Hippie Adventures in Magical Morocco

Ketama blues After spending our third winter along the southern coast of Morocco, the warm winds were telling us that it was time to go north for the summer. Both in our early twenties and hungry for adventure we agreed to help an American and his Australian girlfriend score some hashish in the mountains of Ketama, a major growing region for cannabis. Young and foolish as we were we hid it in the floor of our van. I had been feeling sick and even had a fever for a day while traveling north but ignored it. Minutes before we left the farm with our “friends” I realized that I had hepatitis, my eyes were yellow, and my stools were devoid of color. We drove out and were busted by a gendarme at the first intersection of highways! Now picture this: I’m nursing a baby of eight month and it’s teething. I’m feverish, I have very little energy, I can hardly function. We get escorted to jail by two polite policemen and we wait, all four of us in a large room facing the police sergeant. They let us sit on a bench and bring us sandwiches eventually. It takes many hours for him to decide our fate but by late afternoon we find out that Jo, the Australian woman and I will not be imprisoned. Instead, they have our men escort us next door to a hotel room where we spend the night, not knowing what comes next. I nurse my baby, and Jo helps me get comfortable. Next morning her boyfriend and my partner are again allowed up to the hotel room to come and get us and to bring us back to the jail next door. We wait together in a room for about one hour then we are told that she and I can just leave but the men must go to jail. Bill gives me the money we have left. There’s a bus outside waiting to go North. I have three minutes to decide where I want to go and Jo will accompany me and come back to help take care of the men from the outside. I decide to go back to Tangier and ask our friend Sidi Bouziane if I can stay with him as I feel it’s the only option I have. We go to Tangier and Sidi Bouziane takes me in without hesitation. I spend the next few months completely at the mercy of my Arab friends. Melika, his wife is as cheerful as can be. Rhemo a 14-year-old neighbor is working for her every day. Jo stays with me one night then goes back to be with Bill and her boyfriend, Al. She’s allowed to bring food in from outside. The two women take care of my baby anytime I’m not nursing or sleeping. Melika has a young girl helping her because she was in a serious accident the previous year and lost her baby in the fifth month of pregnancy. She’s improved a lot but her husband Sidi Bouziane is concerned and getting her strong again. I get a letter from my twin sister in Canada that her five-year-old daughter Renee has disappeared and no one has been able to find her. It took two and a half months to find her body in the lake nearby. She slipped out of the house while my sister was sleeping and disappeared! I’m too sick to reach out and go back to be with her. I must focus on getting well but I’m despondent. Sidi Bouziane is what Americans have labelled a fundamentalist because he wears white, he prays every spare minute he has and goes to mosque with other men that look like him. When he comes home he does pray and as soon as I get strong enough, I join him because I need help. Months go by and never, not once does Melika or Sidi Bouziane ever frown or show irritation that I’m at their mercy and I need… need ….need! Sidi Bouziane even takes the bus to Meknes to testify for Bill when his court case comes up. Bill and Al get sentenced to three months and they get transferred to a remote prison to finish their sentence. Since I’m too weak to go to town to try and use a telephone and no more letters coming in, I decide that I will go to Canada to be with my sister as soon as I’m strong. I cry myself to sleep often and try not to worry and pray some more! I get one more letter in the mail and it’s simply a clipping from a newspaper asking the world at large if ‘anyone has seen Renee’. I spend my days doing my best to make small talk with my friends but I’m very anxious for news from home. My young friends listen to the Egyptian radio station a lot and the classical Arabic music with its lament helps keep my pain from spilling everywhere because it seems we are all in pain somehow, somewhere. My Canadian friend Patricia who visits me tells me she wants to go back to Canada soon, so we agree to fly to Montreal together as I still feel I need help with my fat nursing child. I feel bad that I’m withholding most of the money that I still have, to buy my ticket, when I know Sidi Bouziane is stretching his wallet to feed me. My appetite has become substantial. It’s what happens when you’re improving after getting hepatitis. I’m feeling quite guilty about it as I eat four meals a day. Everyone reminds me that rest is of most importance, so I rest and nap with Karim often. The fact that I didn’t rot and die in a Moroccan jail and my child was not taken from me, speaks for the humanity I witnessed. The fact that Bill got only three months when he could have been in prison for years, forgotten, and abandoned, speaks volumes too. The fact that a poor but faithful Arab man wearing traditional white clothes, and a long beard helped us, trusting that Allah would take care of him shows also that Arabs can be kind, forgiving, tolerant, benevolent, generous, trusting and not necessarily brainwashed to do jihad! Come with me, sit on my magic carpet and fly as I tell you the tale, the true tale of our Arabian Nights for I was shown a way of life that is by far more magical than anything you’ve ever imagined. Perhaps this can change your heart and your mind about the lives of other cultures everywhere. Cultures who have nurtured their special knowledge and saved the substance of what magic really is. Cultures who have not forgotten that kindness and wisdom and generosity are not just words, they are keys that open doors that when closed turn our whole world from colorful to black and white or grey. There are princes and princesses in my story, there are mystical moments and mythical figures but more than that there are true hearts and magical doorways that lead to worlds that may soon be forgotten if you don’t jump at the chance to memorize the words or find the keys. I invite you to sit quietly and be patient as my story does reveal slowly but surely the layers I uncovered and memorized for you so that you too can hope for a better day when the world will be as One. Word are just words unless you can find stardust to blow on them and make them magic! And where will you find stardust, you ask me? Come close, I can only whisper that secret for if the jnouns hear it they will steal it and run away so far that it will take eons to find it again. The stardust can also be found between the lines of my story and only a pure heart has the eyes to see where the stardust is...read carefully and read one story at a time for these adventures happened over a period of years and it takes time and dreams to absorb and understand the meaning of what happened. Though it may be said in an ordinary way every story is filled with magical potential and deep seeking so pay attention lest you miss the heart of the message. I know we live in a fast-moving world so you will have to pace yourself without distraction, be strong, be patient and be focused for you will be rewarded.