Magical Musical Moments and Creepers

Quick timeline of events since last update: hike with family to local village, Brendan visiting site, Yorda visiting site, Gnaoua music festival in Essaouira, Yorda in Sedona-miz for three days, safi.

Let's start by discussing travel day 1 to Essaouira. Which begun promptly at 5:15am. My naive little brain assumed when I set my alarm for just after 5 am that morning, that the sun would indeed be up. Yeah, no. Negative. Big fat nuh-uh. Dragging ass out of bed before the sun takes some serious dedication to get to the beach by noon. After installing a quick caffeine IV (read 'eye-vee', not 'the fourth', as I have no idea what caffeine the fourth would be in reference too...), I rounded up the troops (Yorda) and we walked down to the bus stop with only minor delays - mint sellers & a pack of about 15 rabid dogs ready to eat my well-defined calves for breakfast. We made it to the stop safe & sound, bright & early, and apparently with 'harass me before dawn' written on our foreheads.

Okay before I give you the deets on that story (which, let's face it, you're dying to hear), I'm going to break down what follows into individual anecdotes: a few music related, a few harassment related. Enjoy.

Harassment: So we're chillin at the bus stop, a couple local girls hovering near us, communally yawning and squinting as the sun comes up over the mountain. Enter two douchebags stage left. Let's recap: 6:00am, rural village, bus top, Yorda & I, douchebags. Usually my 'screw you' armour is up, but seriously, at this hour, I was not with it enough to give half of a shit. I would have probably let Rodney Dangerfield, Gary Busey, and Hannibal Lecter have carte blanche with me, and I probably wouldn't even have noticed. These guys were persistent little buggers, however, literally not shutting up or moving more than a foot away from us for like twenty minutes. It was so annoying it drove me to take a transit instead of the bus for the first time ever having been in site for over eight months. In summary: it sucked.

Music: Anyway, we get to Marrakech and aim to get a CTM bus from Marrakech to Essaouira. After people watching for about three hours (we had arrived just before 8 hoping for an earlier bus... kill me) We hop on, three ladies in tow (Sarah has joined us by now), and we have the pleasure of sharing the four hour journey with the loudest, highest, drunkest Moroccan teenagers available in Kech at that hour. Ugh. So after about three hours of nauseating hell (not all due to the gentleman company... I attempted reading for more than 5 minutes... bleurgh. You think my childhood would have taught me a lesson on car-sickness), Yorda and I hear something in the distance... is that?.. there's no way... is that 'Like a Prayer' on Moroccan radio?! So after the initial 3 seconds of pure tear-filled joy that came out of this sound-bite, it occurred to me that 'could it be? could it beeee?? is that Lea Michelle???' I looked at Yorda with glassy, raised eye-browed, puppy dog eyes searching for conformation, when, in unison, we both squeal 'It's Kurt!' God, in recognition of the douchebags he placed on our bus, threw us a proverbial bone with the Glee version of Madonna's classic. Alhamdulilah.

Harassment: Fast forward to bus ride home from Marrakech to Sedona-miz after Gnaoua (you'll get a post on solely the festival soon enough) and the serious CREEPER whose memory has kept me up at night the last few days after returning home. Right, so Yorda and I sit together on left side of bus. Insert creepster old man in brown jilaba and straw hat to my right. Sitting in the seat across the aisle, yet not facing forwards. Facing me. Turned sideways. About 12 inches from my face, leaning in for a good look. For thirty minutes. Mostly, I found that more funny than anything, playing the game of not looking him in the eye and completely ignoring his existence before the major mid-stop between Kech and my town. So when half the bus exists at this stop, he makes some moves and sits behind me instead. Then leans in between Yorda and I to get a good perspective on the left side of my face since obviously it's completely different from my right. He leans back, scoots over a seat and proceeds to hump the back of my chair. Yes, you read that right. He literally pulsated his knee/groin/fist/all of the above against the rear of my seat for a good few minutes before I grabbed Yorda's arm and drug her across the aisle into seats far from the super-perv and his thrusting something-or-another. The guy kind of freaks out and starts swiveling his head to and fro to get his view back, when he decided to move AGAIN. Up two seats so he could turn around and stare at us backwards. Obvi. Welcome to my life in Morocco.

In short: I've decided my kind of harassment is sort of different than other PCVs. I understand the annoyance and fishbowl-ness and disgust that comes with the 'gazelle' 'oh beautiful' 'i want to love/marry/f**k you' quotes thrown at you at a daily/hourly/minute-ly basis, I get that from time to time too. But I get the dudes that I swear are planning my demise in their mother's basements. Guys who don't say anything, just follow me with their uninterrupted stares like those damn statues in the haunted mansion at Disneyland. They make scary movies out of the fellas I deal with down here. It's like the prologue to Dexter rather than a hashuma version of the Archie comic books. It kind of freaks me out. But I try and make light of it. Especially when I have Yorda to sit here and laugh about my sexual oppression with. Fun!

Music #2: So sitting in a cafe. Enjoying a cup a joe in Kech, people watching like it's my job (or my favourite sport, which it is), taking in the afternoon sun. When, after a round of Moroccan pop I couldn't (and won't) tell you anything about, the most hashuma song I've ever heard in my LIFE comes on. Flash back to middle-school: does this ring a bell?: 'my neck... my back... lick my p***y and my crack...'

Uh.

What now?

Did they just...?

That song played for the next five minutes straight. We were flabbergasted. Literally debating whether or not to tell the coffee shop staff that they should immediately stop playing this filth from their speakers. They, along with their patrons, were just bobbing along, grooving to the beat, blissfully unaware of the impure smut they were serving along side our Mochaccinos. I mean, my God.

Stay tuned for Gnaoua update & some pictures from a local mountain village hike tomorrow.

Ps. Send me a package! :)