Back in Africa (Morocco)

It scares me how some things in life can affect me so profoundly that I believe they give me strength or maybe show me the strength I have, but that strength can shake away from me in the face of other events. I felt like I learned a lot of key things about how to be in this world in Africa, but somehow I regressed when I left. But one thing I did learn when I was there is that my life is always falling apart, but I don't have to fall apart with it. Now this is easier said than done and usually I do fall apart with it, and I definitely did this summer in Europe. But Africa taught me that more quickly I return to that peace, even if I am lost sometimes. I faced a task this summer, I was prepared for it, and I failed. The peace has yet to return. But when I stepped on the ferry from Spain to Morocco, I swear I could feel a different wind blowing softly around the call to prayer that rolled over the water.
I think life has certain lessons to teach you and if you can learn gently, great, but if you don't then you get kicked in the ass. I felt like was given a second chance (after being kicked in the ass for failing when I had no reason to) to do what I should have done in the first place: go to Africa and not look back.
If I succeed or fail is yet to be determined, but right now my world has broken apart. I am not saying that is a bad thing, it leaves room for a lot of new things to enter it. I hope to eventually use this as an opportunity, not a setback. But for now, just being in Morocco I felt some of the Europe stress melt away.
The first night in Tangier was rough. I was in a familiarly skeezy hotel room with a parade of ants marching underneath my bed that had no sheets but was nicely decorated with some one's pubic hair. The overflowing squat toilet was three floors down and no shower. All of that I can take in stride, but many of the men I find in a Muslim country when I travel alone are more difficult to deal with. As they knocked on my door late at night I wished I had one of those door blocker thingies or a way to better lock my door.
The worst is how difficult it is to get anything done. Men elbow in front of me in ques, the person behind the desk only helping me after all the men have been served. But finally I was on my way to Chefchauen, a small mountain town.
As I looked out the window of the bus and saw the familiar African landscape of dusty people in dirty doorways just being, watching the world go by, others hard at work in the fields, cars brimming with people in every nook of space, donkeys being ridden or driven in carts on the highway and women with things on their heads, I began to relax. This is my style of traveling, not the hostel parties in Europe. I can do this, I thought, the familiar comfort of being on my own in such a foreign place began to take over and I was happy.
Chefchauen is stunning- the maze of the Medina is all in shades of blue, some of the passage ways are how i would imagine the inside of an ice burg to be. Blue fades into another hue of blue. Strikingly bright clothes line the streets waiting to be sold along with mounds of Moroccan bread, dates, nuts, bags of pastel powder I imagine is paint but I don't know why they have something other than blue, and spices. Many people wear these Berber cartoonish hats, conical and straw but personalized with tassels, beads or fabric balls.
I could walk the Medina nonstop if it wasn't for all the unwanted male attention a solo girl has to deal with. But at least it was better than Egypt!
Still, the more lost I got in the Medina, the more I was finding my way back to the familiar. The best part of the day happened every morning at 5am. I w as sleeping on the rooftop terrace and that is when the call to prayer would wake me up.
It called at that whisper of time before night turns into dawn, when the darkness of night is still hovering, thick and resistant before it crawls down past the mountains. The haunting call to prayer would go on and on and with it, the rare cool breeze seemed to swirl until the chanting, the flags blowing, the laundry on the lines, the birds and the last persistent stars all seemed to move in a dance that breathed- you're here- on a rooftop in Morocco.
Still empty, empty of everything, I would listen and add my own hope that this time I'd maybe absorbed more of the lessons life has taught me. I honestly have no idea if I have or have not.