Encouraged: click and see these 2 laughing men close up. Modernity and Tradition, toasting each other. 
KooKaaKooLa.
And now for a pair of stories.
The introduction to the first story goes as such: Inezgane was nice, seemed quite like a thing that I was looking for, stayed for a few days eating plates of whole fresh fried fish and sitting in cafes, reading and wandering through the market, acting the aimless journalist in a bustling town. One morning, I leave my little room with its 3rd floor balcony overlooking main street, hit the road, head southward. Grande (shared) taxi to Biougra. I get out, walk around for a little while, it is very small, I don't see any hotels, I'm attracting every eye in the town. Eery town, but friendly enough. I ask people about hotels, everyone seems more or less to agree that there are no hotels. Keep walking. Three men are sitting to tea, one or all of them ostensibly selling single cigarettes and odds and ends from a small table set up next to the road. They say 'Bonjour,' we exchange 'Ce va?, Bi-Khair La-Bas?, Bi-Khair,' I ask them about a hotel. 'There are no hotels here in Biougra, sit down and have some tea with us.' (This is where the story starts.) Over tea, one of the men, Ahmed, assures me that it would be no problem, 'Maa kaana mushkila,' for me to sleep that night at his home, about 10 kilometers away. He seems a nice type, I 'D'accord.' After tea, Ahmed and I grab seats in a small van that has been improvisationally outfitted with benches enough to transport 12, 16 people. Once it fills, we leave Biougra and head up toward the mountains. All the while, Ahmed is giving what seem to be explanations about why I am with him. The people smile with a bit of snark, but everyone is friendly. Exiting outfitted van, we get out and walk 3 or 4 kilometers more, out to a remote cluster of perhaps 25 concrete houses in the foothills of some small mountains.
Ahmed is a 'Banaa' or construction worker, is 34, lives in the house he built himself nine years ago, is seven years married, now a man with a wife and two small children. He tells me his children's names before we get to his house, and they run around freely as we have tea (though I only once see his wife, later, right before dinner, and only just to be introduced). After tea, Ahmed and I walk up the small mountain behind his house. On a small peak, we wander past a recently built (though small) water distribution center that feeds down into the valley, ambling into an old outcropping of now-abandoned mud-walled buildings, through the assorted ruined cluster of rooms and houses, now utterly deserted. The people moved out and down into the valley, Ahmed tells me, because there was no electricity up here. The walls have begun to crumble and the open-roofed rooms fill up slowly with rocks, the boundary between one house and another fading, blurring away. We rest a moment and look out over the valley, to the mountains beyond. A little further removed up the hill there is another house, much larger than the others. 'It is the house of my grandfather, the father of my mother,' Ahmed tells me. A haphazard collection of what must have been 20 rooms of varying size, it is now falling in on itself, the floors are strewn with rocks large and small. No one must have lived here in 20, 30, 40 years. We climb up to the top of the hill. Before us are the Atlas Mountains, or Atlas Asghar (Small Atlas), while behind us are the Anti-Atlas, or Atlas MutaWassit (Medium Atlas). I feel like I've been seeing one or the other of these two mountain ranges everywhere, every day, on one horizon, for most of the past month; they are familiar, but always changing. But it is not really the mountains that are changing... I am speaking only French-infused Arabic with Ahmed, so it takes some explaining, some backtracking, some imrovised gesturing, but eventually Ahmed tells me an old saying, something in Berber with a nice compact ring, something to the effect that men move, that men move about and cluster up and live in the company of men, men meet in one place see each other again in another place, they live in a constant flux and flow, while the mountains, they do not move.
That night, Ahmed makes a fire out in a field next to an old tree, other men come up and pass around greetings, squat down next the the fire. Ahmed tells me to play my guitar, I do, some of the men try to find the foreign beat by tapping it out on their legs. I pass the guitar off and it goes from hand to hand, each man playing a bit, fiddling with the strings, intent, trying bemusedly to find something familiar in the voice of my strange instrument. I tune the strings down to a heavy drone and the intuition in their fingers has better luck, someone is even able something the others can sing along to, a song they all know. Most of the men make it back to Ahmed's house with us, we lounge on the floor of the sitting room that is still only a large carpet, awaiting the day when Ahmed can properly outfit it with sofas. Ahmed puts on some Rai music, the day seems as if it had been long, and though the men continue to talk, I fall asleep in the corner. That's more of less the end of the story.
Story 2. Hitchhiking to one small town on the map to the next, hit Ait Baha. Having set out early, arrive at 8:30 and walk through the town, climb a small mountain just beyond it. I take a picture.
