Boondock Saints, Boardwalk Sinners, Border Saviors

Upon skimming the collection of recent posts on this blog, I’ve recognized my tendency to overuse a particular set of words. These include “absurd(ity),” “experience,” and “fluid(ity)”. It’s made me realize first, that perhaps I really just am not as creative or eloquent as I think I am and second, that there is a pattern to the emotions I have in this country, a distinct tessellation of feelings that unwrap and rewrap themselves differently each time, yet are familiar in their essence. Like when you catch a whiff of your father’s trademark bitter and black Nespresso coffee on the blued streets of Chefchaoen, where the only coffee to be found is more like Nescafe-flavored milk. Or when the rough and intricate beading of a kaftan in a shop accidentally slices your finger the same way your mother’s saris did when you brusquely shuffled through them in the drawer. When the overwhelming sensation of finally visiting all the places you’ve dreamed about wafts through you, little by little. 

Though it’s certain that any time spent abroad will be full of brand-new experiences (there we go again), it’s also clear that lots of these experiences cease to feel “new” after a while. And as the newness fades, the weak parts of us will dare to entertain the idea of classifying them as “tiresome.” 

Now there are a lot of steps between “new” and “tired.” One of these steps, perhaps the most necessary one of all, is recognizing that a lot of things really don’t have to feel new to be important and valuable. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that newness is overrated. There’s real ingenuity to be found in those who can rearrange familiarity so that it feels fresh, but retains those essential components that make it familiar in the first place. 

I speak of all of this in extreme abstract terms, partly because I like the way it sounds and partly because I don’t think I could really elucidate the idea in any other way. It finally begins to seem like we’re putting down roots, that Rabat has finally taken us into its fold, adopted and nurtured us as its own children, marked us as its residents, (hopefully) proudly called us its natives (ana min Rabat, anyone?). In actuality, I leave Rabat in a little less than a month, Morocco in a little less than two. These are the sentiments that provoke both intense affection and a sense of gnawing insecurity.

But enough, enough about me, enough about how Morocco makes me feel, how all the things I see and do here are changing me. 

Over the weekend, we spent 36 hours in the northern region of Morocco, including the cities of Ouzzanne and Chefchaoen, and less than 12 of those in the European Union, or Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the North African, Mediterranean coast. Yes, you read that right, we traipsed through the border of one nation to another and then waltzed right back into the first country in a couple of hours. 

The founder of our academic center in Rabat owns a vacation home in Ouzzanne, an old colonial house that belonged to the French-appointed governor of the region. We had lunch here and toured the grounds before continuing on to Chefchaoen. Accessible through the medina, it’s perched on a high crop of land overlooking the city and mountains beyond. The second-floor veranda is flanked by orange trees that we plucked ripe fruits from to make our own orange juice. Below the house, past the garden is a shed dedicated to the production of olive oil. It was all almost too quaint to be real. I imagine myself at some point, elderly and world-weary. Wait, perhaps not world-weary, but world-fulfilled. To lounge here with the one I love, to reflect on what has been given to me and what I’ve given in return. If can get there some day, I’ll consider life a success. 

Chefchaoen had a similar effect - too beautiful and picturesque to be real. I had to reach out and touch the blue walls more than once to verify that they were indeed that blue and I was indeed here. We only spent a little more than an hour in the city, so I want to let the visuals speak for themselves. 

Now let’s ignore, for a moment, the fact that there are many borders in the world that are completely uncrossable for many people in the world, and examine the ease of us going from Morocco to Spain and back to Morocco in its isolation. There are a few elements to this journey that made it bizarrely unique completely out of context:

1. We walked the entire way. Keep in mind, this was an official, governed border between not only two separate countries, but Africa and the European Union. But we walked. We wove through cars and buses waiting in line in the same lane as us and sat on the curb outside on of the immigration booths as an officer checked our passports. 

2. Both Spanish and Moroccan citizens routinely cross to and from Ceuta in Spain, and M’Diq and Tetouan in Morocco as they live and work in separate countries. Thus on a Monday morning, the border was packed on both sides. 

3. Once we arrived to the checkpoint manned by Spanish cards, the flash of an American passport was enough to wave us through to “Europe.” No lines, no interviews, not even stamps. 

4. Crossing back into Morocco was just as easy, if not easier. 

So perhaps bizarre out of context, but in context, disturbing. Because as we we waived through the checkpoint, the line next to us was a crushing, clumped mass of people packed together in the fixed space of the checkpoint’s cage, yelling and crying. The beautiful Mediterranean lining the border, sparkling in the early morning sun, is the scene of crimes perpetuated against migrants trying to swim to European soil to claim refugee status. 

My parents worked hard to come to the United States. Borders don’t just exist on land, they also extend all the way to consulates and embassies, barring people from entry within the physical space of their own country. Both my father and mother have stressed that one of their primary motivations for struggling so much to come to this country was to ensure a better life for their children. That sentiment was so heavy on my mind as I walked past these people waiting in no-man’s land. What were their reasons for investing so much time, so many resources, and making so many sacrifices? Did they have children whose lives and opportunities they wanted to better? The most painfully ironic element of the whole trek was realizing that I was living the fruits of their immigration struggle right then and there. My American passport, a document I have directly because of my mom and dad, waived me right through from Africa to Europe, Morocco to Spain - and then back again. 

Yet despite all this, a sense of adventure and excitement punctuated the short sojourn into Ceuta - “excitement” particularly for me when I discovered that Ceuta has a poppin’ South Asian community that’s been around since the 1100s and does real South Asian things like celebrate Diwali (ahem, Fete Diwali). “Adventure” when we crossed the back into Morocco and realized that our bus driver had felt dizzy and checked himself into a hospital, leaving us with an empty, locked bus on the side of the road. All the mania of being abandoned on the side of the road (temporarily of course) was alleviated by the eventual unreal drive out of Tetouan and onto the highway, an actual stairway to heaven if you will. The sun sets slowly around mountains, as it disappears completely behind one peak, its light still creeps around another, bathing the valley in a soft, transcendent glow that seems to last for an eternity, long after it should have completely disappeared. 

The Tetouan sunset will be my time here for me, I think. The warm, soothing, incandescent glow of my life here will cloak and comfort me, long after I return.