Azilal

In Azilal I stayed with Natasha. It is a beautiful town in the mountains that is postcard ready with snowcapped mountains, lots of green and waterfalls. One of my first days we walked around and picked fresh olives. It was also cold, and small. The cold was difficult because it’s the kind of cold that gets into your bones cause due to the poor insulation it’s just as cold inside as outside. Consequently, there is nowhere to be warm but in your bed under several covers. It’s also a small town, and therefore shuts down early. Not much to do at night, especially when it’s cold outside.

Yet it was in Azilal that I ate best. Natasha cooked much amazing food, including another of the greatest meals of my life (and yall wonder why I was in Morocco for a month). We went to the slaughterhouse where we bought a chicken, saw it murdered before us, and then defeathered and gutted. The first night Natasha made—I cut some tomatoes or something too—some delicious fried chickens with its left side. But the next day she outdid herself with a Moroccan couscous dish with the right side of the chicken.

Irregular Transport

After a small eternity in Rabat, I finally got my ass off of Currun’s couch (if I had stayed any longer I would have felt obligated to pay rent and change the litter box) and made my way to Azilal. Leaving Rabat, I also left “development” behind and enter the world of irregular transport. Rather than the sterile CTM bus station, I had to go to Rabat’s bus station where before I had even crossed the street dudes were already coming at me promising the cheapest rate to Casablanca and Marrakech. But I wasn’t going there, I was headed to Beni Mellal a random town in Morocco (honestly I know nothing about it) on this bus that I had to wait an hour to fill up before it would take off and then stopped for every couple of large Berber women standing by the roadside the whole way there. It reminded me of Dominican voyages past, when people would be standing in the middle of nowhere by the highway with live chickens waiting for the bus to the capital. Again I sat next this really nice women who offered me food when she saw that I was hungry (do all Moroccan women just carry food around all the time?) even though she was pregnant and I would have survived without the bread and milk. Somehow we managed to communicate all of this even though I don’t speak Berber and she doesn’t speak French. When traveling you realize how little you really need to say with words. In Beni Mellal, the final stop was a gas station which was convenient for me because the grand taxi station was right behind it. A grand taxi is a shared taxi or what we would call a bush taxi if it was slightly more beat up and driven by other kinds of Africans. Again I paid for a place in this dude’s four-passenger ride only of course they cram six people, don’t leave until they have all six, and then drive like maniacs. This was one of my worst crazy bush taxi driver experiences, as we were whipping around all of these narrow mountain roads and this fool wasn’t even trying to attempt to stay in his life even though often you could see who was 50 m from you around the next bed heading at you in the same middle of the road. I made it alive and met Natasha at the post office. Even though, to be honest after four months in Senegal none of this felt crazier than a stopover at Port Authority.

Gnawa

One of the best things about travel is finding things you never knew existed (even if millions know about it, and it’s not necessarily hard to get exposed in our global media age). In Morocco, besides the fashion boys this was gnawa music and subculture. Two of Currun’s awesome friends were gnawa musicians and we spent Eid ul-Fitr, the feast to end Ramadan at one of their homes. There was great live music and pastries. Gnawa, I’m a fan.

What White Folks Eat

Ever since I was in Brazil I wondered what it is that white folks ate, or at least what they ate before their former colonial subjects introduced them to flavor. I learned (and yes this was a great revelation at the time) that there are different kinds of white people and they ate, yes, different things. A random morning in Rabat, Currun and I met these French girls and we invited them over for a raif lunch. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask them what they ate in the Netherlands. Boiled potatoes, vegetables and “really long sausages.” God forgive european folks, I understand now why they had to go out there and rape, murder, conquer and exploit the rest of us. I mean can you imagine eating that crap?

Flag-Off

Once at the bar we paid more than normal for these tiny bottles of Flag, only it really wasn’t the Flag I know and love from Senegal. In its place there was this watery knock-off that I can’t call even call Flag. Spain-style though, you could get a contact high from all the hash and tobacco smoke in the air.

Only in Morocco

After megamall, I hung out with several Morocco peace corps volunteers at one of the few bars in Rabat (and there really aren’t any in the smaller cities and towns, where it’s hard to get any alcohol). Before entering we saw a pair of drunk female prostitutes fighting. They were tearing each other’s clothes off, and after being separated one of them continued to undress, getting down to her bra. Several men rushed to force her clothes back on. Where else would you see men putting clothes on women? I guess there won’t be a Girls Gone Wild Rabat video anytime soon.

