Parting Note

As I sit a week removed from Morocco, trying to collect my thoughts about what the trip meant and what my reactions to it mean, I feel the need to make a few more notes before I begin the struggle to make some sense of all that I have written. If I was writing a story then the struggle to part in the degaulle airport, as the efficient Swiss seek to whisk Doris onto the plane ( The others can’t board until she has boarded!!!!) giving Bonnie and I no time to say goodbyes gains the emphasis, the proper final note. (It is fitting to say that as with all miscalculated efficiencies, these actions taken by the airport personal actually used up more time. Not allowing for the individual nature of the people they were dealing with and in particular the violent and self centered nature of Doris, they were forced to bring her back from the very brink of boarding, in order for her to say goodbye to me, thus completely delaying what they were so carelessly trying to expedite.)

But if I were to deal entirely with the nature of service and the things people owe to one another and the kindnesses and rewards we can bestow, I would have to dwell in the tips Bonnie gave to the staff, the final food left for the cats and the final gesture of the Marrakech airport attendant, Mohammed, who lifted Doris out of her wheelchair and carried her up the boarding steps. I was totally shocked by this action, took full advantage of it but was struck by the fact it was more then I was really willing to do myself and how much it cost me to watch. It was a man’s solution, a father’s solution, Doris held childlike in Mohammed’s arms. It was perhaps the solution we all want at one time or another, to be held in strong arms, born over our obstacles, taken care of as a child, delivered safe to our seat and tucked in.

I also realized I hadn’t really factored in the smoke. I mean I know nothing about the pot and hash use amongst the actual population. This is a feature of prejudice. I have this notion of muslims as puritanical and straight-laced and all of them perfect little temples, while my own knowledge of the way christians behave in the face of their religious strictures should inform the way I think muslims behave in day to day life. I found it a little fascinating that smoking was proscribed during Ramadan. Considering that tobacco was not introduced to the region a thousand years after the Koran was written, I wonder what the process was that got it on the banned list. Was the smoking of hash and pot on the list and then tobacco just got lumped in or was there special consideration of each separate drug. I should have looked into how this all works.

Having written all that, I am back wondering how much cannabis the local population consumes and how does it inform the general attitude of taking what comes. I mean I don;t want to mistake moroccans for rasterfarians but could there be some similarities and for the same drug induced reasons. Again something to look into, the intersection of a culture of tolerance and acceptance with a drug that can promote just such behavior