People smile at me as I walk with my daughter through the medina, my thumb and index finger wrapped around her billowy wrist. These standing witnesses seem like the collective soul of the world, yawning, like a baby awakened with a gentle rub on the back. When my daughter and I are together playful and chatty, we become a catalyst that causes a deep, dear memory to show itself as a smile on the face of strangers. This floating memory is so primal that it cannot enter the conscious mind as a coherent thought. Instead, it enters the semi-toothless mouth of a fruit seller who, in broken English, asks my daughter if she wants some melon. His words are difficult to understand. She appears confused when I tell her what he’s offering. I think she is more suprised that I understand him than she is put-off by him. His eyes shine upon her in search of the smile that decorates his face; a reflection of youth.

In the parking garage below the grocery store Aswak Aslam, I wander the lot with a cart full of bags and my daughter sitting in the fold-out shopping cart seat. A man wearing an orange vest showing him to be a parking attendant of sorts speaks to me something I don’t understand. He knows where my car is, but I doubt it. He takes the cart to push it in the right direction. I follow closely. He finds the truck where I left it. He talks in words I don’t understand as he unloads the bags from the cart and lifts my daughter from the seat. We both recoil at his familiarity and she grabs my legs once her feet hit the ground. Perhaps she is perceived as a sort of cargo and he is being chivalrous towards me, but I don’t think so. At Pizza Hut, the waitress kissed my daughter’s cheek as she greeted our table. A security guard in customs kissed her head, and a man in a café kissed his fingers and put them to the crown of her head as he walked past our table. She is something new here, something different than a toddler in America. She is a memory and a promise of life’s continued flow.

Moroccans love children: a love like warm sand at dusk. It is a love for the temporary nature of youth. In it is an awareness of youth as a precious gift that we all once had and that we all must eventually give away. But there is no glorification of youth. There is no equivalent to an American pop culture icon or the corresponding obsession with youthful sexuality. Beyond the radiant smile on the face of strangers, the kisses and candies, lies all the pain of an ordinary adulthood.

At Magic Park, an amusement park in Sale, I hold my daughter’s hand, anxiously trying to keep her from sitting on the dirty pavement while we wait impatiently in line to ride the Dragon Adventure. Children turn back and forth, calling to each other. Their smiles reveal rotting teeth; one’s happy eye is made heavy by a cyst. They push their way forcefully to the front of the line. I do not smile at them. Poverty has made them old by ten.

Leaving the park, our car is stopped by a traffic light. Music plays on the car radio. I encourage her to dance by bobbing my head and wiggling my elbows. She reluctantly complies. The men in the next truck smile widely at her and honk their horn and wave when the light turns green.

I found a park near my in-laws house in Hay Riad, an upper-middle class section surrounded by villas. It is a small structure holding two slides. It is secured in a pile of dirt that hides pieces of glass, used batteries, rusty bottle caps, and an ant colony. The park is frequented families that don’t look as if they live in the neighborhood; the adults are too comfortable sitting in the grass and the girls too happy playing simple games: making a candy wrapper jump on the cement by thumping their hand.

Each slide has a crack in it and the metal work that holds it has become rusty and jagged. I wonder, if I lived here, what part of the park I would work to fix first, or if I would instead build a private playground behind villa walls. A girl stands on the top of the slide, she stands out to an observer because she is older than the others and she wears a clean white party dress decorated with a large print of red flowers. She has taken her hair ribbon out and watches it blow in the wind. Her eyes have a melancholy look.

I don’t have the words to talk to her. I want to ask her what it is that she sees so far away. Somehow, it seems like a private moment for her. She is alone among us. I think of home. Perhaps there is still a reason to build your house in the fashion of a riad with the windows facing inward. More than the privacy it provides women, but for the privacy of family and the sanctuary of a child.

Can you see her?

There was a group of Americans at the tapas reastaurant where we I ate with two girl friends on a Saturday night. I had grown accustomed to not hearing my native language around me and gravitated towards their words. I knew they must be part of an organized group, perhaps a conference or fellowship of some sort. On my way back from the bathroom and after a second bottle of wine, I stopped by their table to ask. “Cultural solutions” they explained “volunteer work, education, outreach, that sort of thing.” I was homesick. One girl was clearly from the south “I want to marry a Moroccan” she explained with tales about some gardener. She was the most obviously drunk of a group that had shrunk down to about five.

