COLUMN: Holiday in Spain

I had been so looking forward to my vacation in Spain. Just a half-hour ferry ride from Northern Morocco laid the land of tank tops, beer, and most of all the predictability of a Western country. I’d understand everything going on around me! Everything would magically make sense!
My port experience on the way out had me salivating for order and organization. The port at Tangier is chaotic. There are dozens of ferries, each one owned by a different company with different departure times, different trip durations, and different prices. The only way to sort through all this information is to push through the hoards of men extolling the virtues of their particular ferry company and go from booth to booth searching for flyers with information and then verifying it since most of it was outdated. We bought tickets to a ferry and then watched it leave us at the dock after racing through a maze of poorly labeled gates. The next ferry we got on left two hours late. I had high hopes for Spain.
Arriving at the Spanish port, it was clearly marked where I was supposed to go, and when I reached the ticket area there was a large illuminated sign with the information for each ferry in order of departure time. It was like heaven. I couldn’t wait for more predictability!
But the thing about Spain was that while it was great to be able to expose my shoulders in sweltering heat without fear of offending anyone or inviting more attention than I’d like, and it did feel liberating to drink a glass of wine on the street, it didn’t outweigh Spain’s feeling of anonymity in comparison with Morocco. I was just another American tourist speaking terrible Spanish. There were several such people all around and we all looked the same. Nobody was particularly interested in us and no one cared about us.
In Morocco I’m anything but anonymous. Almost everyone on my block knows me and has seen pictures of my family. I’m an adopted member of five families to the extent that I’m present at weddings, circumcisions, and the intense hours of waiting outside a high school for baccalaureate results. Everyone is interested in me here. I’m the white girl who speaks funny Arabic. Every taxi driver talks to me, and every corner store owner asks my name. I feel welcomed in Morocco.
In Spain I couldn’t escape the looks of annoyance and sometimes disdain when I mispronounced a word. This is in stark contrast with the insane laughter and subsequent lessons on pronunciation complete with pats on the back when I make a mistake in Arabic in Morocco. No one in Spain asked my name, let alone invited me into their homes, whereas I can’t go two days in Morocco without an invitation or a new friend.
What saved my experience in Spain from being a total culture shock was that there were tons of Moroccan immigrants. Due to their language skills, Moroccans are everywhere in the tourist industry. I found a grocery store owned by a Moroccan and a tapas bar called “Marrakech” that served cous cous and kefta with their beer and mojitos (which was ironic considering alcohol is technically illegal in the land that these foods call home). But most importantly they served up smiles, interest, and playful conversation.
In the end, even the things I had been so looking forward to fell through. My bus out of Grenada left late and broke down, and the ferry at the ever-so-organized port left an hour late… I guess that happens, even in Europe. But at least in Morocco I’d have some stranger to talk to while I waited.