A Most Amazing Journey

 (By Todd Huffman, with additional comments by Noreen)

Way, way back in the annals of history, our good friends Randal Hans and Leila Belkora decided to get married...OK, so it was really just last year, but the point is that they decided that part of this event had to take place in Morocco. You remember Morocco. It's where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman finally decided to end their tawdry yet tragic affair. Thus spawning the true movie classic, 'Night After Casablanca' by the Marx Brothers.

Noreen and I, being only about 1200 miles away from Morocco as the stork flies (didn't see any crows there) decided this would be a great chance to not only see some of our old friends from Illinois and wish Randy and Leila all the best, but also to visit yet another exotic location. We also figured that Morocco is the kind of place that we wouldn't normally think of going to on our own, so we just couldn't pass it up. Fortunately, Randy and Leila managed to schedule the festivities just at the end of Oxford's term.

Leila's father, Abbie, proceeded to make group reservations for us at several Hotels prior to the trip. We were very grateful as we had no clue what was reasonable and what wasn't. Also he could get group rates. Abbie then said that someone would meet us at the Airport in Casablanca when we came in. Again, since Noreen and I don't speak French and our Arabic is a bit rusty (my ancient Sumerian is just as rusty by the way) we were grateful for that as well.

 Flight went faster than the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow and we arrived at Casablanca airport on the evening of the 17th of June with no hassles. Leila's Dad was there to pick us up and within seconds we were headed out to his car. At which point came the very first Moroccan culture shock (well...more of a minor buzz, we weren't entirely surprised by this, having read some tourist info in a guide book).

 As we reach the parking lot, two kids aggressively grab our bags in order to help us get them into the trunk of Abbie's car. (which was a big diesel-consuming Mercedes, by the way...This is foreshadowing, a literary device, hint, hint.) Needless to say that all this helpfulness was not out of a sense of goodwill. Money was Required. Abbie slid the boy who actually did the carrying 2 dirhams (the younger one was busily polishing the car's windows and side-view mirrors) and then gave us the first pieces of valuable advice:
 
 

 Abbie then proceeded to drive us to Rabat (about 1-1/2 hour drive in a big fast car). This was a great time to be driving as many Moroccans were returning to their homes/tents/whatever-they-live-in. Moroccans seem to love to cross high speed dual highways on foot, too. Even if there is a foot-bridge for just that purpose not 100 feet away. On their journey across the rush-hour filled divided highway, a few of them even look for oncoming cars. Only 2 or 3 came close to hitting the Mercedes.

We get to Rabat and pull up to the Hilton. Yes, 5 stars, whole nine yards. Our stay included continental breakfasts. The Hilton was being renovated and we got one of the newly renovated rooms. These are $200 per night rooms. We were getting them for about ½ price. We didn't have a lot of time to marvel though as there was a dinner at one of Leila's relatives that night. This also prevented me from complaining to the management on the condition of their driving range.

By the time we arrived in Morocco, most of the rest of crowd had assembled. Joe Steele and his friend Ann (sorry Ann, you'll have to remind me of your last name), Kara Hoffman, Leila Belkora, Leila's friend Heidi, Jeff (Leila's brother) and Amy (Jeff's wife), Leila's Mom and Dad, Two good friends of Leila's Mom and Dad, Noreen and I, ... oh yeah, Randy was there, too. That last point is important because rumor had it that Randy was key to the wedding ceremony. Randy's Uncle Steward and his friend from the States, and two friends of Jeff and Amy's from South Africa were still to arrive.

Oh, another thing Leila's father had done for the group was hire a midi-bus. So this supposed ``air-conditioned'' bus pulled up and trundled us off to Leila's cousin's apartment. (N: Note, that having arrived from the relatively cool clime of England, Morocco was the first blast of real `warmth' we've felt since leaving Chicago 2 years ago! However, fortunately for us, it was not TOO hot in Rabat when we arrived.) Upon arriving, we were warmly greeted by every single person in the room -- which included a good portion of Leila's extended family- with handshakes or the European kiss on both cheeks. And then we were promptly buried in food.
 
 

Consumer Warning: The information about to be presented here is horribly and irrevocably biased by the complete ignorance of the author. Therefore inaccuracies abound. You are advised to use even more caution than you normally do when reading my little stories in assessing the veracity of the contents.
 