Another girl was more level-headed, and another, who is the one I would like to imagine as myself: a sober-minded late-nighter, beautiful, tattooed, and intelligent. I kissed her head at some point for some observation, some remark I took as a sign of her intelligence and consequent loneliness. [This gesture (kissing someone on their head) is more normal in Morocco than America.]

One man in the group was Canadian “bring some hot girls with you next time.” I told him he didn’t want Moroccan women because they were too smart. When he quoted me back, I recanted: “Moroccan women are too complicated, I mean. American women are more accommodating than Moroccan women. You are better off with an American.” Perhaps he is destined to hook-up with the drunk Southerner in the group, who he made eye contact with as he repeated back my insult to her intelligence (I can’t help it. The passionate Moroccan gardener? Give me a break.). His trying to hurt her only confirms my point.

The other male, who looked Indian, told me he was from NJ when I asked. “What are you doing here?”
“Wasting time.”
“Don’t let him fool you” the Canadian chimed in “he’s a doctor.”
They said they would be in the same spot almost nightly for the next week or so. I told them my email address and said I would be back to see them, which I won’t.

I drive a home – a place we rented by the beach. I kept my eye on the KMs per hour and pulled haphazardly half way into the driveway, tired of myself and all the things I have to say.

The garden smelled like jasmine. I look for the plant of the smell, but I only find ivy. I’ve heard the smell is jasmine, but I have no reference in my American life, so to me the smell is nighttime in Morocco.

The stars are out…not desert stars…not DC stars either. Some compromise. I hear the ocean beating against the rocky coast of Harhoura. How is it that the rocks have remained?

In the day, it seems the horizon, the ocean, is above my head, that it will overtake me…overtake us all and the simple plastic furniture on the terraces of homes along the waterfront. I watch the waves when they seem higher than the rocks. But they break before them. At night, it must be high tide, when the pools form, cesspools as my husband calls them, where children play, guarded by cloaked women, where men fish.

The other night, I saw a man, fifty-ish, riding home on a motorbike, balancing a ridiculously long blue fishing pool between his legs. It seemed it should overtake him. He seemed content. “Moroccans love fishing” as if the love of fishing alone would protect him. These simple pleasures are why I love Morocco.

I pull up to the Agdal train station and the attendant tells me the lot is full. I wait in the car for another car to leave. I pull into a too-small space. A passerby motions which way I should go as I drive back-and-forth to nudge into the opening. I ignore him. Frustrated.

Leaving the car, I dodge through the parked cars holding my daughter’s sweating hand. We step over trash and overgrown grass. The ammonia smell of urine burns my nose. I grip her hand tighter, afraid she may slip lose. We sit in a café.

What time did he say he was coming?

We pick a table outside to avoid the smoke. Something smells putrid. We order French fries and soda and wait. After eating, there is nothing left but the putrid smell. We wind our way back through the parking lot and wait in the car. Sweating. Smelling. The beggars surround us again. The same ones we refused earlier. An African approaches us and says “I am a student here.” I reply “And I am a woman waiting at a train station.” He says nothing more.

We walk on, again, over the long grass that crowds a urine soaked tree in the over-crowded lot. Bottles. Trash. I put my small girl in the back seat. She is sweaty and quiet. I hand her water and search for something on the radio. A boy, perhaps 12 years old, approaches. I tell him to go away. He walks on without argument.

What time did he say he would be arriving?

The boy stands not far off from us. He is wearing a sweater over a long shirt and long pants. He clothes are too big for his frame. I cannot see how thin he is. His face is smeared with dirt and his clothes are made of dust. Sweating. His eyes meet mine. Frustrated, I don’t look away. Moments pass. Hours pass. We are still looking at each other. What does he see? Certainly my eyes, but the context is not here. Not this sweating, stinking, train station parking lot. Not the roving packs of African students. Not this need that is overwhelming me. A light smile floats onto his face. I imagine pink circles and fading rainbows surround me by the way he looks at me. He approaches the car with the same silly out-of-place smile on his face. He smiles. I keep my face the same. More hours pass. “Seer.” I say (means, “Go” or “Get!”)
“Seer?” He repeats?
“Seer.” With a nudge of his shoulders he moves on. I notice he pulls a coke bottle from the front of his trousers, removes the cap, takes a sniff, and returns it to its place. I realize, I could have had him. Had his life. Thrown him into the car and done whatever I wanted with or to him. His life is nothing. In this sweating, stinking, parking lot, I am outnumbered by need. He, however, is beyond it. Unaffected.

