The Loudest Silence

            “You know, it doesn’t even feel that late,” I remarked to Dr. Shoup as we all put our shoes back on, getting ready to leave the second zawiyah, Sidi al-Ghazi.

            “You’d be surprised how many students say that,” Dr. Shoup responded, not seeming at all surprised.

            The weekend had a rocky start, with Maggie calling me at 1:16 asking where I was. “But we’re leaving at two,” I said confusedly, already half out of my seat in my room.

            “Didn’t you get the email?” she asked over the background din of the bus. “We were going to try to leave earlier.” I learned shortly that we had been given one of the slower buses for the trip. If I wasn’t quick, I’d miss my chance to see the Tafilalt Oasis, the largest oasis in North Africa after the Nile River Valley.

            After calling Kaitlyn and making my way quickly to the bus, the trip vastly improved. Luckily I had packed the night before, so I was able to enjoy the scenic drive south through the Middle and High Atlas mountains. The bus was raucous with high spirits, and time passed quickly until our first stop in Midelt, roughly halfway between Ifrane and Erfoud. Here’s a glimpse at my thoughts for that first leg:

            My eyes follow the course of the river that runs parallel to the road, carrying fresh melt water from the recent snowfall. I can’t help but grin at the rush of water over rocks, the way it spills and falls and swirls in ever-changing patterns. As I watch, the stream twists and turns and disappears from view, tucked between two craggy pieces of rock. There are intermittent flocks of sheep, and even the rare herd of cattle.

            We’ve transitioned from low rolling hills dotted with foliage to high, snowy peaks in the distance. We’ll be passing through them within the hour. I wish I could show them to you. My camera won’t quite bring them into focus, as if disbelieving at their enormity. The dappling of white snow and dark ground is alluring and in some way heartbreaking to see.

            Midelt is the most gorgeous town I’ve seen. The streets are clean and well-maintained, with a fountain with a giant apple (of all things!) marking the center. Their minaret is beautiful, edged in dark green, and the buildings are fascinating. We even passed a Court of First Instance, which I learned about in class.

            We stop at a hotel on the edge of town for tea and a bathroom break, where we find a map in the back of the lobby-esque area of southern Morocco. Dr. Shoup seems to know every town on the map, and even the other professors traveling with us are fascinated. The communications professor from Germany, who I’ve known since we both found ourselves in IT begging for wifi, talks with me for a while. Then we’re back on the bus for the second half of the journey.

            Night falls when we’re still two hours or so out, and the transition from mountains to desert occurs without us noticing until palm trees start to loom out of the darkness, ghostly pale in the darkness. At the hotel, we have a dinner of bread, beef tajine, and fruit of the season, including delicious bananas and tangerines (orangellos? Mandarin oranges?). Kaitlyn and I fall asleep more or less right after dinner.

            The next morning, we’re on the bus by 8:30 after a quick Moroccan breakfast, and making our way through the town. We stop first at what initially appears to be a barren expanse on the side of the road. Dr. Shoup walks purposefully over to a hole dug into the ground, which we soon learn is one of a series of wells. Dr. Shoup explains, as we all stand cautiously on the edges of the well, that an oasis is, contrary to popular belief, manmade. They dig a series of wells to carry the underground water from its shallowest point into the oasis, where it is brought up to the surface and used for crops. Of the 300 or more wells that originally fed the oasis, only 50 or so are still functioning, leading to a significant drop in the size of the oasis. A major problem is modernization, with the government trying to switch to a more modern concrete system. Unfortunately, in the summer an open-air concrete canal means that water retention is minimal, particularly compared with the traditional earth system.

            We then proceed to walk through part of town, where Dr. Shoup shows us the rammed earth buildings, which are far more effective for heating and cooling than the more ‘modern’ designs. We also see what happens to a house when not maintained, as the walls fall apart and turn back into earth.

            At the area near a water well for the town, we’re nearly plowed down by a flock of sheep. As we all stare dumbly at the flock, I ask Shoup almost casually, “Shouldn’t we move out of the way?”

            “Yes we should,” is his nonplussed reply, and we split to the sides as the sheep baaa their way past.

