The Dunes of Friendship

Sarah Ford felt uncomfortable sitting correctly in the backseat of the car while the chauffeur sat in the front. As an independent American woman, she was uneasy about class distinctions; they made relationships stiff and formal.

"Bonjour, Madame," said Mohammed Mechka, pulling the car away from the curb.

"Please don´t call me Madame," implored Sarah, leaning forward from the backseat of the dusty, white Fiat. "My name is Sarah. What´s yours?"

Muhammad´s head swiveled around, an aghast look on his face, "But Madame, I am your driver, and here, in Morocco, I must call you Madame." Honking at the child, running across the road in front of him with a passel of chickens following closely behind, he continued, "Je m´appelle, Muhammad." I am called Muhammad.

Sarah was in the Maghreb—´al maghrib, the land where the sun sets—hoping for some adventure and some time away from her Seattle home, to sort out her thoughts for her future. Only 5´4" tall with close-cropped, deep brown hair, Sarah was the dwarf in a family of giants from the East Coast. She compensated for her lack of height, by wearing long earrings and dark-colored clothes. With a professor of African cultures as a father, Sarah had lived in Kenya, Uganda and Somalia, as a child. As an adult, a job with CARE—Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere—had sent her to Puerto Rico and Peru. She was, thus, comfortable traveling and living outside the antiseptic U.S.

Sarah stayed with friends for a week in Rabat, the capital city of Morocco, before hiring a car and driver and embarking on a five-day adventure that took her from Rabat to Casablanca, to Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Erfoud, Merzouga and back. She was leery of going off to the smaller towns of a foreign country with an unknown young man, and so perhaps it was for the best that the driver should continue to call her Madame.

Half an hour out of Rabat, Muhammad hesitantly asked Sarah, "Would it be alright if I played some music?"

"Sure." Sarah loved music. He put on Natalie Cole.

"OK," thought Sarah, "guess this is what he likes."

After the tape wound down, there were a few minutes of silence. Then, diffidently, Muhammad asked if he could put in another tape. This time he put in Cheb Mami´s tape of rai music, a blend of Arabic, African, and European music. With the windows rolled down, the warm, dry air blowing in, the sun high up in the sky, and the Moroccan countryside flying past as they drove south to Casablanca, the rai music just brought all the sights, smells and sounds of Morocco together for Sarah.

"Now I like that music," she piped up enthusiastically from the back. Muhammad smiled slightly, the frost between them thawing a little.

Muhammad was a 26-year old Moroccan Arab from the main medina, market, of Rabat. Like the other young men of the modern city, he wore jeans and a button-down shirt as his daily attire, not the traditional jellabah, the long flowing gown with long sleeves and a zippered front. He was the oldest of four children with two sisters and a young brother. Being the sole breadwinner in the family, he was always on the lookout for a more lucrative job. Seven years ago, that is what took him to Tangiers, near the border of Spain. He hoped to immigrate to Italy and earn more money. But Italy had tightened its belt and Muhammad had to return home. He then became a driver with a travel agency in Rabat. Having never been to the interior of Morocco, Sarah´s trip was an adventure for him, too.

Upon reaching Casablanca, Sarah suggested that they visit the new mosque in the city. Whenever she requested anything, she got back the same gentle, courteous response, "Anything you want. This trip is for you."

Since Muhammad hadn´t been inside the mosque either, Sarah paid both their entrance fees, treating them to the finest Moroccan craftsmanship that 800 million dollars could buy. With filigreed stone carvings and delicate inlays of marble all over the exterior and interior, it was easy to believe that it took 2,500 men thirteen years to complete it. Commissioned in 1980 by King Hassan II of Morocco, it was the only mosque in the country where non-Muslims were allowed.

On the way to Marrakech that afternoon, Sarah stopped at a roadside food stall and bought herself a falafel sandwich.

"That´s not just a sandwich…but a Moroccan sandwich," commented Muhammad on the enormous sandwich and diminutive Sarah.

She tried to buy him lunch, too, but he would have none of it. "I am not hungry" was his standard refrain to prevent her from spending money on him. Coffee and cigarettes seemed to sustain him during the day. Sarah hoped that he would have a large dinner in the night.

Although French is one of the official languages of Morocco, most of the daily interactions are conducted in Arabic. So Muhammad´s French was rusty. Sarah had lived in Tours, France for a year after high school, but fifteen years later, her French was rustier than Muhammad´s. However, they were still able to communicate. As Muhammad put it, "Ça marche!" It works! And that was more important that speaking perfectly.

They spent the evening wandering through Jemaa l-Fna, the main market of Marrakech. They watched the jugglers, acrobats and monkeys perform their tricks. They drank water from the water boy wearing the traditional jellabah and fez cap, and draped with soorais, brass pots with spouts. They bargained with the vendors in the souks, market alleyways, for Moroccan music, baskets and dates, and tasted orange juice from one of the five-dozen fruit sellers lining one wall of the market square. As the orange moon slowly rose over the mosque of Qutoubia, food vendors moved in, edging the fruit sellers out. Soon the smell of grilled meats and vegetables filled the air. Muhammad explained the different dishes to her and pointed out what she could try and what she should avoid.