This haunts me.

I am reading “For Bread Alone
” by Mohammad Chourkri. When I read the back cover, I was worried it would make me too depressed. From the back cover:

“Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed’s family walks to Tangier in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of Mohamed’s siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by his father in a fit of rage.”

I am not depressed. I am something yet unnamed. I see the eyes of the boy in the Agdal train station parking lot.

Now that I am safely at home I can confess that I locked my keys in the car at Chellah. And my cellphone. And my wallet. I had my camera bag with me which held a few dirhams, and my three year old daughter, who was wilting under the midday sun hovering a few thin inches above our heads. I had memorized only one local phone number, which rang a house where no one was home. This is the kind of moment that tests Moroccan hospitality.

Soon a group of men had surrounded our car. There was a policeman, a parking lot attendant, a taxi driver, and two delivery men who were helping set-up for the upcoming Mawazine concert. After the men finished banging on the car and double checking all the locks, one of the delivery men offered to jimmy the door open with what looked like an uncoiled metal hanger. My eyes opened wide when I saw him because that was exactly the solution I had in mind. But he was scolded and waved away by the policeman, who called him crazy for messing with a car that has automatic door locks.

The automatic locking mechanism on the car was already broken, but I didn’t have the language skills or energy to try to explain. I was petting my daughter’s sweating head wondering what solution would reveal it’s self.

The taxi man explained that he couldn’t drive me to Hay Riad. I didn’t understand his reasons, but he happily offered that his friend was on the way. I started to cry while petting my sweaty little girl. The taxi man told me not to worry: “This is normal,” he said to soothe me.

“Look, God is great. In Morocco, people have lots of problems. But we say ‘Inshallah’ and God provides a way. See! My friend was going to Casablanca, but I called him and now he is coming to get you. See! This is why we say ‘God is great.’”

On pronouncing the last words he turned his hands palm up, fingers stretch outwards, towards the thin sky that seemed to be losing its grip on the blazing sun.

“Ne pleur pas. It’s normal.”

His friend arrived and drove us to the empty house in Hay Riad. The keys I needed to get into the house to look for a spare car key were locked in the car at Chellah. I started to cry again, and this second taxi driver repeated “Ne pleur pas. It’s normal.” I wondered at his choice of words “normal.” Did he mean natural? “No. He meant that things like that happen. Things go wrong. It’s normal to lock your keys in the car” my Moroccan friend later explained.

Back in the air conditioned taxi, we began our drive around town looking for a locksmith. It was early afternoon which meant finding an open store was going to be a challenge. But we kept at it. An hour or so later and several fruitless stops later, my daughter and I waited in the taxi parked just outside the familiar orange medina walls. The driver went in search of a locksmith and returned about 20 minutes later. He came with a short, brown man wearing a black work apron, who jumped in the passenger’s side front seat.

We pulled into the parking lot of Chellah and parked next to our car and got out. The man in the apron pulled out what looked like an uncoiled coat hanger and jimmied open the side door. I grabbed my purse from the back seat of the car. While giving them all thanks I began paying the men who aided me. The driver got 150 dirhams, which was a bargain for the ride around town. Driving from Chellah to Hay Riad and back would have been 100 dirhams alone. I paid the locksmith another 150 for his help. And I tipped the parking lot attendant 30 dirhams for watching the car. On top of the 10 dirham entrance fee, I ended up spending about $50 USD on the visit.

A day spent chasing tadpoles in shallow puddles, counting cats, photographing 14th century zillij installations, and playing kitchen amongst Roman ruins was worth the money spent, even if it did include me crying and driving through city at midday. My daughter enjoyed her “projects” with wildflowers and dripping water, but the true lesson of the day is that trouble finds its way into our life’s design and even adds beauty (God is great) to the composition. The thing is to welcome your trouble, deal with and experience it as a community, and have faith that even trouble has a place in design.

