My second morning in Sevilla -- two short weeks ago -- I woke from amazing, luminescent dreams of well-being. This morning, my second in Casablanca, I woke from turbulent, disquieting dreams situated back in the States, the political state of things figuring prominently. A shower followed by a walk in morning sunlight and two or three glasses of hot tea at a café brought me back.
They make killer tea here, BTW. And salads. ("Killer": not a word I tend to associate with tea or salads, but there it is. If they made them in Madrid or the States they way they do here, I'd indulge in both a whole lot more.) Also, as might be expected, some righteously excellent hommous and tabouleh.
When I stepped outside at 10 a.m. this morning, the streets weren't quite as quiet as those in Sunday morning Madrid, but more sedate than I'd been expecting. I'd had some blinkered idea that Sunday a.m. in a Moslem city would be more or less like weekday mornings in western cities, Friday being the day of religious observance here. Silly me. The Monday-to-Friday business model predominates here as well -- stores were dark and shuttered, with few people about. A walk brought me to a café that's become my default haunt here, I grabbed an outside table, ordered tea, watched the local world slowly come to.
Sitting at cafés here means being an automatic target for the wandering black market vendors who pass by every few minutes (cigarettes; socks/neckties; batteries; sweets; occasionally toys -- an enterprising guy with boxes of toy trains passed by this morning). Males looking to shine shoes appear frequently, people pass asking for money. Almost all solicit respectfully, move immediately on.
Looking like a westerner, even one as unobtrusive as me (though salt/pepper hair and honky-white skin work against complete invisibility), has not meant getting hit on more than the locals, which I've appreciated. It has, however, meant receiving artificially friendly overtures once in a while from a certain type of male, wanting (a) money or (b) to guide me to a rug shop. They start out with an ingenuously friendly hello in Arabic or French, quickly change to broken English if I don't respond. I've learned the routine, I mostly continue on my way.
The street-encounter thing has been interesting. Curious glances aren't uncommon, and far more Moroccan women than I'd expected have checked me out in obvious fashion, some returning my gaze boldly, directly. Could be they're actually scoping me out male/female-wise, could be they're trying to determine my cash value, westerners apparently assumed to be automatically swimming in money. (All things being relative, it may be that compared to the local standard we actually are swimming in money.)
And there are occasionally lengthier, conversational encounters. I experienced the first of those Friday afternoon after leaving my cross-eyed benchmate. [See yesterday's entry.] A skinny, short 50ish type -- copper skin, receding hair, day-old stubble, lacking a few teeth. We jostled each other along a stretch of broken, uneven sidewalk, I said, "¡Perdón!"
"¿Español?" he asked. "Sí," I answered, meaning yes, I speak it -- not necessarily his question. He spoke a little Spanish, some English, immediately began a conversation that veered between them and French, laying a complicated story on me about owning a boat and a marine company, about Spanish business contracts that keep him going between Spain and his country, Mauritania, about mechanical problems that had left him stranded in Casablanca for a week.
A true tale? A fanciful yarn? Total rubbish? I couldn't tell, didn't press him to find out. I listened, genuinely interested in this character, enjoying the unexpected encounter, wherever it led.
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I have no idea what this billboard is getting at.
[continued in next entry]
rws 7:19 AM [+]