Megamall

It was also in Rabat that I met Natasha and the other Peace Corps Volunteer at Megamall. Megamall is one of these high-end commercial centers for the privileged in poor countries, where you can go bowling, watch a recent Hollywood film (that is sitting in a theater and not a bootleg DVD in your home), pay a lot for American fast food at the food court, and buy expensive European name-brand clothing. It’s a perfect symbol of the inequality that chokes so many of these countries, and how their insecure middle and upper classes ape American excess and consumerism. It’s the kind of place that could be anywhere in the world where people spend themselves stupid on a weekend, and that’s the point. Of course it’s seen as progress and development and government will often laud these “developments.” In Dakar, they are trying to get into the game building their first megamall and planning on an even more luxurious second one. But Morocco is more “developed” and therefore already has a couple. Rich folks in Morocco have a lot of money, I need to look at the numbers but from my short stay there Morocco seemed to be suffering from damn near Brazilian levels of ridiculous economic inequality. You see people who have nothing to envy from North American and Western Europeans (who have been to these countries) next to people who may as well be in Senegal they are so broke. In Morocco there are places where you can forget that you are in an underdeveloped country, something that only happens in Senegal if you stand in front of the Presidential Palace and nowhere else. But the politics in Morocco are even more wack. The king, Mohammed VI, is still too powerful, being both the most important political and religious figure, in his dual role as monarch and “commander of the faithful.” His father, Hassan II, who ruled from 1961 until dying in 1999 was essentially an autocrat. Of course he was supported by the US and France, imprisoning, torturing and murdering dissidents on both left and right. He also IMF-ized the country for the benefit of the Americans and French, leading to more “development” and emigration. As it stands Morocco has one of the largest and most far-flung of the recent diasporas. Even though the current king has gotten a lot of love for democratizing the country, the government still doesn’t protect basic freedoms like freedom of press and speech and is still drinking too much of that neoliberal kool aid for the good of the Moroccan people. They need to get rid of their monarchy or at least Queen Elizabeth-ize his ass.

Fashion Boys

Rabat was also my introduction to that most Moroccan of phenomena, the fashion boy. Again Morocco is one of those countries that lives the cliché of being stuck between tradition and modernity. Although it was Ramadan and more people than usual were rocking their traditional jilabas (which look frightening similar to Klan hoods) the fashion boys does the eurotrash thing. Hard core. Although there were fashion girls, it wasn’t the same. Even the women who didn’t wear the veil, usually tried to keep it modest, with only a couple going over the top. The girls who wore the veil often tried to pretty it up matching it to the rest of the outfits (which I am almost certain defeats the whole purpose of wearing the veil). Still, because of the veil the women just didn’t have the freedom of action to be as vain as some of the teenage boys. It was high-larious.

Raif

Okay, so it’s honestly just fried bread and I can’t even spell the name but I love it. The food in Morocco was great. So great that I think that just by virtue of being there anything you throw together will be decent (exhibit a, Currun’s more than edible creations). We had some falafels in this one Syrian restaurants that were so good that we had to do it twice. I wonder if I can convince Harvard to just let me eat falafel throughout the world. Although I don’t think anything could beat Egypt, this Syrian spot in Rabat was a close second. Then there was this poulet au citron confit tajine (now I am not that pretentious but to say chicken with crystallized lemons doesn’t sound as impressive as the French right?) that was quite simply one of the greatest meals of my life. El Bahia I will never forget you.

Perfection is Hard

Everything would have been perfect in Rabat except for Currun’s evil cat Shameesha. Shameesha was a street cat from the pretty gardens in Oudayas full of fat strays well-food by tourist tour groups feeding them that Currun had taken in (in Morocco dogs are considered dirty. I didn’t ask why because I know from asking about the pork is dirty maxim that there is probably no good reason. Still it means that you see many more stray cats than dogs. In Senegal dogs are only physically not metaphysically dirty.) Shameesha still had her street instincts though and had the bad habit of attacking fingers and toes. She could not be tamed. Currun is in the process of helping her recuperate from the traumas and tribulations she suffered alone out there hustling in the streets, like the white teacher in those “ghetto-school-against-all-the-odds-everything-is-going-to-be-fine-just-donate-to-Teach-For-America movies” where the new teacher inspires his ghetto fuck up kids to learn and pass the SATs or something. So I am sure eventually Currun will make sure Shameesha is the first street cat to go to kitty Harvard, but count me as one of those other students in the class who hates. I think she is pure evil and will never change.

