I asked the shop owner if she wouldn’t mind explaining the significance of the Portuguese rooster motif. She locked her arms on the checkout counter and leaned forward, eyeballing me over her glasses. “Yes, I would mind. It’s a stupid story. If you really want to know, it’s on a poster in the corner. Have at it.” I read it, and she was right. As … Continue reading A Month in Morocco (Final Entry): My Foreign Home
As I sifted through a pile of second-hand sweaters on the sidewalk, two children, maybe eight or nine years old, extended their dirty hands towards me. One wore a tank top and greasy cut off khakis, the other was dressed in oversized shorts and a coat branded across the chest with orange letters J-A-C and K-E-T split by the zipper. Both held an empty plastic … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: Hijacked
I napped while the train rolled north along the west coast. As the steel wheels lumbered along rust-pitted tracks, I dreamed of men shouting at me in Arabic. I woke up confused—and a look out the window made me think of Baja. Trash fires dotted the sandy, barren stretches while kids on ratty bicycles rode along the parallel tracks, throwing rocks. The ocean was flat … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: To Be a Better Man
I arrived in Volubilis at 8am. The heavy Mediterranean fog mixed with smoke from brick factories shrouded the ghostly columns on distant hilltops. Not until I was about to leave did the clouds finally burn off and offer a panoramic view of the 2300 year old ruined city that once housed more than 20,000 people. The sun brought to life intricate bath mosaics and mythological … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: When in Rome…
In the Fez train station I read Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley while occasionally looking up to watch people. Transportation hubs always offer a sense of relief. They’re filled with temporary people from all around the world and the expectation to comply with local customs is largely eschewed. The three shops in the station are bathed in neon and have westernized names: Smoothie Rail, Venezia Ice, … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: Vacilando
It’s 4:30am when my bus arrives in Fez. A taxi brings me to the hotel I stayed in two weeks ago, but a scribbled note taped to the locked door says they’re full. I’m not surprised— it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve already noticed an influx of tourists. I shoo a couple cats off the stoop and nestle into a corner that smells like piss. I’m … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: Topped Off With a Kiss
I had five hours to kill before my bus arrived and I spent most of that time sitting in a shop talking with Samir. I had met him five days earlier when I first arrived in Erfoud. He sold me a Touareg turban then linked me up with the trekking company that took me into the Sahara. Samir was a hawker, but unlike other hawkers … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: Meat Perfume
I made it clear to Mohamed that I wanted to walk to the home-stay destination in the Black Desert and not ride a camel. Three days prior, the short ride from the chateau to the Sahara camp had been excruciating and I wasn’t about to do it again. Having ridden camels on two continents I can say with absolute certainty that my anatomy isn’t suited … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: And Then I Got High
My Sahara guide’s name was Mobarak, but he asked to be called “Black Stars.” He was a kind, hospitable man with a peaceful aura. On our first day at camp, Black Stars passed tous his grandmother’s wisdom, “If you need something, ask. If you are too shy to ask, that’s your problem.” After dinner, Black Stars recommend we leave camp and look at the desert … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: The Sound of Africa
I spent my first night in the desert with an international cross section of people: A Swiss couple in their late 70s who had just circumnavigated the globe in a sailboat, three Australian law students on holiday (two men, one woman), one Aussie dropout with baby dreads (man), Lithuanian newlyweds, two dating thirty-somethings from Chile and Mexico who are grad students in Holland, and a … Continue reading A Month in Morocco: Needing People
Tom Griffen 
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