Three weeks later, I woke up in a squished fetal position against the glass window of our tour bus, and looked down at my cell phone to discover that it was exactly 6:00am: twelve hours after we had first left Salamanca with backpacks full of granola bars, water, and extra toilet paper; ready and optimistic for the adventure ahead.
As the bus rumbled to slow stop, everyone gathered their bags and shuffled half asleep into the ferry port which marked our halfway point (aka 12 more hours to go) before reaching our destination in the city of Fez. The initial sense of enthusiasm in everyone’s expression had by then turned into tired and grumpy apathy, until our hour-long ferry ride across the Strait of Gibraltar ended with a funny realization: we had reached the continent of Africa, but were still in Spain. (I don’t know about you, but I never studied geography close enough to realize that Spain had territory in Africa.)
Bribery at the Border
All 150 American ISA students (50 in each group) paraded out from the ferries, and we all hopped back onto our three giant tour busses to head toward the border of Morocco which was 45 minutes away. As we got closer along the coast, our program director warned us that we were not allowed to take pictures anywhere near the border (you’ll be thrown in jail) and that normally, it can take upwards of three to four hours for a group our size to get through. Lucky for us, they slipped some extra money to the border patrol in our first few passports, (yay for bribery!) and Carlos [program director] assured us that it would speed up the process to let us through between one and two hours at the most.
Somewhere before the border I fell asleep, but was woken up about an hour later to a loud beeping noise, and Cecily shaking me and telling me to sit up and take the blanket off my head. I opened my eyes and saw a man dressed in an official looking uniform with a strange laser gun-like contraption in his hand, pointing it straight at the forehead of the girl sitting in the seat behind me. At first I was really scared – then Cecily explained that it was a thermometer, taking people’s temperatures to make sure that none of us had the swine flu. Although by that point I was recovered, a week before I had been sick with a 102 temperature, so I was really glad that he didn't have patience and skipped me. In a little over an hour we were through the border stop, and Carlos was right: after seeing the money, they skimmed over our passports and cordially let us through.
Reflections from the Window
The second we crossed the border, it was very clear that we weren’t in Spain anymore. The style of dress completely changed, from Spain's fancy heels and tights look to patterned burkahs and flat, leather shoes. All the signs and building names were written in Arabic and French, and the only english to be found were the ads everywhere for stores selling Coca Cola. Right at the border, there were nearly 100 taxi cabs sitting and waiting to drive people, lined up next to a hill covered in burning trash.
As we drove further away from the city and into the countryside, more drastic contrasts began. Men would ride by on small scooters, with women covered in colorful burkahs, hanging onto a seat built on the back end. As our tour bus passed by on one side of the road, men with donkeys trotted past on the other, and children with bare feet would run alongside the trash covered hills toward our busses, waving and putting their hands out to beg. Throughout the trip, Cecily and I adopted the phrase TIA: “This is Africa” from a Swahili rap artist who used the phrase to describe the poverty and disparity in third world countries that shocks first world citizens, and is beyond explanation. From inside our glass window, this was our first experience with TIA – the first of many more to come. 
Peeing Behind Shrubs and Sheep
Four hours into the border, I woke up again from my seemingly constant nap, but this time because I had to pee. At least half the bus agreed – and the bus driver pulled off to the side of the road, and said something along the lines of “good luck” as we stared out the window to a completely flat and uncovered stretch of dirt, with ankle high desert shrubs that were our closest hope for any kind of privacy.
In honor of this experience, I decided to take a video:
A few hours later, we took another notable bathroom stop in the middle of a valley, right where a pastor had led his giant group of sheep. I felt terrible for the man – he had clearly spent a long time getting the entire group together, and looked pretty bewildered as over a hundred loud and strangely dressed foreigners poured out of tour busses and chased his sheep into all directions while finding a place to pee. We didn't have much of a choice to go anywhere else - but I decided just to hold it and wait by the bus with a couple others who felt morally wrong to disturb the poor sheep. In the end it didn't matter much - the flock scattered and we left. But something about the whole experience really struck me.
Looking Out From the Balcony
By the time we’d reached Fez it was nearly dinner, something like twenty six hours after we first got on our bus from Spain. Everyone was exhausted, and our hotel beds felt like clouds compared to the rigid bus seats that barely recline. Looking out from the balcony of our hotel, Fez by night was absolutely beautiful. Colored fountains and palm trees were lit up between buildings with traditional Arabic architecture, and in the central square, a web of white Christmas-esque lights draped over a wide, sandstone colored walkway. Cecily and I wished that we could join the boys and go explore, but watching women walk by in completely covered clothing, followed closely by their male escorts, we immediately realized that we were in a very different country. One that wasn’t safe for us, where we were not equal. We watched from the balcony, and wondered what the next few days would be like; entering a completely different culture, and stepping into a world that we knew and understand little about.
So interesting! cant wait for the story about that sand-boarding picture
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