Along the N2 running from Tanger
to Tetouan Olivia and I take a break by the road where the traffic slows for a
traffic circle. Several people stand or sit waiting for a bus or a taxi or a
ride and we sit among them on our packs drinking from our water bottles. I pull
our supply of khobz out of our food
bag and hand one to Olivia for her to eat with the triangular processed cheese
we bought at the last hanut.
“We’ve got way too much khobz,” I say. “This stuff will get
stale if we don’t eat it today. Why don’t we give some of it away?”
“Okay,” she says, and she takes
two of the flat, circular pieces of bread from the plastic bag and walks over
to a man who is lying on the ground, reclining on his elbow. She holds out the
bread to him and he takes it unquestioningly, nodding and speaking a few words
to her. Olivia returns and we watch as the man tears a piece of bread from the
circle and eats it, still lying on his side on the dirty ground by the highway.
We eat our khobz with processed cheese and it is not very good but we are
hungry and don’t care that it’s not good. As we eat we observe the Moroccan
transport system at work. Private drivers stop their cars to take on or
discharge passengers, either for hire or just for the sake of giving someone a ride, but the man lying on
the ground eating khobz seems to be
waiting for a particular ride, or maybe he lives nearby and he’s just relaxing
on the ground by the highway.
“He just put the bread on the
ground,” Olivia says.
The khobz now rests on the ground which wouldn’t be so unusual if the
ground weren’t so trodden on and
blackened by the road traffic. The man hasn’t discarded the bread though, and
he occasionally picks up one of the disks to tear off another piece.
We chew silently and watch as an
overloaded car stops and passengers unfold as they clamber out either silently or laughing and talking. A man
who has been waiting for a ride speaks a word or two to the driver before
squeezing in with the others who are still inside.
The man lying on the ground is
also observing and chewing silently. When a tall, thin man in ragged dirty
clothing approaches, the man lying on the ground springs up with the khobz and hands it to him. The tall man
nods and speaks a few words and the man who was lying on the ground returns to
his spot to lie on it again, again reclining on his elbow and watching the
highway activity. The tall man stands
silently eating his khobz as others
around him chat. We finish our meal and drink again from our bottles and pack
up and move on and everything feels right.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple of weeks and
over 300 walking kilometres later we have
taken a break at a petrol station—‘Oil Libya’—not far from Fes, and like so
many petrol stations in Morocco it is complete with a mosque and wash basins
for those entering the mosque to wash their hands and feet, and hole-in-the-ground
toilets with a cleaning woman standing just outside the stall door ready to
clean up after you. A large popular restaurant is also a part of the complex,
but we sit on a curb near the restaurant to eat our khobz and processed cheese. As we eat we watch the patrons eating
at the tables outside as they enjoy their meals, and I can smell grilled meat
but I try to ignore the smell. I notice
one man watching us from a table and he has a look on his face that could be a
look of unfriendliness, but he brings us khobz
and ground meat kefta wrapped in
napkins from his table.
“Chokran!” I say and he nods and
smiles and returns to his table where everyone there is nodding and smiling and
waving to us. I nod and smile and wave back and for a moment I feel like
bursting out in tears but that passes quickly.
“Are you sure you don’t want to
give up being a vegetarian to eat this?” I ask Olivia. “It’s still hot.”
“I’m sure, Dad,” she says, but
the khobz is warm and soft and much better
than what we’ve got and Olivia is happy enough with that.
I breathe deeply and close my
eyes with the taste of the succulent, savory kefta.
“Man, oh, man, that’s good,” I
say. Then I say, “Sorry,” and I shrug, but Olivia seems happy that I’m happy.
Before long a man exits the
restaurant and beckons for us to come in. We hastily gather our things and
follow him inside. He has us sit at a table and gestures that we should eat there
instead of out on the curb. When he orders the waiters about it is clear he is
the manager.
“Said,” he says, pointing to
himself.
We introduce ourselves and thank
him and Said asks if we want coffee, and of course we do. He barks out some
orders to a waiter and we soon have more khobz
and kefta spread before us as
well as olives and spices and our milky coffees. Olivia feasts on the olives
and I feast on the grilled meat sausages and we both grin over our coffees.
Said wants to help us further though,
and with a little English and gesturing he manages to make it known that he would
like for us to stay with his family once we get to Fes. He writes down his
phone number and after we’ve eaten as much as we can we thank him again and we
take what’s left—two meals’ worth of food— and we pack it all up and get down
the road.
We are soon walking on a path
between the highway and an olive grove, and the workers in the grove are
quitting for the day as the sun has just set. When a little motorbike sputters
up the path behind us we turn to see a man driving it and a woman snuggled up
behind him and I wave to them to stop. I give them all of the khobz and keftas that are left as I am bloated and the food won’t keep and
tonight we should be at Max’s apartment in Fes. The man accepts the food
without question—with only a big smile and a nod—and he hands the food to the
woman on the back and she puts it in a basket and they sputter along down the
path, and Olivia and I smile and we march onward into Fes.
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