So I hopped on a bus to Fés, feeling more capable with each passing hour. The bus ride itself was a horror--11 hours in a box into which has been leaking a certain not negligable amount of headache-inducing exhaust. I got into Fés two hours after sundown and walked past a graveyard to the medina gate through which I was to find my hostel. In Marrakesh I had experienced the awkwardness of being caught in a lie, telling some faux guide I was Italian and I couldn't understand him and then him speaking better Italian than I, what with French sinking in as my functional language. Here, I was Canadian to anyone concerned. Thoughtlessly, this is what I told the hotel until I showed my passport and pardoned myself embarrassedly, following with a few derisive comments about the US government. Funny enough, I pulled the same thing when I got to the next hotel, in Chefchaouen, but maintained that I live in Canada, just born in the US and was studying and living there when I got my passport. I know, what's the point? Part of me wants very much to be as honest as I can wrap my head around in all speech and action, but another part desires to train the ability to make shit up and be okay with deception. Jacques Braun in a deceiver. With a constantly shifting backstory, Jacques consistently calls himself a Canadian Christian who is not religious, but believes God is everywhere. His lineage is French, but the family has been of Canada for three or four generations by now. If pressed, his parents now live in the US, unfortunately. Not that he thinks Canada is so great, because he just loves Morocco--yes, you have a beautiful country and yes, Morocco has a place in my heart, thanks for asking.
I've begun writing down my dreams in the morning. I wondered why I am always quasi-within myself in these dreams when an "I" isn't necessary to action, mood, environment. The next night, a dream without myself. What can I say.
I met an actual Canadian (well, a Quebécer) and told him I was Canadian, too. I did not do this because I had some unconscious wish to be found out (or, at least, not just because of this), but we were in a place with people who I had told two or three days previous how I was from Vancourver, BC. Turns out this guy, Lillian, has family in Surrey, is it? What is that big suburb right by Vancouver called again? Um, I don't know, I don't get out of the house that much. Hm, that's strange, because I think this suburb is, like, bigger than Vancouver itself--Surry or Currey. Well, actually I was just born in Canada and lived there until I was three or four, then my family moved down to the States. Haven't really been back since. I feel strange, removed, worried for the rest of the conversation, but Lillian seems to have ignored or not understood or accepted my whole schtick and for the next two days he does, infact, refer to me as a Canadian--to others and to me. I am left bewildered as to what actually happened here.
All the week, I've been taking Arabic "lessons" from Mohalled, the dude who owns a restaurant just next to my hotel. I got the alphabet and sounds after three days, and could more or less sound out words written wherever. When we got to sentence construction I learned why there are accredited institutions of learning. I spent a quarter of our time waiting of Mohammed to work with me, a quarter telling him I understood something as he was flogging the horse post-mortem (i.e., ten minutes on "min" means "from"), and half of the time trying to direct his scattered "teachings". Regardless, I ate nearly every meal at Mohammed's place, though he never gave me the slightest break on prices and the food wasn't that great. I sort of made myself a presence there, to get a feel of the workers and build a familiarity of which I was either feeling in need or just curious to try out. Here is a picture of Djellal, a worker there, and the restaurant. My "course" took place on the upper shelf.
Also, one night Djellal brought by a hooker. I was confused if she was supposed to be for me or for him, saying, "Non, non. Mais, allez-vous si vous voulez". The hooker seemed to be confused, too; maybe because her pimp's client was saying no after the pimp was assuming a yes. I later learned how Djellal is a pimp who pimps girls even as young as thirteen. The boy from whom I heard this is too old for his age.
I gave up on the Arabic with two days left in Fés after Mohammed had spent the first half-hour of what was supposed to be lesson-time talking at me about Islam being the last and best and only true religion as I stonewalled him, giving the occaisional affectless "je comprends" or "oui".
Here is a beautiful sunset. The tourists all hit the roofs to take photos, not simply digging on it and in it, but making pathetic attempts to bottle it.
Here it is:
The five calls to prayer per diem are broadcast over PAs from the mosques. It sounds like I imagine bomb drills in 50s America sounded, it sounds like some sort of hell. There is a definite oppressive and aggressive aspect to the call to prayer, just as there is to the ringing of the hours by chuch bells.
I'm still reading Infinite Jest, which got me going on the idea of irony as a means to absolve onself of the sin of feeling or being/having been attached to something; valued something. Irony is a mechanism by which the knowing separate themselves from the ignorant, but there is a small frightened empathy in the brief identification with ignorance needed to assert ignorance and knowledge. I think I am beginning to smell a little like franks and beans, and my feet definitely smell like cheese popcorn. Anyway, in this fashion, irony can be understood as an extended branch of Enlightenment thinking in its will to knowledge and progress, though it modestly undermines the productivity so much aligned with this progress.
Leaving Fés, I say goodbye to the guys at the restaurant. One of the kids is playing soccer in the alley. I'm told he is an orphan and homeless. I say goodbye to him and he gives me one of the strongest smiles I've seen since my sister was a kid. Happy, honest, good-willed, vulnerable. Sheer honest smile. This smile wraps itself around me and says, "yes, this is the feeling you love and miss when you remember you don't have it. This is being home, but not too home. This is having friends without having the recognition of the third-party called the relationship, which makes for the awareness of power fluctuations. This is a realized love." A homeless orphan, and what could I give him that would make him any happier or more beautiful than he was just then.
On the bus to Chefchaouen I talked with a very nice man who invited me to stay in his home if I came to his town in my travels and who bought me a yogurt drink when he went to get one for himself. I felt a little bad about lying to him about myself and I gave him a fake e-mail address that jived with my story. When I arrived in Chefchaouen, I made this fake address into a real one out of some guilt and maybe good-will? The mountains remind me of Elba, as do the snaky Escher-like passageways and building-gestalt. The medina is painted all in blue/violet and white, which makes the place feel unreal or surreal or wonderfully real depending on your mood. 
When you meet someone on a bus/train/plane or in a bar/party/other social setting and talk and then there is sileznce, is the silence shared or is it a retreat into individual silences?
I bought a rug already. I know, you don't need to say anything. It is made out of cactus fiber, though. It is light and pretty. Yeah, I know. What's done is done. It is pretty, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment