Rock the Casbah

Before this post, I'd like to apologize for two things: too many posts and too few pictures. As for the former, Morocco is a completely new experience and I'm finding it hard to get all my thoughts down even with how much I'm writing. That being said, I'd like to know who's actually following this so leave me a comment or shoot me an email and you might even find yourself with an inside joke or a shout-out in my next post (Kudos to Nick for leaving the first comment of the 2011 series).
As for the photos, it is actually very impolite in Moroccan society to take photos of people and is illegal to take photos of buildings (they say for security reasons). That being said, I plan on taking lots, just give me a week or so to get oriented and determine if I'll get lynched or arrested (hyperbole: not actually a possibility Mom)

Vincent, the Dutch volunteer living with Fenna and I, offered to show me around the Madina. Im sure I will have another post about the Madina because it is a really cool place that I will definitely go exploring one day but today Vincent and I saw very little of the Madina. Instead set our sights on the Casbah. (Casbah= old walled city fort, Madina=slightly less old but still really old city that has since turned into a very large market-esque thing)
Vincent had a "friend" that lived in the Kasba and wanted to see if he was home. Im not sure in what order to reveal the next facts so Ill do it in a non-grammatical list. Vincent does research on the rights of sub-saharan refugees in Morocco; Karim is a very large Somalian refugee Vincent met through his research; Karim lives in a broom closet which costs 650 durham a month (1 durham=.13 cents) and has just barely enough room for his single mattress and a backpacking stove. I knew Morocco was an impoverished country but it was really startling to have gone knocking on the door of poverty (little did I know what I was going to find that afternoon when I went to Al Wafae the first time [oooh cliffhanger]).
Karim stopped to buy a cigarette (he can only afford one at a time) and led Vincent and I down some twisting back allys until we arrived at literally a hole in the wall which we walked through and then into a hole in the wall cafe. The view was breathtaking, and (as seems to be a theme with the trip) I was the only white guy (other than Vincent).
We plopped down into some chairs, ordered some tea, and Karim pointed behind me. There was a photo of Keith Richards smoking god-knows-what in the very chair I was sitting. This place was legit.
The tea was fantastic (ly hot). We talked about Karims job in "Tourism" (a combination offering to show tourists the Kasba for money and begging), and played a game I had never played before. There is a board with 64 spaces arranged in a loop, each player has 4 pieces and a communal die. When you roll a 6 you can put one of your pieces on the board and then move that piece whatever you roll on subsequent rolls. If you land on the same space as an opponents piece, their piece gets booted off the board (and you have to roll another 6 to put it back on). Finally, if you have two of your pieces on the same square, you form a wall and no one can pass. Did that make sense? I've seen Moroccan men playing this on the street of the market, so I'm glad I know the rules. We played and talked for about 3 hours (about the amount of time it takes for the tea to cool down to a drinkable temperature) and I headed back to the appartement to head to Al Wafae (which will be included in the next post), but not before making a rendez-vous for the night with Vincent and Karim.

That night, Vincent, Karim, and I met up with Karim's friend Lali (similar story as Karim) to go to a bar. This was the exact opposite experience as the afternoon. Whereas I was the outsider before, this bar was full of, and was even tailored to Europeans/foreigners (so much so that Vincent and I had to make readily apparent that Karim and Lali were with us so they didnt turn them away), the drinks were expensive (by that I mean about what you pay for a drink in the States), the drinks were bad (some watery, well-hydrated-urine-colored beer was their specialty), the conversation was unnatural and I felt very awkward, and I highly doubt Keith Richards would ever get high in a place like this (what am I saying Keith Richards would get high anywhere). The plus side was it was an open mic night at the bar, and there were some really talented Moroccans who performed (I almost got up, but not having touched a piano in several months I decided against it despite Lali's best coercions). With how awkward our conversation and interaction was, I couldn't help but wonder if Karim and Lali were hanging out with us simply because we picked up the bill at the end of the night. Where Vincent assured me it wasn't so, so I will reserve judgement. Either way, they seem like legitimately nice people in a bad situation, and I feel I grew having met them.
A slightly sketchy walk back to the apartment, and I was home to my brick of a bed