Around noon, I go back into town and try to find wherein to abode the night. Some people tell me there is only one hotel, the ostentatious expensive-looking one on main street, and others tell me that there are two. I finally find the second hotel of which some speak, it is a cafe with a hotel populaire upstairs, a dirty cheap place just like I like, and though there are many rooms, I am told that there are none to be had - by me(, something that's happened again a goodly number of times since then...). Suppressing indignation or my sense of entitlement or quelques chose, I go down the street to a cafe to think it all over. Before I can enter, a shiny black SUV pulls up, some sort of well-dressed big-bellied municipal bureaucrat gets out, everyone around quiet and looking, 'Parlais-vous francais?, Oui.' Not a lie, but definitely a half-truth... He asks to see my passport and questions me about my whereabouting and intentions. Satisfied, he writes down nothing, and as I sit down to my cafe au lait, a man with a wizened face and ravaged teeth brings his pot of tea to the table next to mine. A woman with a loud mouth, apparently a beggar, stops and obliges him the poor her a cup of tea. She drinks it loudly and walks away. The man speaks to me, the grooves in his slow-broiled face are changing and expressive. He is a porter, he carries things around in his wagon for pittances, he is pleased that I know the word for his semi-occupation, 'Hamaal.' He lives 3 or 4km outside the town up in the mountains, do I want to go there?, No, thanks. 'Anta museeqee,' Yes, I am a musician, it is a guitar, I take out guitar and hand it to him. He plays fearlessly for a bit and hands it back while pulling out an old plastic recorder-whistle from his deep within his cloaks. We play together and a crowd gathers, 15, 20 people around, watching, amused. Two crisply dressed policemen enter, walk up the steps. 'Parles-vous francais?, Oui,' ask to see my passport, the show is over, dispersion of people, the policemen ask me about my wherabouting and intentions, making notes, copying copying copying down. Why, why me, why all this? 'Pour votre protection.' The policemen saunter away and the old man talks about them with scorn. We play a little more, I head off to grab an omelette for lunch. The man who cooks my omelette makes very merry, joking both with and at me. It's already been a long day. I may be the only foreigner here but I've had enough of this strange town. Heading out to the road to hitchhike on down the road, I pass my friend the Hamaal snoozing in his wagon.
The next morning, I wake up halfway up a mountain's soft face half a valley away from a Kasbah that sits inside a giant circular wall atop a mound of rock rising out of the valley's floor. I awake facing that ancient town,
surrounded by the hoary mountains, that venerable writ of the world's indifferent architect. An intimation of olden glaciers and ruptures of rocks, the yawning movement of bearish time, and atop that propitious mound of earth, a sparkling remnnant of a very old humanity.On to Tafraout. Tafraout is a town in the mountains around which is much easily accesible natural beauty. Campgrounds abound around it and the center of the town is four hotels. As in most touristed towns, the biggest hotel, looming over the others, is called Hotel Salaama. (I hope somebody someday has a long-winded vacation in Morocco staying exclusively in this and that town's Hotel Salaama.) At least 3 easy summits lie within 45 minutes walking from the centre ville. If there is only one book store in Tafraout, there are also at least 2 or 4 dozen men in tunics and false-sitting turbans waiting around to show you where you could rent a bike for the day. Or a 4 by 4? Visit my family's village up in the mountains? Have you seen the blue rocks? The gorge?
These men are sometimes referred to as 'touts.' I like the word. Being tourist-driven, Tafraout abounds in touts. And what is a tout, Mr. Webster asks? I say that, in a place with many tourists but little employment opportunities, a tout is a person, usually a man, who highly affably tags along with tourists, sticks to them like glue, and helps them spend their money. He is looking for both a tip from the tourist and a reward from the place he leads the tourist to. The interaction usually begins with the tout asking 'Where are you from? Inglish, Franch, Alleman?' Then, 'Need a hotel? a haircut? a mountain bike? stomach tea? a good meal? a taxi? a chilaba a rug? some authentically local shoes? Would you like to see my Berber store, where we sell the things the women up in the mountains make? Only to look!'
I am fascinated by touts primarily because it amazes me that anyone can make a living that way. Secondarily, they fascinate me because I am repulsed by their existence, I am shamed to see how an Occidental shove has jarred the economy to such an extent that the tout becomes such a commonplace 'occupation.'
You are sure to be charged extra, considerably, for anything you buy with the assistance of a tout. But if you spend time with touts, make friendly with them, and don't buy anything? Herein lies a convenient rub-a-dub. I developed rapport with a number of these men, seeing as they were always hanging around and alway open to talk. I figure the best strategy toward them is to be friendly and talk to them normally: it both disengages their pursuit instinct and usually leads to interesting conversations. And once they see that I don't really spend much money on anything anyway, they don't press any of their various services that hard.
