Saturday
May152010
The View From Here
May 15, 2010 * * * * * Posted by: guest blogger 
Morocco was a revelation.
The colours were more intense, the smells richer, the architecture more elaborate than I had expected. The guide who had met us at the airport took us into Marrakech, leaving the car at the gates of the medina to direct us, on foot, through the labyrinthine streets to the riad where we were staying. We wondered if we would be able to retrace the route ourselves. That evening we set out to a restaurant recommended by our hosts, directions in hand, but as soon as we stepped into the street, we were surrounded by a gaggle of kids—some no older than six, I guessed—all eager to direct us. My companion waved them away; he wanted to test his own skills, but they followed us with shouts and laughter, anticipating the inevitable moment when we found ourselves going in circles.
As we explored the walled city over the next few days, there was no escaping the boys and young men who pushed themselves forward wherever we went, their cheeky self-promotion verging on aggression. The etiquette quickly became clear. If we refused their help once or twice, they came on stronger but remained relatively friendly. If we continued to ignore them, their eager offers turned jeering. I hated to say no to the little ones, and soon found out that giving out a few coins didn’t send them away but only attached them to us more firmly. Their persistence alternately annoyed and impressed me, but most of all I felt sorry that the need to hustle for money was a factor of their childhood.
Ibrahim seemed luckier than that. He had a job as a guide in a small enterprise offering camel rides in the desert near Merzouga, a long day’s drive east of Marrakech. We arranged for an afternoon’s tour, and set off with Ibrahim leading on foot, and the two of us perched somewhat uncomfortably on our camels. After about an hour, Ibrahim halted the animals and made them kneel, explaining that we should dismount and continue on foot to a viewpoint. We laboured behind him up a steep dune, struggling to keep our balance in the shifting sand while he climbed steadily. At the top, our efforts rewarded by a sweeping view of the desert under a spectacularly turbulent sky, he laid a cloth on the sand and took a teapot and two cups from his pack. While we drank hot, sweet tea, I asked him about himself. He was nineteen, and had been an assistant to the head camel guide for about two years. He was the oldest child in his family, but as he worked steadily for months at a time, rarely saw them. The family home had been washed away in a flash flood several years before, and since then his parents and siblings lived in a tent, keeping a few sheep for their milk and wool. Most of Ibrahim’s wages went to them, to supplement what his father earned selling fossils. We had often seen solitary men at the side of the road, hoping for their carefully arranged displays of rocks and fossils to attract the attention of tourists passing by in chauffeured 4X4s.
Ibrahim unfolded a newspaper-wrapped package, from which he took an assortment of fossils. Having created a personal connection with him, it was impossible to refuse to buy anything. We picked out a highly-polished ammonite, bargaining briefly and awkwardly over the price. I thought about my own nineteen-year-old son and the contrast between his comfortable, aimless life, and this young man who would probably never have the money or the freedom to travel beyond the borders of his country. Do you have an idea of what you would like to do in the future, I asked him. He looked puzzled, and asked me to repeat the question. I re-phrased it. Was there something he would like to do as he got older? He looked at me, uncomprehending, silent. I continued, doggedly, realizing what I had stumbled into, but unable to stop. Is there something else you would like to do that is different from this? I gestured towards the camels, the empty, desiccated land beyond the desert. His face was blank. Je ne comprends pas la question , he said finally.
It wasn’t a problem of language; he understood the words perfectly well. It was my privileged, first-world perspective that he didn’t know how to interpret. The same one my son takes for granted—that his options are almost limitless and more fundamentally, that he even has a choice about how his future will look. My curiosity had been insensitive at the least, patronizing at worse. I hoped Ibrahim had not been offended or disturbed by what I had said. I changed the subject, took some more pictures, and asked him if I could take his.
Later, when I looked at the photograph, I imagined I saw resignation in his expression, although that may have been another error of my perception.
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Special guest post today by Deborah Sudul who splits her time between France and Canada, and blogs at 'The Temptation of Words'. Thank you for joining us here today, Deborah, and for your wonderful story and image.
