It’s 13:29 (Moroccan time) of the 23 December, and I’m in the Casablanca airport since, at least 10h. The last time I woke up was 5:40 (aprox.) of 22 December…I don’t even know how I can still write in English…or write at all…or breath! It’s been a long journey, as I was advancing on my anterior post, and I still have around 4 more hours before arriving to Spain…I’m a cute zombie in the middle of the corridor of the airport, with bad hand-washed clothes (I should learn to wash them properly!), with such a huge eyecups that I must look like a raccoon; and I feel like drunk.
After leaving the house at 2:00 (a.m), as I was about to do when I posted the last entry, I grabbed all my stuff and went out of the house, that was completely in silence, as well as the outside. Lights were tenuous and only my steeps accompanied me. Silly me, when I was a street far from home, I still expected to see one or both of my fellows appearing to accompany me to take the coach. I turned around and looked toward the direction of the house, but no one was there. I don’t know why I expected something like that, given that nobody went to the station with the Czech when she left or to Fez when the Ohioan travelled to Paris. As I said, I’m f&%$ing silly. Well, as no one was coming I just said “¡¡¿Serán cabrones?!!”, and continued my way; with my face completely covered by a hat, a hood and a neck gaiter; only my eyes were exposed…though my breath fogged up my glasses; so I looked like a little jawa (Star Wars, man!) with too much luggage (I didn’t have too much, but, even though, it was bigger than me, which is not difficult).
(Madrid, 24th December 20:51, Spanish time)
The first minutes everything was fine, though I looked behind me frequently just in case, and tried to avoid going near places where someone could come out. I arrived at the main street and soon after the frights started. Firstly, while I was walking through the sidewalk I saw something that looked like a bar resting against the wall, but when I went closer, the bar stand up and resulted to be a man that waited for me in the middle of the way. Somewhat nervous I just change the direction and started to walk through the road. I arrived near the butchery and then I thought if I should wait seated on a bench or if it would be better idea to be somewhat hidden to don’t be disturbed. A cough from the shadows gave me the answer. The dark places where, in fact, full with people; as the frequent noises revealed. So, I thought that maybe was better to be in a well illuminated place than going to one of those areas and risk me to find someone not very recommendable. I took a seat on a stone bench near a shoe store, with my bags surrounding me and with the face well covered, trying to look scary. It worked for a while; the men, which frequently passed nearby, speeded their steps in front of me.
I was there like 45 minutes; trembling and wondering when something would happen to me. Hordes of dog crawled through the street feeding on leftovers that they found on the garbage, sometimes fighting among them. I really hoped that there was enough rubbish to keep them happy and they didn’t realize of my presence, even when one looked at me while it was trying to sleep.
I realized that, even though I hadn’t seen them, there where two men at my left not too far, so I decided to move to the benches on the “square” so I can see them coming if they did it. Not much after, a man with a backpack passed nearby and said “Bonjour”. “F&%ck, he knows I’m not from here” I thought, and I answered with the deepest voice I could, so he believed that I was a guy. He went to the other side of the road and talked with a man; then they came back to my side of the road, each one on one direction. I thought that they were going to surround me; but fortunately wasn’t the case. One of the men left and the other, the one who talked to me before, sat down on the bench just behind mine (F&%ck).
I couldn’t stop smoking one cigarette after another and looking to my clock over and over again while the time seemed to have stopped. Then, the man behind me came and started to talk to me. At first I didn’t answer, wondering if it was a good idea to leave him clear that I was an outsider and worse, a girl. As he insisted, I finally said that I didn’t understand him in French. He told me to remove the hood so he could see me, but I only raised my head a little bit, so I could see him from my blurred glasses. Then, he asked me for a rolling paper. As I haven’t, he only said “merci” and went to have a seat behind me again. Afterwards, some more men came and sat with the other. They started talking so I had to check all the time to make sure that none of them approached. I took my mobile and hold it into my hand with the number of the PhD student prepared in case I had to call her asking for help (She didn’t come with me but, at least she told me that she would have the mobile on all the night in case I had an emergency).
One of the men came and stand just alongside me. Fortunately, my stuff occupied the entire bench so he could not sit with me. He stayed there staring at me and doing weird noises, thought I didn’t detected any hand movement…anyway it reminded me some awkward moment of my adolescence when I used to go to Plaza España with my friends and those kind of things happened.
Ten minutes latter, finally, the coach stopped in front of the “square”. I took my stuff and asked the driver “¿Casablanca?” And he said “oui”, so I got in and looked for a seat. I put again my stuff around me, grabbed it and tried to sleep.
(Madrid, 25th December 20:26, Spanish time)
However, my head was drowned in caffeine and I was still nervous; so I couldn’t sleep; or at least no more than little naps of 5 minutes. I was pretty tired and I could only thought about an awful thing that I had to do when I arrived to Spain and what I wanted to do next; while I listened a miscellaneous mix of Atmosphere, Ska-p, Non Servium, Gorillaz and different Spanish mc’s among others.
It took us one hour to went out from Azrou; after the stop in which I got in, we stopped at a petrol station at the end of the town, then at the bus station and latter, again, at the petrol station. When we finally went out I was already wondering about the resistance of the human bladder. There were some short stops, but mostly in the middle of nowhere and, given that I couldn’t ask the driver how long the stops were and that the passenger were mostly males (a.k.a campo de nabos), it didn’t look too good idea to get down; so I achieve a (painful) personal record.
Around 7h, the blackness outside the windows started to lead to tree shaped dark bluish shadows. I saw the sunrise on the road at the rhythm of “ …y lucharemos por defender la independencia de la bandera mostoleña…”…Who had said to me when I first listened that song on my adolescence that I would listen it again several years later on my way to Casablanca? Life is weird…it’s the best part of it.
We went through some very green areas full of small lakes clumped with egrets before entering in Rabat and continue another hour to Casablanca.
Once there I ran to the nearest smelly toilet and, afterwards, I smoke a cigarette while trying to clear my mind, which was completely messy after such a long night without rest and people began to look at me weirder than usual.
I look for a taxi and I could arrange a price to the airport that wasn’t too much high from the expected; so I got in, surprisingly alone. I didn’t know how far the airport where from the city, but I started to worry when I saw that it was suppose to be at 4km but we were driving for 10 minutes…But it was fine, It’s only that the Moroccan km are similar to the Renfe minutes (joke for Spaniards).
I got to the airport around 10h; passed the controls and went to have a coffee. I was trembling a little bit and I shouldn’t look well at all since people stayed a couple of meter away from me when possible. I was so tired that when I started to look at the floor I saw for as in the “magic eye”.
After nearly five hours of don’t-know-what-to-do, I could get into the plane, which was so full that many people had to check their luggage in before we could take off.
We did it and sadly, I thought “see you soon”.
One hour and some minutes latter the captain said that we were going to land, “to land? what the hell? Where is the city?” I thought, and suddenly I could glimpse the 4 evil tower standing up in a brown and dense cloud of pollution. “F&%k!!” I thought again, and pretty much, that comment summarizes all that came later… “ No es donde naces ni donde te crías, tu hogar es donde tu quieres estar…y ahora estoy muy, muy lejos de casa”
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