            Then someone who recognized Dr. Shoup comes out of the complex, and after greeting him invites all 25+ of us into his home for tea. Logistically this proves somewhat challenging, but it all works out and we’re on our way after about half an hour. Then we investigate a dam, which is completely dry but has in the past apparently washed away the bridge when it floods.

            We also stop by a Royal Qasr, Qasr al-Fada’, which is like a big palace sort of building for the governor. It was built in the early 1800s and is inhabited by the descendants of the original household, one of whom knows Dr. Shoup. Once again, we’re offered tea, this time after touring the palace and being lectured on its history.

            Our last stop before lunch was to the ruins of Sijilmassa, which served as the terminus point for trans-Saharan trade. The place is falling apart, but as we stand in the remnants of the mosque Dr. Shoup tells us that in its heyday almost all gold passed through Sijilmassa. Sijilmassa coins have been found as far as Korea, and in fact most European countries could not afford the gold which came up from Mali through Sijilmassa.

            After lunch, which was a tasty chicken tajine, we went to the fossil museum, which is the only museum on fossils in Morocco and is privately owned by Ibrahim Tahiri, who is a main exporter of fossils to Europe and North America. Trilobites are the staple of this museum, but there are also articulated skulls of Tyrannosaurus Rex, footprints and fossilized marine life.

            After the museum we went to the Rissani Suq, where once again Dr. Shoup seemed to have multiple contacts. He brought the boys to a djellaba store, where they spent enough time to be offered tea. Again. We explored a little bit, finding scarves and other items. Dr. Shoup led the French students and myself to a store closer to the main road as it got closer to time to leave for the first zawiyah, and I found a beautiful bracelet that I bargained down using all of my hard-won bargaining skills earned over these past months. The suq was quieter than big city suqs or madinas, probably because it was nighttime as much as the fact that it was in a smaller city. I finally felt comfortable in a suq, which was fantastic.

            We left for the first zawiyah, Sidi Habib al-Ma’ati, and arrived in a more or less timely fashion. At the first zawiyah, the headache that had been threatening since the fossil museum arrived with a vengeance, and I was barely able to pay attention to the conversation with the English-speaking Sufi, who we learned taught English there. They offered us peanuts, almonds, and dates grown from their own date palm, their main source of income. The Sufis chanted some, and we talked over several rounds of tea or milk (traditionally served with the dates), but all too soon we were on our way to the second zawiyah.

            The second zawiyah, Sidi al-Ghazi, was the zawiyah that hadn’t agreed to place itself under governmental oversight. This meant that they did not receive government funding, but they seemed to be doing fairly well for themselves, in my opinion. The Sufis offered us this really tasty bread with vegetables, some sort of cheese, and lamb (maybe?), which went a long way to clearing up my headache. Said and I sat next to the bus drivers, and we ended up bonding with them a bit as we stumbled through our broken Arabic until Said gave up and switched to French. Since my French is worse than my Arabic, I turned my attention to the rest of the room, which was beautifully furnished and lined with us AUI students.

            The main Sufi guy began with a Quranic verse, where he was joined by another one of the Sufis. Afterwards, Dr. Shoup explained how ties to this style of harmony can be found in Baptist hymns. There was some more recitation, and some recitation of Sufi poetry, and we had dinner, which was by far the best food I’ve had in Morocco to date. The chicken was absolutely delicious, and we ate in the traditional Moroccan way, with our hands and bread.

            After eating, the Sufis brought out a few drums and began again with the poetry. This time we were encouraged to sing along with the chorus, which was easy to pick up. The boys playing on the drums had a really good sense of rhythm and were very good at it

            One of the men got up during the fast paced section of the poetry and began dancing in the middle of the room, really just jumping up and down and moving his arms up and down as he hopped his way in a circle. Once he even stood on his head, and Nick joined in. Thereafter, when the poetry would grow fast-paced the Sufi man would invite Sam, Nick, and Brynner up to dance with him. Elizabeth joined in once, and a brief look of alarm passed over Dr. Shoup’s face. But nothing happened, and it ended up working out.

