Generosity

Maybe it's just an illusion, but I have this image in my head of America before the turn of the 20th Century as a place that people traveled by horse and by ox-cart, a countryside where distances were so great that an hour on today's highway was equal to at least a full day's journey, where, if your neighbor visited and stayed late, they were welcome, nay required, to spend the night, and where strangers who knocked at the door were afforded a meal and at the very least a place to sleep out in the barn. There was an expectation then to treat everyone with generosity and hospitality, if, for no other reason, than because you one day might need the favor returned. That's just the image I have. I don't know how accurate it is, but it may inform this entry.

This is the positive story, as promised. It's an example of the best humanity has to offer and one of many reasons why I love people of all creeds, colors, and cultures.

I had a few days to kill before meeting up with a friend in Chefchaouan, so I decided I needed to spend some time away from the cities. I headed up to Al Hoceima National Park, which is situated in the north of Morocco and occupies about fifty square kilometers of protected Mediterranean coast, limestone mountains and cliffs, thuya forest, and an azure-blue sea. It's a beautiful place to visit, but is particularly rewarding if you have no time constraints and are entirely self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, the park hasn't yet been very well developed to take advantage of all the natural beauty that it offers. Most people in the city of Al Hoceima actually didn't seem to know that they lived less than five kilometers from this protected area. A typical conversation went something like this:

- I'm looking for the National Park.
- Park? Oh yeah, it's three blocks that way, you can't miss it.
- No, the National Park.
- What now?
- The National Park of Al Hoceima?
- I don't know what you're talking about.

You can imagine my frustration. So, after about four hours of asking around, I just took off into the park with one pathetic map and food enough for about two days. It wasn't quite like living in a bus in Alaska, but I'm pretty confident I was the only traveler hiking around the trails and villages of this beautiful, secluded reserve.

I decided to camp that night on the beach outside a small village, the name of which I can't now remember. Just to make sure it was cool, I wandered around until I found the café. You're guaranteed to find a large percentage of any village at the local café at any time of the day. There I met Mohammed, an old fisherman with an uncanny knack for throwing his voice, which I was both too tired and too gullible to uncover his trick for about ten minutes, despite the fact that we were sitting about three feet from one another. His friend, much younger, a teacher at the village primary school, told me it was fine to sleep on the beach, but that I should come sleep at his house, eat dinner with his family, take a shower, and drink tea. I told him his offer was far too generous, and I couldn't possibly accept it. We kept talking, and after about ten minutes, he again made the offer, and again I declined. I didn't want to impose. After a bit more conversation, he insisted that I come spend the night and meet his family, and I insisted just as firmly that I wanted to sleep outside so that I could see the stars and hear the sea. This is how Moroccans function: they will always ask three times and are incredibly generous in all they offer. As I had turned down his home, he then insisted that I at least eat dinner with his family. Knowing that Moroccans typically eat around 11 pm or later, I declined. Again he insisted. Again I declined; I was too tired, eventhough I knew I was being rude by declining his hospitality. After his third offer, I pointed to the bread I'd brought along, insisting that I would not go hungry.

And what do you think happened? Around midnight, I woke up to move my tent, afraid of the tide during a particularly strong wind storm, and who do I see walking the beach toward my campsite? My friend the teacher, carrying with him a can of tuna salad, a roll of cookies, an apple, six wedges of Laughing Cow cheese, and a carton of juice. Since I'd refused to eat with him, he'd brought dinner to me, special delivery nearly half a kilometer from his house, through the cold, nasty weather, to me, a guy he barely knew, who he will, in all likelihood, never see again.

That's not the end of the story though. A few days later after a trip all the way to Tangier, I met two sisters, Emily and Cecilia, Americans who were traveling together through Morocco. Emily was in the process of finishing up her time in the country studying Arabic, and Cecilia was visiting from America. Instantly recognizing two very interesting people, I agreed to meet up with them in Chefchaouan (which was about two hours back the way I'd come, my ability to change plans based on the cool people I meet again taking me away from my goal of Europe to a place I'd already been). But I wouldn't have taken back all the extra time I spent with them even if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me a lot, I'm getting rather poor these days). We went hiking around the area, met two more travelers, Simon and his mom Katerina, and the five of us took off together, back to Al Hoceima. Check it out on a map, that's like six hours in the direction I'd come from.

But this was one of the best memories I have of Morocco, and it was great to end my time there with such amazing people and such positive experiences. Remember in my last post that I mentioned that I sometimes gain a new perspective on my time in Africa through the pointed, insightful questions of other travelers? (You'd better not have skipped that one, or so help me...) Ya, they were some of these types. I literally made the decision to backtrack six hours along the coast with them, by flipping a coin. Honestly though, I probably would have gone anyway.

We had a few troubles, mainly fighting tooth and claw for every dirham we could save on taxis, but in the end, our drivers turned out to be great guys and really friendly once money matters disappeared. We lucked out finding the most amazing guesthouse in Northern Morocco. Let's just put it this way, when you and four friends have an entire house, including kitchen and bathrooms, to yourself on a hill overlooking a Berber village, limestone mountains, and the Mediterranean, it's good. When said house is surrounded by pomegranates, apricots, plums, almonds, and figs, all ripe for the picking, it's great. And when you get it all for just five euros a night, you start to think, "Maybe I could just stay here for the next month or so..." That was the situation we found ourselves in, and I'll keep the village name to myself, to keep it from being overrun by too many people (and because I can't remember it anyway).

And, best of all, we were welcomed by some of the nicest people I've ever met. We went looking for the trail to the village beach. Instead of just indicating the path, we got a ready-made guide in the form of Abdullah, who not only took off the entire afternoon to show us around, but also gave us insight into traditional Berber medicine, finding us some herbs for Cecilia, who was too sick to function. As we returned to the village, we realized we hadn't enough bread to last through the next day. We ran into our old man landlord, who was walking with a younger guy in a pink shirt. We asked where we could buy bread, not knowing that everyone in these tiny villages makes their own. No worries though, as old man Mohammed took us back to his house, introduced us to his family and gave us a loaf of bread about the size of a truck tire. As we were walking back, amazed at our luck, the younger guy in the pink shirt, who hadn't even spoken to us for more than thirty seconds, ran up to us and delivered us a second loaf, the same size as the first, just to make sure we had enough. He didn't say much, just smiled and offered us bread, almost shy at the gift he'd given. Food from their own tables to five people they barely knew. Pretty amazing.

And I have to wonder if this kind of generosity may be seen anymore in the developed world. In an age of personal transport, interstate hotels, and alarmist media, who trusts a stranger anymore, let alone goes so far out of their way to help one? I don't know if this giving spirit is particularly Moroccan, or if those in the countryside just look out for everyone equally. But this charitable energy is the image I have of all rural Americans living before the age of interstate highways and Best Westerns. Like I said, I don't know if it's an accurate image or just a fantasy, but I'd like to believe that it's something the developed world has lost and is slowly getting back. Communities like couchsurfing and facebook allow us to invite those we know and those we don't into our homes, show them around our communities, and share in a better, more positive world, where we learn from one another directly and don't rely on xenophobia or mistrust to tear us down. I like the changes I'm seeing, and I'm glad to have hospitality where I can find it.