Chilling

Tired of the hustle in Fez, we took the bus to Rabat and were happy to find that it was over air-conditioned, and a much shorter ride. Once there we settled into Currun’s place. Sadly, Tracey left for Spain at the end of the weekend as planned. I stayed for another few days or fifteen. It was damn near impossible to peel myself off of Currun’s couch. He had a great place in Bab Oudaya an old Kasbah or fort (yes the man lives within the walls of an ancient medieval fort), with a view of the beach from his terrace. Although the neighborhood was full of tourists during the day, it was still a normal neighborhood inhabited by regular Moroccan families, albeit being in a fort by the beach. We took to watching the sunsets off the ocean from the terrace (behind us the oldest mosque in Rabat, dating from the 12^th century), cooking random veggie dishes (Currun’s concoctions actually worked, although I don’t know if I would eat the harira with canned tuna again), going through walks through the medina for sandwiches, and watching funny videos on YouTube. I even got Currun to start saying that everything was high-larious. It was high-larious. To Currun and his awesome roommates and friends, thanks for a great time in Rabat.

Train to Fez

We took a long, hot train ride from Tangiers to Fez. The train station is nice and modern looking and the train was fine. I wish Senegal had transportation like that rather than having to deal with the bush taxis. Morocco, however, is more “developed,” and therefore has better infrastructure. Then again it might just have nice trains. Egypt, a wealthier country had a train station and trains that looked like Lord So and So of the British colonial administration would be stepping out. Then again, the train was hot as fuck. The air conditioning was humming and blowing air but it wasn’t strong enough to make a difference. Again the women in our cabin were really nice, and didn’t mind when we ate and drank water in the cabin even though they were all hungry and thirsty. One of them was even generous enough to give us some of the food she was saving for the evening breakfast. On the last stop before Fez, a nice, middle-aged Moroccan man who spoke English saying he had worked with the Peace Corps got on and chatted with us for the rest of the ride. He said he worked for the tourism office in Volubilis and that he hated the hustlers and touts who gave Morocco a bad image. Once off the train he helped us avoid the fake guides at the train entrance, buy some food (more raiouf) and walked us to a decent budget hotel. He had also suggested we get a guide to tour the medina in Fez since the medina there was—he assured us—the largest and most complicated in the whole world. 9,500 streets, most dead ends, he repeated as a word of warning. Of course, he wanted us to have a great time so he could just pass by the tourism office where he has colleagues and could definitely find us a legit, government-certified guide to show us around this most guide-worthy of places. Afterward, he even invited us to the breakfast meal at his home the next day. We could meet in front of McDonald’s—the only one in town—and his daughter would even tattoo Tracey’s hands with henna. Even more, the guide could take us there after our wonderful tour. He seemed so nice and genuine that we agreed and were excited to go to his house. While, I met a few Spaniards in the hostels who were getting to know their own country (what was the last time you were a tourist in Cleveland or Atlanta or Minneapolis?) and chilled with them, I never really saw Spainish family life (I saw Dominican family which was even better) and I thought it would be nice to actually visit someone’s home and see that slice of Moroccan life.

