print; a group of older Muslim men in their jellabahs crowded around a computer downloading hip-hop music; cafés that blast techno remixes of modern songs in English; and the old guy who worked at the hostel in Chefchouen who took the time to mute the MTV music videos he was watching for the call to prayer.