Reader Comments (26)
I can't begin to tell you how much I have anticipated this post, Deborah, since I follow you keenly at your own blog. Now, having read your words, I have a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. That's not bad, mind you. More like a wake-up call about how much I take for granted...and how easily what I take for granted comes. This is part of why a global blog (as is our attempt here at V&V) is so valuable, to get the different perspectives that make us pay better attention...to what we have and what we want. I knew I would hang onto your every word...but I wasn't expecting to be brought face to face with my privileged status. Sometimes I think most of us have no clue whatsoever. Thank you for this perspective and thank you for taking his picture. Somehow I pray his step will feel lighter each time one of us reads his story.
Welcome Deborah!!!
You've really made me think here about how privileged and lucky we truly are. We - and our children - have choices. We have the luxury of dreaming of a different life and of working towards those aspirations...and we take it all so-for-granted. I really should have all three of my almost-grown very 'indulged' children read this.
So beautifully penned and illustrated.
THANK-YOU!!!
maybe a bit of both - resignation and contentment - how can one long for something he knows nothing about?
i admire your writing skills and persception in this story.
thank you for sharing it. i will try to be careful how i word this question as well.
Terrific post. Those of us who come from lives of privilege and choices have the same, but opposite, problem. We can't even imagine a life without potential, without the possibility of becoming anything we want to be. Thank you for helping us see it and feel it.
I can't begin to tell you the number of times I have said the words "you can be anything you want to be, you just have to decide and make it so." I can relate to his non-comprehension of your question, but in reverse - it is hard to comprehend a life without choices. A really excellent post, Deborah, and I'm so glad you've joined us here today.
Excellent post and awesome picture. Thank you for sharing this important message.
Wonderful story and image. When I look at the picture of Ibrahim, I see someone who is at peace with his life, and is likely to be no less happy than someone with greater "fortunes". Often with a simple life comes simple pleasures, and we in our more complex lives tend to create complex miseries. Great posting!
What a compelling image, and story. I so get what you are saying, my husband and I have 2 sons, both 24, and they can't seem to decide what to do, where to go, how to get there. Imagine if it weren't an option. They think it is tough to figure out what kind of job they most desire, I don't think it occurs to them that their ability to do that is a privilege. What a touching story you told us here, one that conveys how far apart our worlds are.
You shared this beautifully, Deborah. And what a portrait. This is why we must spend time with people worldwide who are unlike us, and tell each other's stories. This is how we keep expanding as people. This will stay with me, thank you.
Welcome Deborah! Your post brought back memories of a Tunisian trip I made long ago. In a village one of those children offered me one of his fossils. I had already given all the money to his friends and he insisted for me to take it as a present. I was really touched.
Really enjoyed reading you and love the picture.
This is a wonderful reminder of how we must always remember our fellow man in all of our humanity and shortcoming. Thank you for your essay today!
I have four kids and I have told them all you can do what you want to do. The girls made completely different choices and they both have good lives. The boys have a few years left to the big decisions. It's hard to imagine to not have a choice. Thank you for a thought provoking post and a beautiful image.
A very thoughtful and telling post. We are aware that there exists a world outside our own, western
comfort zone, where possibilities are limitless, or so we are told, but only in a theoretical, read-from-books or seen-on-TV way. When faced with it, we have no understanding of what it means to live simply for today, to supply food and shelter for today. where the thought of tomorrow and tomorrow's possibilities is totally irrelevant, where we simply can neither effect changes nor see the necessity for them.
Perhaps your guide saw himself as fortunate to have his niche in the world which allowed him to eat today and help his family as well. perhaps he really did not understand the question of a woman from a world which always strives for more, for better, for different.
I wonder who is more content and accepting of his life, your son or the guide?
Hi Deborah: Thank you for sharing this touching experience. So interesting how just as his life was prescribed and predetermined - so, to our conditionned world view, was his thinking. He could not allow his mind to wander into the future, or contemplate choices.
And yet I perceive a certain contentment and acceptance in his facial expression. Perhaps he feels sorry for we Westerners who do not yet know how to love what is and accept our life with equanimity.
Deb-what I love about your writing is your willingness to expose your underbelly as an offering for us to respond to, reflect on, connect to. For me this sparked feelings of sometimes I don't know something is not a fit until I try it out and can I be gentle on myself when it backfires in my face.