The next day our guide was on time. He seemed nice, spoke decent English and said he had a degree in history. He paid for the cab and the tour went well until after breakfast when he asked if we wanted to go to a good store he knew selling scarves. Tracey actually wanted to get some scarves and he waited outside as she picked out two beautiful scarves for her relatives. After our tour continued and it was obvious that everyone gets lost in the medina in Fez, but our guide was just gliding through. With my terrible sense of direction I feel like if I were left alone there one night I would never be able to find my way out on my own. We shot through windy straights, evading turkeys sold on the floor, cutting through the donkey traffic until reaching the tannery. The guide asked us if we wanted to see the tannery. We quickly replied that yes, we would love to see the tannery but wouldn’t want to get to close cause the odors can be “strong.” When we arrived we saw that the look-out point was also a leather store. Would we be interested in buying a purse in sheep, cow, or camel leather? No, that’s fine, although it is incredibly to see men stopping into large vats of chemical dyes, while others cut, wash, treated and transported different animal skins in a process that hadn’t changed much in centuries (due more to poverty than to any love of tradition, but that ruins the illusion right?). Soon after we skipped through the tannery and then ran along an equally foul smelling canal full of trash. He took us to an abandoned madersa and a kuranic school, the equivalent of a pre-K. We took pictures with the little kids and the teacher was really gracious, surely aided by the money our guide paid her as we left. I was uncomfortable with the ethics of paying pre-K teachers to allow foreigners to take pictures with cute Moroccan children, but at least that was more pleasant than being paraded through stores and forced to buy. Our next stop he promised would be an authentic Moroccan home, occupied by a woman’s cooperative and oh yeah they sell rugs. But these aren’t any rugs, first of all Morocco is famous for its rugs—just as it’s famous for its scarves and leather—and this is part of a progressive government initiative to certify the quality of rugs and sell them at fixed but fair prices in order to generate income for its citizens and give foreigners a hassle-free, trustworthy place to purchase Moroccan treasures. How ideal. The “home” was just a rug store, and even though the rugs were beautiful we doubted that we could have sold them for three times the price in the US as they claimed. They even had a partnership with DHL so they could guarantee that our rugs would arrive undamaged in the US, in perfect condition to be resold if need be. We insisted that we weren’t interested and our guide got screamed at as we left and that promptly ended our tour. That fool didn’t even take us out, instead pointing out the exit and bouncing. It was my first time hiring a guide. It will also be the last. To add insult to injury our “friend” from the train also stood us up leaving us sitting in front of the McDonald’s as the sun set. On the bright side, the McDonald’s is an implausibly, extraordinarily beautiful restaurant. It has amazing views, which I admired as Tracey ate. As beautiful as it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to eat there, even if I did poach some of Tracey’s fries. Instead, I bought the Ramadan special at a local restaurant (the only other place open), which consisted of most arbitrary selection of food I have ever had in one meal. There was raiouf, harira soup, a hard-boiled egg, a fried pastry, dried dates, and yogurt. It was in a word, delicious.

Me Against Lonely Planet

Monday morning we got up early and took the bus to the port in Algeciras. Once you are at the port, you start feeling like you are in Morocco. How? You get harassed by touts. The one who kept pestering us was a so-stereotypical-it-hurt, middle-aged Moroccan man trying to convince us to take his boat. Just maddeningly stereotypical: short, mustache, never looked me in the eye, seemed hurried, and had an offer too good to be true. Finally we paid lots of euros to be on the fast boat, which supposedly made it to Tangiers in 90 minutes or less. It took the same amount of time as the regular boat. On top of that the only thing that was fast on that boat were the announcements which although they were repeated in English, French and Spanish I never understood. The problem: those are the announcements that warn you to get your passport stamped, as we were rudely reminded by the dude checking passports on the ramp off the boat. We had to get back on the boat and wait a good 25 minutes for the customs officer to return to the boat and stamp our passports. At one point they pulled up the ramp and closed the door and we thought we were going to be forced to return to Spain for not having some stupid stamp. Eventually we got the fucking stamp and then they hurried us through where the cars drive off the boat. Off the boat, we had to say goodbye to the world of fixed prices and enter waxale mode. Before we even walked out of the port we were accosted by all of these cab drivers who wanted 5€ for a cab ride that was definitely no more than a euro. Eventually I bargained an inflated, but more respectable price, but the cab driver was an asshole and when we got to the street told us to get off. I asked politely to find number 8 and he said mockingly that it was not his job to count. We could count. Asshole. Of course, later we found out that again we could have just walked. (I hated having to pay an ignorance tax everywhere we went, but it’s inevitable.) But maybe the asshole driver was right, cause it was difficult to find the number. In the end I asked a dude on the street who said he had no idea where the street was, but then when I told him that we were going to the Youth Hostel and he was nice enough to take us there even though he took the long way. Once there we learned that the Youth Hostel was closed and decided to stay at the hotel next door where for little more than what each one of us was paying for a hostel bed in Spain we got a double with cable TV, a nice, clean bathroom, shampoo, soap, and even towels! Everything was (predictably) so much cheaper in Morocco. I no longer had to ask myself if I was really paying over $40 a day to sleep on a hard bunk bed, live out of my bag, worry about my shampoo exploding and eat kebabs twice a day. Less than $20 a day when at least you have your own bed feels a lot better, although I wish I could have paid more euros when I entered some of the filthy bathrooms and saw that there was no toilet paper (luckily I carry my own). By the time we got outside the streets were emptying for the evening breakfast during Ramadan. It was eerie to walk around the center of a large city at 6 pm and see it deserted. Everything was closed and even those few people in the street had paused to eat. The young women at the internet spot we went to hooked us up with something to eat. It was then that I started my long love affair with raiouf. I had mixed experiences in dealing with Moroccan men, but the women I have no complaints about.

