once in marrakesh

I'm back from a whirlwind, exhausting, and refreshing vacation, spent mostly at home in North Carolina. The blogger server seems to be behaving normally again (yay!) so I'm going to try catching up a bit, posting things I've written over the past several months. This is a story of something surprising that happened in Marrakesh last fall...


Marrakesh is a headache.

It is the quintessential Moroccan city - in fact, "Marrakesh" is where the English name "Morocco" comes from. It's a place with an irrepressible energy, filled with snake charmers and merchants and hoteliers and taxi drivers - above all, taxi drivers - hell-bent on hustling every last American dime out of the would-be traveler. Usually when I visit Marrakesh, I'm just passing through - decompressing after a long train ride from the north and bracing for a gut-wrenching taxi ride through the endless switchbacks of the Tiz n Test pass. Unlike the thousands of tourists thronging the city, all I really want out of Marrakesh is a hot shower and a bed. Bargaining for a taxi fare is the last thing I want to do there, but it inevitably becomes part of the routine.

Last week the task looked to be especially difficult. The brand-new Marrakesh train station looks like a high-end American mall, but for all its scintillating decor, its newly designed taxi stand disappointed. I was traveling with two fellow volunteers, and we were all keenly aware that a fair price for a ride to the Jemaa el Fna was 10 dirhams or less. So we were determined to find a taxi driver who'd use his meter to give us a fair price. But our hard-won street smarts backfired as our propensity to negotiate led one taxi driver to ignore us and another to simply drive away. Dejected and angry and tired, and stubborn as ever, we started walking down the boulevard in the hopes of finding a less predatory driver. Little did we know, our very own Marrakeshi angel was about to swoop down on us.

At the corner of Hassan II and Muhammad VI, one of my friends and I set down our luggage to catch our breath as our third companion ran into the adjacent National Theatre to ask about upcoming events. Within minutes, a petit taxi pulled over near us at the side of the busy road (which was starting to fill to rush-hour capacity). We hadn't so much as seen it before it stopped - let alone actually hailed it - and actually ignored it for a few moments, figuring no Kesh cabbie would be willing to wait for a passenger - especially during rush hour, outside a train station awash with Euro- and dollar-bearing tourists.

But a traffic-light-cycle or two later, the driver was still there, waiting, so I ran up to his window and said we were waiting for a friend and she was coming in a minute or two and we wanted to go to Jemaa el Fna and did his meter work?

He smiled and said his meter did work, and it would be no problem to wait a minute or two longer. He proceeded to help us pile on all our luggage as we squeezed ourselves into the small car. I'm notoriously jumpy when it comes to taxi drivers and meters and hurriedly asked our driver to start his, which he did immediately and with a smile. Feeling a bit sheepish, I tried to explain away my over-eagerness, saying that we often encountered drivers who insisted we pay 20 or even as much as 50 dirhams for the short taxi ride.

We eventually fell into a conversation based on the standard questions many city taxi drivers ask of volunteers: Where did you learn Arabic? Why did you learn Arabic? Why don't you know French? Have you been to Marrakesh before? How long have you been in Morocco? Where do you work? What do you do?

The driver, a Marrakesh native, knew no Tashlheet and was surprised to learn that we all lived in small douars where we worked with local women's associations. He asked if we liked Marrakesh. I bit my tongue and replied in the affirmative, explaining that after weeks in a small village it's nice to travel a bit and spend some time in the Big City (the ability to tell selective truths being an essential tool in the skill set of any volunteer).

We wove in and out of busy lanes of traffic until finally the familiar and perfectly-dimensioned minaret of the Koutoubia came into view. As the taxi drew up close to the Jemaa el Fna, I glanced at the meter - just under 10 dirhams - and thumbed through my wallet for a coin. As I tried to hand it to our driver, he put up his palm and refused the money. “It's free for you,” he said.

The cynic in me was sure this was some new scam. Free with a trip to his brother's shop, sure, or to his father-in-law's restaurant. But one look at his face and I saw he was completely in earnest. “It's to say thank you, for coming to my country, to work with women here and bring good ideas to our people,” he insisted. “It's a gift for you. You are welcome here in Morocco.”

Stunned, I asked him to accept at least part of the full fare, but he refused. There was nothing more to do but to thank him profusely (employing about half the God phrases in our collective arsenal, I might add), climb back out of the taxi, pick up our luggage, and walk to our hotel in a happy daze.

In just fifteen minutes, my preconceptions of Marrakesh crumbled; the city was suddenly bathed in a new light. It was a remedy to the built-up cynicism and distrust that breed so quickly whenever one is a stranger in a strange land, and reminded me of how often our human assumptions turn out to be moot. And I was reminded, too, of the simplest, profoundest, and most significant truth I've learned here in Morocco: the restorative and uplifting power of the kindness of strangers.


Morocco's National Theatre, site of our Marrakeshi miracle...