Interlude before a story about a tout: a few pictures in and around Tafraout.
A tagine dish and some old cars.
Graveyard gate with the shahadda, mountain.
Intibah.
Almost all (but very decidedly Not All) of the women down south here are wearing scarves, many of them being the extremely modest black variety seen smallly here. It is obviously voluntary, and kind of coordinates with the long cloaks and hoods of many of the men. It is truly nice to not be beseiged by the opposite of modesty prevalent in the people, the press, and the propoganda of the federal states of america and the 'west.'
Gas Station, Afriquia. Pervasive in Morocco. Only real competitor I've seen in Mobile. Trying to figure out if Afriquia is a branch of some bigger operation. Most stations look very recently built.
A large graffitied rock. There is a lot of such ephemeralia around on rocks and their faces. At least half of it seems to have been written by tourists. Fraternity insignias, etc.There develops a discernable chasm between the outsider and the local in a place like Tafraout that has been so bombarded by outsiders. Among locals, Salaams and greetings fly everywhere, there is a constant echo of peacewishing and goodwilling. It sounds happy to be alive. Islam encourages that you greet every man that you meet, and people take this literally, at least among brethren. And I wander the town thinking about this for a bit when the unexpected Salaam of the spice vendor I had passed and smiled at an hour earlier jolts me with a broad smile out of my reverie.
That is the beginning of a story about a tout, or the preface to it. The story goes on as such: A few minutes later, I pass some fruit vendors sitting back to tea. 'Bonjour,', they call out, 'Ce Va?, Bikhair La-Bas?, Bikhair Alhamdolillah Viens!' I heed and head over to their tea circle. We make friends, I spend an hour or so sitting with them behind their piles of fruit. There are approximately 5 of them: one I shall call the jolly mustachioed fruit vendor, the two going here and there are probably his sons, and the two sitting leaning against each other on the wall are probably either his brothers or his nephews or his friends. We have a few small chats, and then I go off to the mountains. Coming back into town after dark, I swing by and say hello, 'Nous Amie!' I sit for a moment but I am cold and want to go back to the hotel. 'Bring your guitar back with you!' Okay, one hour. 'Five minutes?' Okay, half an hour. 'Okay, half an hour, Inshallah.' As I'm heading through the hotels's cafe, a man in a turban stops me, wants to talk to me, I am cold, I will be back in a minute, I say, I return with another sweater and my guitar. 'Oh, you are a musician, I too am a musician, I play the pipes and the drums and the ribabe.' Nice enough guy, obviously a tout but no harm, I get some tea for us and he is trying to convince me to go up to see his family's house in the mountains the following day. 'Maybe,' I say, (this is always the best answer to give a tout, I've found), 'but right now I'm going to meet some friends to play some music.' 'Who are your friends, where are they?' 'They are in the market.' Tout invites himself along, we head into the souq. The jolly fruit vendor and his reclin'ed entourage, at the sight of Tout, break into shout, they are yelling at him, pushing him a bit, I sit down, dispute does not subside, it seems Tout is infamous and unwell-liked. 'Look,' I say, 'you are my friends, he is my friend, we are friends here.' Okay, begrudgingly. Guitar comes out, is passed around to all except Tout, comes back to me, I play a song folksy style with the harmonica around my neck, there is still tension in the air. I bid the fruit vendors goodnight thinking about the laugh I will make them have about it the next day. Tout follows me and asks me if I would like to see his rug shop or meet his son? 'Dale, absolutely, let's go meet your son.' His son is half the town away somewhere among the group of men sitting around a table in the back of a restaurant. Some of the men speak Spanish (!), we mutually like their trying to gerryrig Berber songs with the strange twangs of my guitar, several good conversations are had, and I am thankful for the extreme good fortune of all of this. All without letting Tout sneak a cent out of me, eh? Though I had several times to extricate myself from his attempted dragging me to 'his' 'Berber' rug shop during the course of the evening...
The fruit vendors forgave me, sort of, probably just chalking it up to my stupidity. Spent some time with them the next day, had some more tea. These first pictures are of the often reclin'ed brothers or nephews or friends, Muhamid and Muhamid. Last one, taken by Muhamid, is jolly fruit vendor and presumeable son, at work.
Alright, not going to write more. Here is a picture of the mountains above that pillared kasbah, the kasbah invisible, the night steadily coming down stealthily and purple... Bonne nuit.