Trying to understand the origins of Moroccan design makes it is easy to neglect the new developments taking shape around the country. Take for example Hay Riad, the suburb of Rabat. The first time I visited Hay Riad in 1996 it was considered a far-out suburb, a cumbersome bus ride away from the city center. Now traffic flows into Hay Riad. It is complete with shops, businesses, gardens, and religious centers.

On the drive into Hay Riad, governement buildings, such as the Royal Institue for Amazigh Culture, bring life to the architectural landscape. The building looks like a wedge or —better yet– a ramp that is allows the land to take flight and the air to take ground.

New plazas are in place where inhabitants of nearby apartments come at night. Children ride bikes, play with sculptures, or skateboard while adults gossip or grab a coffee at the new Paul’s.

I say these developments are new, but to many they are not. I had a four-year gap between when I visited Rabat and when I saw the new development, most of which wasn’t in place in 2001. To me it is a stunning example of urban planning and design. In the States I’ve been waiting two years for a new shopping center to go up near my house, I live inside the Beltway, which is to say close to Washington, DC’s city center. I make the comparision because, despite the Moroccan reputation for having a work ethic that is rather, …ughum…, let’s say “relaxed,” when the Moroccan government is behind an initative, it puts action into place. Let’s hope similar results can be achieved with the rest of the King’s Vision 2010 plans.

My favorite thing to do in Rabat is to take pack my daughter and her trike in the car and head towards the medina. In May and June the weather is nice, perhaps a bit too hot at midday, but the crowds are thin. As my girl peddles her trike I take in the visual delight of artisan shops. If we visit during lunch when some of the shops are closed I can admire the painted doors. Sometimes we cross the street to the kasbah Oudaya for more fun exploring the gardens and a cup of tea for mom and cookies for the girl.

On one such trip, I stopped by the Maison du Artisan. Just outside the medina across from the Bou Regreg waterfront, I had been admiring this building from the outside and wondering what could be held inside. An artisan co-op? Business assistance? We wandered into a vacant courtyard with a central fountain.

We wandered up the stairs, Mom carried the trike, and a femme de menage immediately smiled a she noticed my girl, gently pinched her little cheek, and then kissed her own finger tips. This endearing gesture is common occurrence when traveling in Morocco with small children.

I explained using my poor French that I was researching export opportunities. I was shown into a woman’s office who explained to me in perfect English (lucky for us both) that she is working to help standardize the artisan sector and that one of her colleagues works on export opportunities. She gave me a lovely hardcover English-language book promoting Moroccan handicrafts, specifically carpets, weaving, pottery, leather, metal, wood, candles, jewelry, furniture, clothing, architecture, and organic products.

Her colleague took me into another office where I explained I was conducting research on export opportunities. But without a specific product and investment amount in mind, I could gather little information on pricing or suppliers. The first woman had explained that the website has a catalog of artisan contacts, but the website was broken when I visited. It ends up that the web address www.maisonartisana.org.ma which is printed on the back of the book is out-dated. The new address is www.lartisanatdumaroc.ma.

There was an exchange of business cards, but no further contact. I got the sense that most of the assistance is being supplied to artisan in-country as part of the Vision 2015 objectives, which include standardizing the artisan sector and getting more artisans to participate at trade shows and the like. I imagine there will be much improvement in the artisan sector within the next seven years.

If I do get around to importing Moroccan artisan products into the United States, I imagine I will do so by the container full instead of by working with individual suppliers. That said, if you are a Moroccan artisan seeking export opportunities to US markets, please contact me at sarah at moroccandesign.com.

After hanging out at hotels and hanging out of windows trying to pick up a wifi signal, I went to the Wana store in Hassan (Rabat) accross from Yum Yum and bought a wireless modem. It cost 700 dirhams (about $100 USD – ouch, the dollar is low) for the modem and first month of unlimited connectivity. You can buy additional months and pay-as-you-go (Meditel offers a similar service, but at the time they require a two-year plan). Based on the access map I saw at Wana, it looks like it should work along the costal areas of Morocco. You can ask them about coverage, but I don’t expect it would work for a trek through the desert. I’m using it now in Rabat and plan on using it when I get to Restinga, between Tangier and Tetuan.

