Tangier

I am in Africa. How weird is that? It seems weird to me, at least. We arrived by ferry, where I got a passport stamp (I love passport stamps) with Arabic writing on it. And I had no idea they were this close, but we could see Morocco from the southern coast of Spain. However, proximity does NOT alleviate culture shock.

In most regards, culture shock here has not been bad so far (further inland we'll see about soon). Many signs have French in addition to Arabic, which is helpful if words are similar to Spanish or Italian and comforting if only because it's a recognizable alphabet. I don't have high standards for accommodation, so I don't mind the minimalist pension we found here, although I did have to use a squat toilet for the first time in my life, and I didn't love it. But the one kind of shocking thing is the hawkers.

I knew they would be around, especially in Tangier, but people here often call things to you, try to sell you things, try to give you advice on where you're going, try to get you to their restaurant or tea shop, and they do NOT stop at "no thank you." They're persistent and often, when rejected, are not friendly. First we tried ignoring them, thinking they might not follow us or they'd give up quicker, and we got SERIOUSLY cussed at. Cussing so much it made even ME blush, and I'm a 22 year old recent college grad, so I've heard some cussing. Then we tried pretending not to understand English, thinking Italian is less universally spoken, but turns out a lot of them speak Italian, too, so that trick didn't get us off the hook even once, and then I had to have the same wearisome "no thanks" conversations in Italian. No, I don't want to buy shirts, and I frankly just don't believe you really want me to come to your shop, look around, not buy anything, and have a free tea. I don't believe you'd let me off that easily, and I don't need the trouble. So basically, hawkers make me uncomfortable. One guy followed us to the beach yesterday, and to be fair, he was very friendly, but he would NOT leave us alone, and he actually sat next to us on the beach for probably 2 hours before we just decided to go back to the hotel. We got rid of him by lying that we would come meet him at this restaurant at 8:30, which we did not do. Speaking of lying, we're also telling people we're Canadian, when it comes up. I'm probably being paranoid, but enough people told us to be careful in Morocco that I trust no one, and I'm not sure how they feel about Americans--the Vazquez's recommended the Canadian trick, and they've been to Morocco many times. I carry as little as possible with me. I just feel, overall, a little edgier here than anywhere else I've ever been.

Which is NOT to say that I'm having a bad time. Good comes with the bad, and while I don't love the section of the city we're in and spent our time yesterday, today we discovered cleaner, nicer areas, without hawkers everywhere. There are beautiful buildings, fountains, and plazas here, and many streets look very European. The architecture is very different--mosques are not so grandiose and picturesque as the catholic cathedrals that I'm used to--and people are very different, but the few non-hawkers I've come into contact with have been very friendly. And, I didn't know this before, but Moroccans are very attractive. So that's always a plus too.

It's a day earlier than we'd planned, but I think we're done in Tangier. Tomorrow, we move on to Fez.
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