That night after dinner while strolling down the main tourist drag I got offered hasheesh by a quadrilingual dealer. He tried to tell me how in Morocco you can’t drink alcohol so everyone smokes. It’s basically legal he claimed. We can try it right now, he offered. When I told him no in French, he hit us off in English, and then came at me in Spanish. If he had busted out some Portuguese, or better yet Wolof I would have bought his whole damn stash.

Basically Tangiers lived up and didn’t live up to its reputation. Lonely Planet and all of these other travel guides are part of this entire media discourse that creates the “conventional wisdom” on a place. These are always clichéd, often outdated, too broad and usually condescending. Conventional wisdom is that Tangiers is a dangerous, sketchy place best avoided and although it was partly true, the cab driver and dealer being true to form, it’s always unfair to paint a place with a brush stroke. Particularly, since often these conventional wisdoms merely reflect colonial myths and contemporary prejudices. For example, I find that these guides often completely ignore the working-class (in most of the world, the biggest area) of town and perpetuate the stereotypes that further stigmatize these neighborhoods. I remember the guide to Brazil being egregious in this respect. Even though I rely heavily on these guides for practical travel information, I always try to be skeptical and wonder how much of city x they are excluding because it isn’t deemed “worthy.”

Hola! Hasta Luego! (An Appeal to Bush)

Spain is a funny country. Every interaction I had there started with “hola!” and ended with “hasta luego!” And they would just say it so cheerfully. Even I got into the game, being overjoyed to say “hasta luego!” It reminded me of the way Brazilians put both thumbs up to say thanks or yes or I’m fine. I really liked Spain, the food, the diversity, the street life, the history, the nightlife, the general vibe. I would have stayed longer but them damn euros hurt. Bush you’re killing me. When are you going to prop up the dollar homey? When its 2 dollars to a euro and Europeans done bought up the whole country?

Dominican or Brazilian?

That’s what a group of women yelled to me on our last walk around Sevilla. They were a group of Dominican women working as contracted maids in Spain. The Dominican and Spainish government have had this deal going for years where both governments in the spirit of international cooperation facilitate the exploitation of female Dominican labor by middle-class Spainish families. As immigration schemes go, this one is not that bad. As they explained after two years of near slavery they get that much-coveted visa and are “free” to work elsewhere for shit wages. Talking to them, even if ever so briefly was a nice trip back down to Earth. After being a white man in Senegal for four months and spending a week in Spain, doing the hostel circuit hanging with other privileged young people from North America, Australia and Western Europe I had forgotten that I am Dominican and we have it rough in this world.

The irony of all of this is that not until too long ago, Spain was a net exporter of people. And now they are all pissed about immigration with right-wing idiots holding protests claiming that Spain is Catholic, not Muslim (never mind that the Muslims in Spain achieved heights of civilization never matched by the Catholics, and that they built most of the impressive shit which drives Spain’s tourism industry). In 1933, political upheaval brought a new government to Cuba which rescinded the imperialist Platt Amendment and also passed a new law restricting how many foreign workers could be employed by Cuban companies. The law targeted the numerous Spainish who had immigrated to Cuba, and now just a lifetime later Cubans pray, beg and hustle to make it to Spain. Spain is actually one of the few countries that has become a First World, certified-developed country under neoliberal hegemony (mostly through tons of EU development aid, none of that free trade and foreign development non-sense they preach to non-white countries, and it’s still not as rich as the EU15 average). It’s prize? It now has its own seat in the global exploitation game.

American Pie

Our hostel in Sevilla was filled with a bunch of American (mostly UC) study abroad students from Granada who were in Sevilla for the weekend. They were annoying. None of them spoke half-decent Spanish and I can tell that they had only been chilling with other Americans since arriving in Spain. Still we went out for beers and then to a sheesha bar and had a good time. Better than being kept up by rude Portuguese chicks.

