Robbed in Casablanca

I met these two guys in the park...

Though I should say that I have been meeting alot of very sincerly friendly Moroccans lately. Yesterday I spoke with a couple University students for about an hour and a half and if I go to back to Tetuoan I will go visit one of them. On the bus I met a friendly couple of teachers who teach in a rural school who gave me their addresses to go visit them. Last night I met a couple nice guys in Casablanca who also invited me to their home.

The day before I was invited twice to people's homes in Chefchaoen.

So last night after politely declining the invitation to the guys place, I started to ask myself if maybe I am being a bit too closed. Perhaps I should open myself up a bit more and experience more people and share more experiences. What do you think? Maybe our culture is too suspicious? Maybe it is just me?

With that in mind, I met a couple guys in the park I decided to really engage more. I talked for awhile with one guy and accompanied him to a cafe down some back streets. We talked about religion, philosophy and travel. He kept calling me his brother. His philosophy seemed very down to earth and more like Buddist than what I imagine Islam is about.

When I went up to use the bathroom I felt strange about taking my backpack with me. My backpack has my passport and camera inside. I figured that if he said something I would explain that I had toilet paper in the backpack and that I might need it (they don't use tp here).

Anyway, I finished my tea and he finished his cigarette and went to pay. He came back saying that there was a problem and wanted to know if I had change for 200 dirham. I didn't - I only had 120 dirhams. He insisted that I give it to him and he would sort things out.

As we left the cafe, I still had no sight of my 120 dirhams. When I asked him about it in the street he said not to worry. When pushed a little more he said he had already spent it on hash and alcohol.

So what do you do? You are in an empty street with this guy?

Shake him down?

Brow beat him?

Call the police?

How about philosophy. I said that if he was that desperate to compromise all of his personal principles - which we had discussed for the last hour - for 120 dirhams he could take it.

So we parted ways, me with empty wallet. Him with bad karma (maybe).

Then, as I am walking down the street, his friend from the park approaches me and starts trying to sell me hash! I explain to him that his friend had just stolen all my cash, but I don't think this guy's french is very good because he then starts offering to find me some Moroccan women or even some genuine Moroccan entertainment.

I keep walking. He keeps pestering.

What do I want?

Women? Hash? What do I want?

So I say I want the Gendarme, the Surete, the Police.

He says fine! We will go find them. As we approach a building that is guarded by an Army guy - I think he is Army as he is dressed in brown while the police are in blue. we go over there and start talking to him. I explain in french, but the Army guy doesn't know french. I wasn't even sure why I was talking to this guy actually, I was still a bit in shock about the whole 120 dirham thing but I think that this guy had the gall to continue hassling me pissed me off.

So the Army guy doesn't know french, but my hash pimp is translating something to him in Arabic. The Army guy motions for us to follow him back to the entrance of the building he is guarding. As I am following him, the Army guy turns around and starts running towards me!

My hash dealer had fled behind me! He was taking off around the building running as fast as he could with only an occasional glance backwards: Running so that his feet and legs were ahead of his body. Picture that!

The Army guy then calls out four other Army guys and by now two police guys guarding the other building across the street join the chase to the park.

Ok. wait. 120 dirhams is only 12 euros. And the guy they are chasing is just a pimp/hash dealer and only a friend of the guy that took my money. And now there is an armed - really! -squad of seven guys loose in the park! I don't know what they are thinking because the only thing I know the Army guy knows for sure is that the guy fled.

So I made sure that I explained the whole situation to the police guys who did speak french and they said I was lucky that I did not have my papers stolen. They were very sincere and apologized for the whole thing. They gave me directions to the Mosque and the beach. The Army guys eventually returned to their posts.

So on the way to the Mosque...

Guess what?

I met another guy.

We start talking.

He invites me to tea at his mother's house.

What do you do? Get back on the horse? Run away like a hash dealer chased by the Moroccan army?

So I went to tea. Everything turned out ok, but this even this guy was also a bit shady. He insisted that after our visit, I not speak to any more Moroccans and that he was a Saudi by birth and that there are lots of problems with tourists here. He also did not want to go all the way to the Mosque with me because of the Tourist Police. To me he was a bit too insistent and paranoid. Almost confessional actually. Like the idea that the people most fearful of being robbed are theives.

In the end, I am happy that this because it affirms that I should trust my instincts to be cautious if I want to. What I mean is that I had been cautious, but decided to override that instict with a desire for more engagement. I think I can still get more engagement and continue to be cautious. It's not a dichotomy, though I guess in my clumsy-learning-experential way, I made it one.