            We left a little after midnight, as the Sufis on the drums and singing grew tired and we all remembered we had a 4 AM wakeup coming our way. Some chose not to sleep, but Kaitlyn and I grabbed nearly 2 full hours.

            The company providing the 4X4s didn’t bring enough for the number of us, and we had to wait for an extra vehicle, which turned out not to matter. As we were driving along in the pre-dawn darkness, our driver (dressed to cater to the tourists, of course) received a call, and we turned around. I figured someone had lost their way, but it turned out to be worse than that. One of the vehicles had hit a rock and shredded the right rear tire. As we watched, another one of our 4X4s pulled up, and we piled people into the two cars.

            “We can go on the roof?” Sam asked eagerly, gesturing to the roof of our 4X4. Our rider grinned with his eyes and nodded.

            “Of course; yalla!” Sam and Nick let out whoops of excitement and scampered up like two monkeys.

            “Wait, what? Really?” I couldn’t believe that they were ok with this after all the fuss about the number of people in the car. Of course, now that we were away from the roads they didn’t have to worry about being pulled over, but really!

            We drove the rest of the way to the dunes, and I would roll down my window and ask the boys how they were doing.

            “WHOOOOOOOO!”

            They were fine.

            We got to the dunes to find camels waiting for us, resting on the ground with their legs folded underneath. We got onto the camels, and without so much as a “by your leave” the guy holding the halter had made a noise with his tongue, and the camels lurched to their feet.

            A camel doesn’t walk at all like a horse. They walk in a swayback sort of movement, which is scary when you’re going downhill. Most of the men were in “Tuareg” outfits for tourism, and for the first half hour or so all we could see were the dark shapes of the camels spread out in a line as we made our way to the spot from which we would watch the sunrise.

            Sitting down on a camel is actually terrifying. Both times I screamed and laughed, because it feels like the world is falling out from underneath you. Kaitlyn and I lived, though, and we followed our guide up the dune, which is difficult to climb if you don’t walk properly, distributing your weight evenly through your foot.

            As the sky lightened around us, we sat on blankets and contemplated how fine the sand was, and how surreal the landscape was. The sun peeked over the horizon, but I was walking through the dunes to where the communications professor had gone. Just one dune over, and I found myself in the midst of the loudest silence I have ever experienced. I was going to talk to the professor, but instead stood and shared the silence with her. You could hear the guides and students talking from behind, but the hill of sand seemed to absorb the sound, making it fade into insignificance. We were just on the barest edge of the dunes, but looking out at them it felt like they stretched out forever, beyond the horizon.

            On the way back on the camels, I found myself feeling very rooted, and my worries about the future are greatly lessened. Before I would worry over finding an internship or a job, and about being ‘productive’ enough with my life. Now I don’t worry about it as much. I will find a way in the world, and worrying about it wouldn't change anything at any rate.

            We returned to the hotel and packed up. I wound up on the van, which left at the same time as Dr. Shoup’s car as the bus waited for stragglers. This gave us time to stop at a couple of places. One place was marked by a huge spout of water, which was capped by the locals and caused more spots to bubble up as pressure pushed the water out of the earth. It was poisonous though, with heavy metals like mercury rendering it undrinkable.

            The next stop was where we waited for the bus to catch up with us. The view, a sudden and breathtaking drop off of a cliff, was a nice farewell to the warm south. We were heading back to cold and rain, and possibly even snow. At that stop there was a shop set up underneath a big tent, where we could buy products from a nearby women’s co-op and postcards and coffee. The bus caught up, and we were in Midelt in time for lunch, where I had the best couscous I’ve had in Morocco thus far.

            The remainder of the trip home is fuzzy to me, because I was actually able to nap for most of it. I remember waking up to see that fog and rain made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of the van, but our talented driver got us back to AUI in one piece.

            It makes me sad that I found this piece of Morocco so close to leaving, and this was definitely my favorite trip to date. It was also really nice to travel with the friends I’ve made that I haven’t had the chance to travel with yet.

            The trip renewed my enthusiasm for travel, and I’m going to try to make my way up to Rabat before leaving in December. Time has flown by this semester, even more so than it does at home. By the time December 20^th rolls around, I don’t think I’m going to want to leave.