The Next Stop...Adventure: Mastafaw

Morocco!

At times Spain still seems foreign to me with its language, fake peanut butter (they only have peanut butter here made with 90% peanuts and I couldn’t tell you what the other 10% is…), and different customs, yet this past weekend I entered a different world entirely. This one with sand, camels, Arabic, and little boys everywhere. I went from being in England to Morocco 24 hours later.

We went into the desert for two nights and stayed in tents in the middle of nowhere in between the sand dunes and the Milky Way. The nomadic people in the area, the Berber people were wonderful. Most of them can’t read or write, yet they know between 5-6 languages, learning just from the tourists who come. Amazing! Every time I ventured into the sand dunes, day or night, all I had to do was wait a few moments and bam, there would be a nomad, seemingly out of nowhere to talk to you. One night Robin and I went out to talk away from the camp and two Berbers came up and sat down with us. We talked for more than an hour with them about things of daily life, culture, and God. It seemed surreal at times in the conversation. I was humbled in the way this man, Mastafaw, shared about the simplicity of the life he leads. He passes the day, working, learning from the “escuela de vida”, the “school of life” as he called it, and being with people. If he doesn’t get to eat that day, it’s okay they just drink more water; if he is too far from his camp one night he just sleeps under the stars; if he’s cold he just pulls more sand around him for insulation. He told how many of the tourists who come end up being too uncomfortable and preoccupied that they don’t experience the culture.

I came on this trip as a tourist. This isn’t the way I normally like to experience places, but I was with my program and thus 70 other Americans, not ideal to say the least. We were treated like tourists, waited on at points, marked for all of the pitches to buy this rock or that bracelet. Also like tourists, there was an ample amount of complaining and attitudes of entitlement.

This made me start pondering how I don’t want to be a tourist in life. I saw how being a tourist in Morocco immediately created so many barriers between me and the people of Morocco. It was an interchange of culture but established on a surface level in the way of what do we need from each other, “I need your business and your money.” On the other side, “I need a good experience and the material possessions that you offer.” Tourists aren’t vulnerable; tourists only engage people on the surface level; tourists are guarded and hold tightly their possessions; tourists aren’t willing to be uncomfortable.

There is a difference between a tourist and a journeyman or sojourner. This trip made me question where in my life am I traveling as a tourist? Where am I just scratching the surface, too scared of uncomfortibility or of engaging with people? Where do I maintain an attitude of entitlement that closes my eyes to the perspectives or needs of others? I want to be a sojourner, a journeyman who holds truth, light, hope, and life wherever I wander.

This is Robin and I on the ferry to Morocco with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background.

This is the Medina of Fez that we visited. It has 15,000 winding streets with 90,000 shops that all contain the handicrafts of artisans who work in the same manner as from the 13th century.