Waiting
Morocco: sometime in the late 90’s
The village is a Berber village. When I first visited, it was a poor place. Adobe homes, none with running water, lined the dirt, rubble-filled streets. Many had floors of beaten earth. The only furniture in most homes was a low round table and a cabinet to display dishes, trays and prized possessions. Heavy blankets or straw mats served as carpets. Pillows strewn around the walls substituted for a divan. Not that the people wanted a divan. They preferred to sit on the floor…and to sleep on the floor.
Families sent their sons out to work in more prosperous towns. Most went to tourist areas where they wandered the streets trying to entice the tourists to come to “my shop”. They had no education to speak of, but they managed to teach themselves to speak English, French, Spanish and some told me they knew some Japanese. The learned from the tourists and they learned from each other. They wore blue gandouras, a long dress-like garment, and they wore a blue or black chech, what we call a turban. They called themselves Touareg. Tourists were keen to meet a member of the famed Touareg tribe. Of course, there are no Touareg in all of Morocco. And once a conversation had begun, the Berber men would reel the tourists in to the shop with offers of hospitality and a glass of mint tea but underneath the charm was a desperate desire to sell a carpet.