It was a picture I had seen hundreds of times over….maybe in something like National Geographic…two little girls, one dressed in bright, hot pink, kneeling on a rocky hillside in the middle of the desert. It was the middle of nowhere to me, but somewhere to them. They were kneeling on these hard rocks, facing east, bowing their heads towards Mecca. No more than 5 or 6 years old.
It was a brief instant that I saw them, we drove past them doing 120 km/hr…but it is an image that is burned into my memory, an image that truly represented our entire time in Morocco.
From the moment we landed in country, it was this bizarre mix of extremes…from extraordinarily beautiful coastline to the insanity and chaos of Djemma El Fna and Marrakech to the peace and quiet of the Sahara. West meets East and everything in between.
I’ll admit it…I was nervous to visit a predominately Muslin country, however moderate it is, I was totally overwhelmed and very on my guard at first. Travel takes you outside of your comfort bubble; outside of all things familiar and smack dab in the middle of somebody else’s world. Morocco was unlike any world we have been to…such extremes of chaos and peace, cleanliness and filth, loud to quiet.
We were driving through the Sahara, listening to an Arabic song…I don’t know what they were saying or what the song was about, it didn’t matter…that moment I was just THERE, in the middle of the Sahara…no thoughts of the past, future, no thoughts of work, of worrying about money, war, bills…just of being there.
It’s not very often Western minds can simply shut off and just be in the moment. We are always worried about a future we have little control over or a past that has already happened…but never really be in the moment we are in. Morocco is such a sensory overload, we really had no other choice other than just being there.
Our trip began in Essaouira, a quiet town on the ocean and inspiration for Jimmi Hendrick’s song Castles Made of Sand. One look at the coastline of this town and I could see why he was inspired to write a song about this place. A small village with endless side alleyways no car can drive down, a coastline littered with rocky outcrops, waves crashing and this fascinating culture. It was the perfect way to decompress from our 7 hour flight from JFK.
As my mind wandered through the sensory overload called Morocco, I thought about those two little girls and how that image was so burned into my mind.
I’m not religious, don’t even really like kids, and make absolutely no apologies for either. But to see such a blind faith, a faith SO strong, a faith for something greater, that it drove these two little girls who, in any where in the Western world, would be playing with Barbies, to be kneeling on the hard, cold rocks, praying…regardless of my opinion of their religion, it was profound. It made me ponder my own faith and made me think about what I do or don’t believe in.
To most, on a traditional level, I don’t have a faith. But to me, travel is my religion. It’s what I’m made of, what I live for, when I see things greater, better and makes me a stronger and better person. Travel to me, is small clips of time that I can experience the most amazing experiences with my best friend and husband, seeing all I can in this big world in the short time we have been given. Just like those little girls, facing east, to something hopefully better, to a higher power, to a happier place.
Morocco is a crazy place, definitely NOT a place for every person to visit, it’s very easy to see the poverty, the dirtiness, to be scared off by the unfamiliar religion and culture. You just have to take a deep, deep breathe, step out of that bubble with both feet, be completely in the now and take it all in. Let it happen around you and be happy you can visit such an vibrant culture. You’ll walk away with your eyes wide open to a very different part of the world and a very different part of you.
