Marielle Claire : Morocco

Morocco was one of the most interesting and different places I’ve been and certainly incredible to photograph. When my friend and I finally passed customs, day quickly turned to night. We found ourselves taking the bus and being let off right outside of the main square. It is certainly not desirable for two young women to walking around a country they have never been to before at night. We eventually found the square... and let me tell you, until that very moment, I thought culture shock was not something that I could experience (naive perhaps). It was the most stunning thing I had ever witnessed. As we walked through the square in attempt to find our hostel, varying fumes of spices surrounded us. The lights were shockingly bright and colorful; all the venders had varying ways of bringing attention to themselves. We saw snakes lured by men’s instruments, elaborate spice stands, and women giving henna tattoos (for tourists of course). Just as I was about to awake from my dream, a little boy approached us and asked us where we were going. Still stunned, it was difficult to acknowledge his presence. Eventually I found him asking if we were going to a hostel, demanding that he could take us there and eventually started reaching for my bag. I hesitated, as we really had no idea where we were going. The hostel’s directions included: “go past the square, take a quick right, follow down a street, turn left at the archway, turn left at the BIGGER archway” and were essentially useless in the dark.

As you can tell we did arrive safely and were not sold to any kind of sex slavery. It’s difficult to tell how much of what we hear on the media as “dangerous” countries is in fact accurate; something I question a lot when traveling. Unfortunately, as a young woman, I still have to listen to these sorts of ideas to some degree regardless of my desire to see the world alone. I always have to worry about bringing a friend along. It’s also difficult to tell how much of what we saw in Marrakech was real as many things about the city seemed as a presentation for tourists. I remember we paid our hostel to drive us to the Atlas Mountains to hike and do the stupid tourist thing where we ride camels (its not as cool as it sounds). The driver would stop along the way for “bathroom breaks”. Incidentally all the places we stopped were their buddies’ stores who were selling trinkets as we waited for the lagging bathroom runners. We also stopped at a “traditional” home that made absolutely no sense in correlation with our agenda. They also proceeded to ask for money as we left their home. It almost seemed as though they were staging the entire event, which was in itself eerie.

We also met a young guy who was staying in Marrakech for two weeks and doing a study on Moroccan cooking that he received a grant for. Thanks to him, my friend and I felt safer walking around and he took us to new places tourists usually don’t go.

This one above was taken on the hostel roof right when we arrived and were still startled. It was a full moon and right as I got on top of the roof, the call of prayer happened. It happens several times throughout the day and if you have never heard it, its pretty amazing. Each mosque chimes into the prayer gradually until they all pray in unison. It's quite surreal and the full moon really took it home.