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The Crossroads in Morocco: Old Meets New in Tradition and Culture
B
eing married to a Moroccan has presented me the luxury of spending much of my vacation time in Morocco. Discovering a country and its culture through close family has its advantages and disadvantages. You are invited “inside” the homes, thoughts and cultural norms of the people, but this also means you are now responsible for your words and actions and how it affects the people you love. You now represent a family. That has been heavy for me, but it has also compelled me to observe more deeply than a tourist. As it happens, the first thing I understood about Morocco is the enormous social pressure to abide by those cultural norms that I was so unfamiliar with as a French-American, and by virtue of my rebellious nature, had some immediate issues with. I am a direct person ... in my questioning and approach to others. In Morocco, you have to learn to meander, delicately and subtly to your goal. Much like the streets and alleys of any Moroccan kasbah, you have to learn to trust the path and enjoy the scenery along the way, even if you’re not quite sure of
the destination. I had to learn quickly to calm myself, be open, and stop fighting. Since my first visit, I have travelled quite a bit in this truly stunning country with its breathtaking vistas and graceful (as well as gracious) inhabitants. Whether you are walking through the densely populated city of Fez or driving through the intense traffic congestion of Casablanca, you learn that gracefulness helps you avoid collision. You have to be alert and you have to be willing to bend. I have found flexibility (or amenability) to be one of their strengths and surviving mechanisms. In fact, you could never drive there without this skill. This also means that you have to learn to tiptoe between social classes. My earliest and strongest impression of Morocco was the severity of contrast in terms of the topography, the cities and the social classes. Moroccan cities are remarkable in their uniqueness. No city is alike. Each one has its own color theme, it’s own odor, and its own energy.
WRITER/ PHOTOGRAPHER
Sandrine Arons
But perhaps what has been most striking and captivating for me is the coexistence of a very poor illiterate population with a significant progressive intellectual class whose entrepreneurial successes afford them some of the most exquisite living standards I’ve ever seen. There are women dressed in a headscarves and djellabas walking alongside other women dressed in mini-skirts and stilettos ... and sometimes these women may be walking together as friends. As you make your way through downtown roundabout during rush hour traffic, you may pass between the most recent Mercedes SUV on the market on one side and a donkey-pulled carriage on the other. Or, you can walk out of the “Morocco Mall” (the biggest indoor mall of Africa that houses an aquarium in the middle where you can go scuba diving) and watch the shepherd bringing in his sheep. It’s as though time just lost all meaning-or else took on much more significance.
SCAN // Fall 2012
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