Morocco: Blue Tinges Of Chefchaouen
By Tatiana Swancy

I know we’ve reached Chefchaouen because almost every building I see is whitewashed and kissed somewhere: on walls; on doors; on shutters; on awnings, by gentle shades of blue.

We met two days ago in a hotel in southern Spain and fell in together quickly, moving further south by bus, ferry and taxi to this Moroccan town. My companions, Mark, Shauna, and Michelle, are fair-skinned with blond or sandy-colored hair, rarities here. I expect that they will attract a lot of attention, particularly Shauna and Michelle; while, I, a brown-skinned African-American, will blend easier into the background.

We unload our bags at our hotel and find the nearest restaurant to fill our stomachs. We’re received warmly by Aarif, the host and waiter bearing a striking resemblance to Adam Sandler. Aarif sits with us, his sole customers, while we eat lamb and chicken tagine. Mark mentions he’s searching for rugs for his apartment, and Aarif perks up.

“My friends own a carpet shop,” he says. “I will take you there.”

He leads us swiftly through Chefchaouen’s blue-streaked, undulating streets. We pass through a long, open-air market winding down in the nighttime; gowns still dangle from racks and leather shoes, bags, jewelry, and assorted trinkets sprawl across tables and blanket-coated ground. We walk up a set of stairs through the town’s white and cerulean-walled medina and are soon entering the carpet shop.

The shop is three rooms, each framed by eye-level stacks of gorgeous, carefully woven rugs, wool and silk, big and small. Four twenty-something men and a teenaged boy are in the back room, loafing on a sofa, chatting merrily, smoking, and watching Egyptian music videos, which look a lot like American music videos with a lot more clothes.

The shop owner, Omar, greets us cheerfully and perks up even more when Aarif tells him that Mark wants to buy a rug. He guides Mark around the shop, while the rest of us stay in the back room, turning our gaze to a woman in a cocktail dress singing sultrily on TV.

Suddenly, the teenaged boy beams at me, raises his arms up high and shakes them. “Mother Africa,” he calls out to me. “Africa!” I shake my arms back at him, and we giggle.

One of the men scrutinizes me. “You look a little Moroccan. Does your family come from Morocco, you know, a long time ago?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I say. He looks at me, unconvinced, like this is my homecoming and I don’t realize it. I start to wonder if he’s right. My family came from many places a long time ago, more places than I probably know. I tell him so, and he chuckles.

“Yes,” he says, “you might be a little Moroccan.”

Shauna wants to check up on Mark, and we follow her.

“I bought three,” Mark tells us, pointing proudly to his acquisitions.

“How much did you spend?” Shauna whispers.

“About the equivalent of $1500 US dollars.”

We’re stunned by his affront to backpackers’ frugality.

“Did you bargain?” Michelle asks.

He averts his eyes and shakes his head sheepishly.

Omar is so delighted he invites us all to the shop tomorrow for lunch. We’re back the next day, sitting gleefully around Omar’s coffee table. We drink mint tea, so fresh enormous mint leaves poke out of the glasses. An entire chicken is placed in the center of the table, and our reaching fingers pluck the meat easily from the bone. It’s the best chicken I’ve ever tasted, a bird unbelievably tender and dripping with flavor. Omar’s wife prepared it for us, but remains at home.

I ask him if we will get to meet her.

“I do not know,” Omar responds, hesitantly. “She is very busy, taking care of the home and the family.” The family includes nieces, nephews, cousins, and a few children from town whose parents are too impoverished to care for them.

We drift upstairs to the balcony and watch over the roaming people, playing children and bluish buildings. Aarif smokes hashish and tells us, “Hashish and tourism are Chefchaouen’s biggest industries. But the king does not like us to smoke hashish, and tourism has not been good since the terrorist attacks in America.”

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