Since I work as a freelance web designer, this is a very, very good thing for me. A bit pricey, but worth it if you need to work while traveling. Wish I knew about it before I started my travels, so I wanted you to know.

I just bought a bag made of fabric woven from silk and cotton with leather detailing. I bought it from the “purse guy” on Rue des Consuls in the medina Rabat. He has excellent quality bags. If you get to go to Rabat, stop by his shop. I don’t know how to describe the exact location, but you should be able to spot it by the steady flow of customers coming in and out.

I *love* my bag. Its big enough for a full laptop to fit inside without peaking out of the top. The straps are padded so they don’t dig into my shoulder. I added an eight-point star which I also bought in the Rabat medina.

There are lots of interesting bags being made from this type of fabric. I bought a jewelry box and wallet made from the same leather/fabric combination.

The purse guy speaks fluent English and sports a jellaba and beard. He can duplicate anything and is interested in seeing new designs. “Is that a Furla bag?” he asked on my last visit to his store as he inspected my beloved Toscanella tote bag.

If you get a chance to visit his shop, bring your dirhams and your designer bag. He’ll love seeing new designs and you’ll be able to shop from the shelf.

I love to spend time at my friends house in the neighborhood of Rabat aptly named L’Ocean, just down the street for the new Bou Regreg waterfront and the Oudaya kasbah. They have a beautifully decorated fifth-floor apartment with a large terrace and amazing ocean view. Its the perfect spot for watching sunset and relaxing with friends. I can’t say enough about how nice it is to have your own place in Morocco…a place on the ocean. But, in L’Ocean, if you turn away from the ocean and look south down the coast you will see a neglected neighborhood that tells the story of suppressed waterfront development in Rabat.

Hassan II had a policy, which he stated as “Turn your backs to the ocean.” I haven’t read this quote, but I’ve had several Moroccan friends repeat it to me. The best explanation I’ve heard for this policy is that Hassan II wanted his capital to be focused on the administrative work associated with ruling the kingdom. He did not want a city with cafes and liberal tourists, like Casablanca. He wanted a city of people dedicated to securing his rule. Perhaps he feared oceanfront development would encourage foreign investment which would in turn give foreigners an interest in the politics of Morocco. During the years of lead, it was better that Moroccans keep their eyes on Hassan II.

Whatever the logic behind the policies of Hassan II, it is clear that development in Morocco wasn’t inhibited by social or cultural concerns, which is what I feared when I wrote about new development plans for Oued Laou. It isn’t that the people of Morocco haven’t wanted foreign investment in their country, but foreign investment and tourism development was held back by the political policies and concerns of the previous king.

Under the rule of King Mohammad VI, the country is beginning to see the fruits of ambitious development projects, cultural celebrations, and development projects such as the Prince Moulay Abdellah sports complex and the Villa des Arts.

It is wonderful to see Morocco moving closer towards its full economic potential. I hope the new real estate development projects bring prosperity to Moroccans. The next challenges for Morocco are energy capacity, education, and cultural differences in expectations of services. I will write more about those concerns later. Overall, the future looks bright.

Although I’ve been in Rabat for about five weeks now, I have just begun to appreciate how much there is to enjoy around the Moroccan capital. Take for example this madrasa in Sale, just on the other side of the Bou Regreg estuary. It made an excellent day trip for me and my three-year-old traveling companion.

I drove next to the medina walls until I saw the Great Mosque, one of the oldest religious establishments in the country, and an empty lot where I parked the car and quickly found a guide to show us the rest of the way. After quietly making our way past the mosque, we found ourselves surrounded by school children on their way home.

Our destination was a Merinid madrasa built under the Almohad Sultan Abu al-Hassan Ali in 1333.

Inside I was delighted by the lovely examples of Merinid artistry and my daughter by the student cells and narrow hallways of the upper level. They structure looked as if it had gone through a recent renovation. The railings and walls were sturdy and we enjoyed opening and closing the doors of the small student rooms.

Our guide (in the red shirt) kept an eye on the stroller while we went exploring.

The next day, my daughter asked to go to the castle again, and I knew she meant the madrasa in Sale.