 

First were the appetisers. There were two main groups of people that split mainly along language lines. Each had 4 good-sized main plates of cold food. I don't remember all of them. But one involved some kind of stuffed artichokes and another involved a spicy mashed eggplant. A third was exactly like refried beans? except that it looked different, tasted different, and wasn't made from beans. We were told what everything was, but as you will come to understand, there was just too much for me to comprehend at once.

 When we'd eaten about 3/4 of the stuff on the plates the person who'd been hired to serve us took it all away.

 Next came Leila's favorite dish. The envelopy things. (Other people called them 'samosas'. I find 'envelopy things' more descriptive of their shape as I have never met a Samosan shaped like that.) (N: OK, another analogy would be like the Chinese won ton treats I've made for various occasions.) These are meat, shrimp, or cheese wrapped tightly in a won-ton-like wrapper to look like one of those paper footballs that you all used to make in the 8th grade. I think they are then deep-fat fried. They are definitely very good, especially the cheese ones. They came out filling a 1-meter diameter tray two envelopy things deep. I thought, based on how much there was, that this was the main course and duly started to polish off the cheese ones that Leila didn't get. Fortunately, Randy was there to keep me informed as to the Emily Post of Moroccan meals. Apparently, this was NOT the main meal. This was only the second starter. And it was again removed well before we could make a serious dent in the tray's contents.

The tray of 'envelopy things' under Abbie's and Randy's lusty gaze.
That's Kara reaching over to snare one before it got loose.

Then there was the main course, The Meter-Long-Fish. (N: A slight exaggeration on his part, but it was a HUGE fish and stuffed with what seemed like spicy bean thread noodles -- those transparent Chinese noodles.) It was covered with a layer of tomato sauce with sliced olives on top. I'm not a big fish fan, but this fish was pretty good. It also departed approximately half eaten, though by this time we probably couldn't have eaten much more.

 Then comes the dessert. This was some sort of cream-vanilla-almond pastry. In order to keep the dessert from looking out of place it also had to be a meter in diameter. Much to Noreen's chagrin, she could not have any of this because of her inability to digest milk-based products. I couldn't have much either because of my inability to stuff more incompressible items into the volume of my stomach. I managed a wafer-thin piece without experiencing the detrimental effects in "The Meaning of Life", and it was heavenly.

Then comes the fruit tray. And finally the traditional Moroccan mint tea. Moroccans drink their tea very sweet. It's the right way to serve tea as far as I'm concerned. (N: And would you believe he didn't even complain about it being mint? Naturally, I loved the stuff just because of the mint ?)

Randy then gets me off to the side where he won't embarrass all the relatives and begins to fill me in on all the faux pas I'd managed to commit that night.

 Next day was a trip to Chellah (pronounced shall-AHH, like a person from the Deep South would say: "shall-AHH wait here or shall-AHH go home?"), which was not too far from the Rabat Hilton. Chellah was an ancient Roman ruin, then it became an ancient Islamic ruin. Now they let tourists in for about $1 each. Well worth the price I'd say, but then, I'm a big fan of ancient Roman ruins ... much to the inestimable grief of everyone else who came along. Even worse, since the plaques explaining everything were in French, I just had to make sure I stayed clear of Jeff or Leila and then I could make it all up as we went along ... great fun! (N: Boy, would Western archeologists tear their hair out over the way tourists could wander in and touch and step on anything in sight. Safety control freaks would have heart attacks, too, as there were many deep pits with no warning signs or fencing ? you just had to watch your step! T: This of course, only added to the fun.)

Whole colonies of storks live in and around Chellah. We saw many many storks around Rabat in general. They build 1.5 meter diameter nests of sticks and raise more than one chick each. I don't know how many chicks exactly because I wisely decided that Noreen would not approve of my climbing 80 feet up a tree to disturb a stork nest to count the chicks. I'm sure that the mother stork would have had an opinion too. I know there is more than one chick because you could hear that there were at least two.

Storks and Ruins of Chellah

We then went to the government-run artists' market. It was closed. We then went to the Hyper-marche' (one more than a Super-marche'?) to get bottled water. Turns out you can't get to the Supermarket from the main road unless you circumvent the limitations of space-time ... fortunately, our bus driver didn't know anything about the limitations of space-time so we got there in no-time.

We then headed back to the hotel to prepare for The Henna Ceremony.