Saturday night I felt like doing something touristy and we went out looking for a cheap tablao or flamenco show. Those windy streets got the better of us again and we got lost. Instead we went out to some bars and had some cheap beers, for 2 or 3€. It was great. In NYC they are going to make you pay at least $6 for a cup of beer at even the shittiest bar on a Friday night. Then we ran into a group of six really attractive high school exchange students from all over the world, who were all made up with no where to go sitting on a bench in a plaza. It was like something straight from a dumb teen movie. They were talking to some sketchy-looking older Spainish dudes and Tracey insisted that I rescue them. When I went up there though they seemed like they had to be more rescued from boredom than harassment.

DC, Don’t Count

Europe is so small, it’s unfair. If you are European you can get to another country in a couple of hours. In fact if you live in some countries, and want to go anywhere you have no choice but to leave the country. I live in NYC. That means I am 2 hours from Philly, 4 to 5 hours from DC and Boston, and at least ten hours from the closest cool foreign city, Toronto. In Cambridge, we were six hours from Montreal. Meanwhile the annoying Portuguese girls who were doing their hair at 2 AM at our hostel in Sevilla keeping poor Tracey up only had to come 3 and a half hours from Lisbon. It ain’t right. Furthermore, even if I could find cheap transport to Toronto and Montreal, there are no cheap hostels to stay in. And traveling around the US? Forget about it. You can drive forever and get nowhere, and although it hurt to pay 20€ for a dorm bed, the Youth Hostel in NYC is way more than $30. Americans simply don’t have the small distances, cheap airlines and budget accommodations to make travel easy and affordable. Which is a damn shame since as the world’s hegemon Americans more than anyone else need to get out there and travel. It might help us get rid of some of our gringo ignorance. I am jealous of the Europeans who can go spend a weekend in Paris or Barcelona, when the most I can do is DC.

The Rat Tail

White folks with dreadlocks are one of my pet-peeves. Hence Spain drove me crazy, especially since they take the lock to the next level with the rattail. The rattail is what you do when you have already been through the lock stage, so you cut all of your hair short except for a long lock or two at the back of your head. It is hideous. I found the other similar Spainish hairstyles funny, like the broom, where you cut your hair short and then have a short bob puffing out from the back of your head, or the euro-mullet, part-Mohawk, part-mullet, all gel. Or the thick straight-cut bangs. The funniest shit is that regular non-bohemian folks, like the lady at the airport counter wore these ridiculous hair-styles. Again I was loving it except for the damn rat tail. I also really loved the street art and graffiti everywhere and the highly-visible radical political slogans.

Those Windy Streets

Our next stop was my favorite city in Spain, Granada. We got off to an inauspicious start, as we were staying at a hostel in Albaycin the old Muslim Medina and after taking the bus to the center still couldn’t find it. We ended up taking a taxi only to find it that it’s faster to walk and that we had originally been only a few minutes away. One of the most annoying aspects of moving so quickly is that by the time we learned our way around a city we were already on our way to the next city.

We had bought tickets to Alhambra for that day (there I learned my lesson and booked ahead, some folks we met had forgotten to buy their tickets online and had to do some crazy long line to get tickets, if they were even able to buy them.) and I had to run cause my slot at the Palacio Nazaries was from 4 to 4:30 pm. On the way up the hill I asked three people for directions and they all pointed me in different directions. Consequently, I decided not to risk it and we took a taxi even though once again when we arrived we found out that we were only a couple of minutes away. Those damn windy streets. Again I barely made it, and again it rained. The palace was beautiful, but we got soaked.

The hostel in Granada had even more personality. When we arrived soaked, an Italian dude who I realized later was in charge at the reception desk, invited us to the kitchen where he and some other Italian dudes and assorted other foreigners were smoking big cone-shaped Euro-style spliffs. Then we took “soccer” pictures, the kind where the team huddles and the camera takes pictures of a circle of faces. This is also the same place where they had me sleep on a mattress set up on the loft. I had to climb a ladder to get to my bed and once in bed couldn’t stand-up, sit-up or even bend my knees. I paid money for this. Actually I liked sleeping up there, it was warmer and quieter, and I had a full-sized mattress.

