"Smitten By Morocco" by Tyler Burgess
While leading walking trips in Italy the last couple of years, I stayed in a small hotel owned by an Italian married to a Moroccan woman. She invited me to her home in the Moslem city of Marrakech, North Africa, where they winter. The invitation was for one person only, so I bravely went by myself. Some of my favorite memories: Staying in the neighborhood kasbah, within the pre-medieval walls of Marrakech, where no tourists go. When out by myself in the city, men warmly greeted me with "Welcome to Morocco." A group of tots ran up to me, both hands extended, to have me kiss both their cheeks. If I had known, they would have kissed both my cheeks and my hand!
Taking a local tour out into the dunes, I rode a camel, spent a night in a camel-hair tent, ate couscous from the communal dish and enjoyed a drum concert. Some of us took a late evening hike up to the top of a dune. I would have been frightened to do it in the light when I could have seen the steepness of the slopes.
Leaving the tour in the High Atlas Mountains, I stayed in the Toudra Gorge. After a great solo day hike, a young Berber (the indigenous people) man invited me into his family home for mint tea. The next day I spent watching the women bake, cook, clean, parent, decorate my hands with henna designs and line my eyes with coal dust. We laughed, danced and communicated with hands. The family's two youngest children greeted me with a traditional kiss on the back of my hand, both my cheeks and offered both their cheeks for me to kiss. I was smitten. Since then I have returned three times, enough to be called "family".
The Berber life of poverty is harsh and cold. Their laugh and hearts are full of warmth. The Arabs in Marrakech have a sweetness and innoncence about them. If one day I do not return from my travels, know you are welcome at my new home in the High Atlas of Morocco in North Africa.
