My Pathetic Journey To Morocco

By nature human beings are adventurous and being a member of this specific genre of species I am no exception. I am a traveler by nature who loves to venture into the realms of the previously unseen and relatively unknown. I always desire to explore new lands and it is this desire of mine that has led me to dwell into the domain of Africa. Few months back I did travel to Africa and the experience which I gathered in the course of my journey is simply unforgettable.

My destination was Morocco and I opted to visit this country due to its legacy of being a land of mystery and a land of enchantment. Starting from the exuberant belly dancers to the mysterious snake charmers, the land has always remained a mystery for me and my pivotal objective behind the concerned tour was to appease my desire to know more about the country in an explicit manner. Humans naturally like to be exploratory and I am not an exemption from this category. I am an explore who likes I boarded a ship that carried me across the Mediterranean Sea to the shores of Morocco, and this sea voyage was indeed a memorable one for me. It was my first sea voyage and I was thoroughly excited to travel from one continent to another. I was now going to enter a continent which had always been considered dark partially due to the ignorance that enshrouded the social realms of the people of the continent and partially due to the evil intentions of the Westerners that compelled the inhabitants of Africa to sacrifice their mirth and prosperity.

But during my tour I was not at all interested in pondering over the political relations between Africa and other continents as my goal was to enjoy my days in Morocco, the country of charm and exuberance. I must admit that reaching Morocco I was enthralled by the Arabic culture. Arabic being the primary language of the country, I felt to be amidst of the domain of the Arabian Nights and all its magical presence. But I must also admit that the conservative nature of the country put me into little trouble from the perspective of the attire that I had to wear to satisfy the social norms and conventions of the country. I had a charming picture of Morocco in mind but when in reality I entered the country my emotion was just like the transition that occurred in Wordsworth while thinking of the unvisited Yarrow and the Yarrow visited. The cracked pavements of the roads, the untidy conditions of the alleys and the unhealthy civic conditions were few that added to the dilemma that I did face initially after reaching the country. But there were myriads of other things to be discovered and the means of such discovery for me was the tour bus which was arranged to tour through the country.

To my great relief I was attended by a tour guide and I did have a lot of expectation from him because I was thinking of acquiring more historical knowledge about the country from the guide. Agonizingly enough I was quite displeased by the guide. Firstly, his accent was Spanish and that made me realize that he was not a native and hence, I doubted about his thorough knowledge of the country. Secondly, rather than encouraging and nourishing my interest about Morocco and the Moroccans the guide thoroughly dissuaded me from talking to any Moroccan on the street because for him every such stranger was a thief who would like to steal only from me rather than welcoming me to the country. This was pathetic and I was getting irritated. But my irritation was gradually withering away while thinking how over the centuries colonial powers and their educated subjects did exploit the African nations and turn them into third world countries. I started equating the guide with one of such subjects and this equation rendered me a moral relief. As pre-destined, the bus drove into one of the major cities of Morocco, Tétouan and it is in this city that I did have the most horrific realizations of my life. The devastating living condition of the inhabitants, the overpopulation of the place and the agonizing and melancholic faces of the people that gazed on the foreign travelers in the bus, altogether made me understand how we the Westerners are responsible for the deteriorated conditions of the majority of people in Africa. I was astonished to see my fellow tourists with a glee taking pictures of the horrific conditions of the inhabitants. It seemed to me that my fellow westerners with their impish grin were enjoying the fact that they lead a superior life than the wretched Moroccans who are still struggling to earn their daily bread and feed their families.

My tour plan was for four days but I had to cut short the plan and I was compelled by the conscience to leave the country and get back to my hometown. The tour which I imagined would be a magical one actually turned to be a pathetic one. Instead of charm and magic I did find in Morocco the agonies and hopelessness of the inhabitants and I did realize that all the magic and charm of Africa was stolen at the very moment when the European powers entered the continent and took away its resources to bring about magical changes in the economy of Europe and the West.