The next morning, they were off to Ouarzazate, with Cheb Mami blaring from the tinny car speakers. Midway to Ouarzazate, they stopped at a casbah that had been continuously inhabited for five hundred years. The casbah was a fortified straw and mud castle on the edges of an oasis with moats, strong outer walls, guard towers and gates. Muhammad was able to locate the local chief, whose ancestors had built the casbah, and convince him to conduct a tour of his fortress town. Luckily, the chief spoke French and he entertained them with stories and historical lore as he showed them around.

The third day morning, an hour out of Ouarzazate, they heard the familiar police siren behind them.

Clutching his head in his hands, Muhammad expostulated, "Ooh là là, les gendarmes…they are everywhere."

Having faced random police checks six times already in two days, Sarah and Muhammad were acquainted with the drill and performed as a team. As the policeman came up, Muhammad handed his driver´s license over, Sarah handed her passport and car contract over, and they explained their relationship—Muhammad was the driver, Sarah was the tourist—and then explained their itinerary.

Again and again, Sarah was asked, "Are you married?"

"Yes."

Shocked, "Where is your husband?"

"He is in Seattle, in the United States."

Even more shocked, "You are traveling alone without your husband?"

"Yes."

Sternly, "Hmm. Do you have children?"

"No."

Astonished, "No children?"

"No."

They would then give her an uncomprehending stare and wave them on.

"Children are very important to Moroccans," explained Muhammad, "and we are very respectful of them."

Crossing the Atlas Mountains with the black, rocky, sandy desert on one side and green, plant-filled oases on the other, they reached Erfoud by the evening of the third day. They hired a guide in Erfoud to take them through the sandy dunes to a tiny outpost named Merzouga. They reached the tented camp in Merzouga just as the sun was beginning its descent.

"The sunset is best seen from that dune over there," said the guide pointing towards a tall dune half a mile away, his job as a guide done for the night.

Something about walking barefoot in the sand, with the sky before them and the sand beneath them turning all shades of red, orange, pink and yellow, broke down the reserve between Sarah and Muhammad. They started talking about their lives and what it felt like to grow up in their respective countries. By the time the sun sank low in the horizon, and the sky turned shades of violet and blue, tenuous bonds of friendship had sprung up between the two.

That night, sitting on the dune under the stars, as the guide from Erfoud and the camp cook played drums and sang folk songs, Sarah marveled on the magic of friendship.

Back in Marrakech the evening of the fifth day, they headed to the little café overlooking the market square of Jemaa l-Fna. Relaxing over cups of mint tea, they started talking about the education systems and job markets of Morocco and the United States. Sarah talked about her struggle to find a job that would be challenging, interesting, and at the same time, give her the freedom to be independent. Muhammad talked about how hard he had been working the past few years to save money so that his sisters and brother could go to the university.

"Did you go to the university?" Sarah asked.

"What?"

"What age were you when you left school?"

He lowered his eyes. In a low, shamed voice he said, "Twelve."

"Wow, that´s really young!"

He sighed, "Yes, that it is, that it is. Comme ça la vie; c´est dûr." That´s life; it is hard.

And then there was a tense silence.

Sarah got a pit in her stomach. She was horrified that she had said such awful things. In her curiosity to get to know him, she had embarrassed him.

"It is so unfair," she thought. "He is the sole earner for his family and what he makes in a month, I have been spending in a day."

For a while they continued sipping their tea and watching the market scene below, the friendship of the past five days sharply missing.

Sarah finally broke the silence, "I am really sorry. I feel I asked too many questions."

"No, no, that´s alright." And he smiled slightly.

Sarah smiled back, relieved that her flat-footedness hadn´t irrevocably damaged their friendship.

She thought back over her entire trip. In hiring Muhammad, she had gained not only a driver, but also a protector, helper and friend. He helped her find the finest and cheapest, rugs at a small store in Casablanca. He helped her find rai music-tapes in Marrakech. He explained how to bargain with the vendors in the souks of Jemaa l-Fna. When someone tried to hassle her in Ouarzazate, he used his body to block the hustler´s advances. He watched from the car when she stopped to look at monuments, shouting out to wanna-be guides to stop them from accosting her.

"You truly are an ambassador for Morocco," Sarah remarked. "You have made me appreciate Morocco, and understand its culture and people, in a way that would not have been possible, if I had simply checked out the sights like most tourists."

Watching Muhammad straighten out his shoulders and lift his head up tall, she realized how much pride he felt in his country, and how much her words had pleased him.

They sat in companionable silence watching the setting sun dip behind the distant, blue Atlas Mountains, bathing the market below in a golden glow. The muezzin´s call for evening prayers rang out over the still air from the minarets of Qutoubia.