I like very much that you chose to write about the cultural mindbending that your trip to Morocco inspired. And I think that your photograph of Ibrahim is doubly compelling because of the story of the intersection of your lives.
Oddly enough, I have long thought that one did not have to even leave France to encounter the kind of proscribed prospects that you described Ibrahim having. I recall a very specific story of a 30ish mid-American woman who had lived in France for 7 years with a French farmer. At some point things went south and he took up with a local girl. Naturally, his American companion was devastated (no children were involved), but I couldn't help but think that it was she who had the greatest potential for a better future. He would never be other than a farmer in his local area––education, finances, the economy, social mores, all mitigated against his being "whatever he wanted." That story made an impression on me that resonates with your piece here.
Great work, Deborah!
Oh Deborah, welcome and excuse my lateness to your post. This is compelling and wonderful and has prompted so many thoughts which I should probably leave unsaid. As someone who never did think of a different life than the one I had for most of my adulthood, it still surprises me that seven years ago, I was unmarried, unattached, in a hopelessly stressful but financially rewarding job, living in the city I was born to and now, it has all changed dramatically and wonderfully. It's not just the lack of "options" and "choices" sometimes that tethers us, it's just what it is. I am not being contrary, I wanted to share that sometimes, our lives are what they are. Oh, this is an awkward comment and I'm not sure where it is going, but I shall leave it and say, congratulations on setting wheels in motion in my head to consider all of this.
Cheers!
I like the picture as well as your words. It's great to see the young man you're writing about, but I think you're right to question reading anything into his expression.
This is a lovely story and you tell it well. Now, I don’t know whether I should go on. You see I worked with trainees here in the US, mostly from North Africa and have been to Africa a dozen or more time, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, etc. I am not saying that your young man was not one of a kind but I learned from my trainees that the kids know how to talk to tourists and get their sympathies. Again, not saying in your case that this was not true, but did he take you to his home? Even with my trainees here I did many things for them, believing them, and realizing sometime that their story was just that – a story. Once in Essaouira (near Marrakech) I had a little guide like that who told me also that his parents lived on the beach since their house had burnt down, ect ect, then one of my Algerian friends (who speaks Berbère) told me – don’t listen to him I heard him talk to his friends saying he would use his good lines for you. I was very upset. So, again I don’t want to say that yours was not true, but… I worked with, let me see, maybe over 500 + North African trainees here in Georgia for over 15 years and many could have stayed in this country for a better life, as we say. Do you know how many stayed? 6 and two went back after a couple of years as they did not like the culture and missed their families and way of life. All were wonderful young men really. Some of these stories could be true, maybe, but it is part of their tourist trade unfortunately, and so should be listened to with ‘les yeux ouverts” (eyes wide open.)
What a thoughtful pivot point to your story, Deborah, although I'd also argue that, while you point out what you were at least and at worst, you also were, at best, hopeful and interested and engaged in ferreting out more about a fellow human being.
His reaction is a magnificent lesson to all First Worlders; I'd like my students to read this (hmmmm...) as an eye opener.
And of course, in closing, I must hum the words, "My, my, but I'm envious of this trip!"
hi deborah, i was there last year and fell in love!! i had the most fabulous time and your post takes me right back there again! there is something african - but not - about the whole of north africa, so different from us here. i loved though that so many of our swahili words (a kitchen pot of mish-mash words, arabic, bantu and many other things) were used in morocco, had such fun with that.
Perhaps the concept of "future" is just too impossible or bleak or irrelevant to his life. I think I know how you felt having "stumbled into" that area. I bet you wanted to back out but couldn't.
Interesting blog concept with contributors. I like it alot. Thanks for the link.
I think that you tapped right into the heart of the contrast.
However, at nineteen years old, a vast part of the journey has yet to be written.
Oh, Deborah, I'm so glad I saved my last cup of coffee to savor along with this savory tale. So much to absorb here. The picture tells its own story, and I truly do not see unhappiness in his eyes. Probably your interest in his thoughts made him feel important. I'm sure most of his clients probably don't engage him in weighty conversation, and I would venture to guess that some look right through him. Beautiful writing, as always.
XOXO
Susan
I love your story . . . I would've probably said the same comparing that young man to my own - well said/written Deborah.