The place was full of characters. Another employee was Esther or Pipi, a young Austrian flower child who biked from Austria to Portugal to meet a woman who claimed to be the inspiration for Pipi Longstockings. She said that she had always admired Pipi’s self-confidence and once she found out that Pipi existed she had to meet her. I honestly don’t remember anything about the book and think this lady was an impostor, still it makes for a great story. The next day it rained some more, ruining our plans to explore the city. That night, though, we went clubbing with Pipi. We decided to go to Afrodisiac, which advertised itself as a funk club. We showed up at midnight and that the spot was empty. So empty there wasn’t even someone at the door. We grabbed some beers (with complementary tapas) at a Moroccan bar and then went back to the club which by then was full of casually dressed white folks dancing funny, drinking cheep local brews and smoking way too much. Those fools were rolling hash spliffs freely on the streets. Marijuana is clearly decriminalized in Spain, how enlightened of them. The DJ was decent and every funk song was familiar as some hip hop hit from the last decade. I had to wonder if he only knows of funk through hip hop, or if there are just no good funk songs left unsampled.

God Bless You Doner Kebab

And what did we eat while we were in this beautiful, ancient medieval city in Castile? Doner Kebab. Yup. First of all, it’s great food (thanks Alex for the recommendation) and it’s the cheapest thing available. I felt bad cause in the US I can’t afford Spainish food, and even in Spain I still couldn’t afford no Spainish food. It’s all good though, cause the Kebab folks held me down. They even sell beer.

Beautiful Old Buildings

The next day we went to Toledo, an old medieval town with some really beautiful old buildings. I wondered what it must be like to live among so much history, as there is nothing comparable in the USA. I started to see what people mean by “Old-World charm.” I really enjoyed walking through the old buildings, seeing all of the churches, plazas, and small, windy, medieval streets. It was quaint (not even sarcastically, it was). In front of the cathedral, I chatted up a random French couple. They told me that liked Spain because French people don’t curb their dogs. See the things you learn when you travel.

Development

I hate saying it, but it was just nice to be in a “developed” country. First of all, I regained my anonymity. I was no longer getting constantly approached by vendors and beggars (there were many fewer of those). I was just another face on the metro. And the metro, lord do I miss clean, efficient, reliable, modern, affordable public transportation. There was no need to negotiate the price of my metro ticket, no waxale (Wolof for bargaining), just buy it, wait a few minutes and get on the train. Tracey was saying that the metro system in Madrid was not as fast and clean as others in Europe, but it was the best subway system I have ever used in my life. She needs to come to NYC where every day you see rats the size of small children, can cut through the layers of grime on station walls and dig like an archeologist for clues of a previous civilization and where every New Yorker is a champion at the “hear the rumbling, leap to the edge and tilt your head to the point of losing balance to avoid all of the other heads doing the same thing, just to see if the train is coming game.” At least in Madrid (like in DC) they are nice enough to tell you the train is coming. Beyond the metro, there were some of the other advantages of overdevelopment like cultural diversity, and cleanliness. Then, of course, it was nice to be in a country where I could speak the language and where people knew where I was from, so that rather than getting the dumb stares I usually get when I say La Republique Dominicaine, I got affirming looks when saying La Republica Dominicana. Even if all they did know was the beaches, still it was nice.

Sharp

Unfortunately I wrote down the wrong contact information and I never saw my Dominican friends again, but they had told me about the Dominican neighborhood and I decided to check it out without them. They had both said that they avoid that area cause they knew everybody and all the Dominican girls would be gossiping and hating on them. The Dominican neighborhood in Madrid was interesting cause it was more Boston than NYC, i.e. a couple of thousand Dominican scattered in random neighborhood rather than agglomeration of Dominicanness that is Washington Heights, at least until the yuppies finish their Reconquista of Manhattan. But it did allow them to be as tacky European as they wanted to be, I have never seen more Armani Exchange t-shirts, tight jeans and pointy shoes in my life. Moreover I kept being thrown off by the number of white folks in the area, and had to keep reminding myself that I was in Madrid not Santo Domingo or NYC. Still there were Dominicans there. I asked the first black kid I saw for the barber shop. Regrettably I got a fucked up cut in Dakar from a Guinean dude who messed up the areas around my ears (I am still recovering, I should be fine) and should have waited until Madrid to get a sharp, NYC-style line-up, the kind so sharp you can use your sideburns to trace straight lines on paper. Instead, my new buddy Tracey got to feel what it’s like to be Dominican sharp. Afterward I asked them for a good restaurant and I bought some arroz blanco con gandules and pollo guisado. Again the price was ridiculous, but it was enough that we were able to eat for dinner the next day.