September 19th, 2014
It is night. And I am on a train heading north. I cannot see the world outside but I sit with these strangers, my friends, fellow travellers.
“Sit with your friends, don’t go back to sleep.
Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.
Surge like an ocean,
Don’t scatter yourself like a storm.
Life’s waters flow from darkness.
Search the darkness, don’t run from it.
Night travellers are full of light,
And you are too; don’t leave this companionship.
Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
Don’t slip into the dirk like quicksilver.
The moon appears for night travellers,
Be watchful when the moon is full.”
~Rumi
From a recently purchased Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets.
I never thought I was much of an appreciator of metaphysical poets (apart from Donne), but with Rumi, I was immediately smitten. Granted, he’s not your average metaphysical poet. In fact, he pre-dates all the other ‘traditional’ metaphysical poets by a good 350 years.
But enough of that.
I’ve recovered my Alphasmart, that most wonderous and fruitful of writing tools.
I arrived in Morocco on the 13th of September.
My luggage did not.
I after a week of nothing, I’d given up any hope of ever getting back my Alphasmart, my leather jacket, my leathermen, my chess set… but they are all returned to me. Calloo Callay!
After spending the better part of an hour on hold today, I finally learnt that my bag had appeared in Rabat, after having a cheeky holiday in Casablanca, I expect. I was just discussing getting it sent to Fes when the phone dropped the call. I decided I didn’t want to bother getting on the phone again to spend ages being tranfered from one place to another until I got back in touch with those I needed, didn’t want to risk another flight to Casablana then to Fes. I knew for certain it was in the capitol. That was enough information for me.
Within the hour I was on a train to Rabat, sharing a compartment with five men, all wearing clashing perfumes.
The women at the airport recognised me
The moment I walked in. “Your bags?” she asked. I replied, yes, finally, my bags where there and we had a mini celebration/ happy reunion.
After reclaiming my things I sat at the Gare de Rabat Ville, writing ecstatically on my Alphasmart and munching a sandwich.
To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t written much of anything but notes since arriving in Morocco. And those wee jots were just interesting bits of information learnt on a walking tour. Quite a rewarding walking tour, because Hakim (BA in English literature and MA in history) near the end of the tour pointed me towards some Moroccon authors to explore. Fantastic. He said we’d pass by a bookshop that would have the titles he recommended (by Fatima Mernissi), and when we arrived the bookstall owner remembered me because naturally, having been in the city for a full 3 days, I’d already been in and bought something. So I made a few more additions to the library. At the time, it was a great consolation for having lost all my posessions. I had, that first day in Fes, bought a replacement chess set (mahogany and lemon wood), then the next day some pyjamas, the day after that, more underwear, socks and more clothes.)
Now my Alphasmart is returned to me (undamaged! Unlike some of the other items in the bag) I feel I can write more. I bought a notebook but as I haven’t had much time to myself, it remains mostly empty. That’s the trouble when travelling with someone, I suppose. My mother, who is with me for the first 12 days of this trip, has far more energy than I do, and a greater zest for going out and doing things. I wouldn’t have done half as much had I been on my own. I certainly would have got more writing and reading done, however. I think I am expected to put everything on hold while travelling, as she is doing. One can read and write later. But travelling is my life, and I cannot put other daily things aside just because I’m in another country. I’d never get anything done.
I continue this on the 21st in Merzouga, a town on the edge of the Sahara in the middle Atlas Mountains. I am alone now, as I chose to stay behind this morning/afternoon on account of my head injury, which still makes me dizzy. Didn’t feel like a car ride. I banged my head so emphatically last night that tears ran from my eyes as I rolled around, holding my skull. (Tears running from my eyes makes it seem like they are fleeing something, doesn’t it?)
“Kathryn, stop laughing; you’re hysterical!”
I really had been laughing hysterically; I do that when I’m in pain, but I also thought the situation tremendously funny. I had a fever as well, which always makes me a bit loopy, and had taken paracetamol to bring it down. I did my best to obey and be still, but a moment later started laughing again. I tried to explain what was so hilarious, but I couldn’t stop laughing long enough. The only word I could get out (Paracetamol) she didn’t understand, which I also found hilarious.
Eventually, when I had calmed down and the immediate pain had receded, I explained that after the big bang, I had thought to myself how fortuitous it was I had already taken a pain reliever.
“We call it aspirin,” she said.
This afternoon we are to go on a camel ride. (One of those things I’d never do, left to my own devices but she was keen on.) I am deeply sceptical. On the drive here we had to stop for a camel crossing, and one rowdy beast was bucking his way around the front of the car.
I didn’t know that camels could buck. It’s not that I mistrust camels, it’s only that I’ve never ridden one, have no idea how thing think or operate.
(I write this outside, and when flies land on my face I instinctively shake my head to shoo them away. I regret it immediately every time. I feel my brain has come loose and is sloshing around in my skull and is getting sea-sick for it. Poor brain. Concussed twice in half a year. Couldn’t manage any reading last night. I type most of this with my eyes shut, to spare them. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on my spelling.)
I recently finished a book by David Waines called The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta, a medieval Moroccan world traveller, contemporary of Marco Polo, and considered to be the greatest Muslim explorer of the known world.
Waines compares Battuta with the tenth-century geographer, al-Muqaddasi. “[T]he geographer was a a cataloguer of facts while the traveller was a collecter of people.”
A pretty distinction, and food for thought. I wonder what I collect, other than injuries, and where that puts me on the geographer/traveller spectrum. (For it is a spectrum, whatever Waines might think.)
P.S. The muezzin here has a nicer, clearer, more musical flare than any in Fes. There seems to be only one at a time, for I can see two minarets in this town from where I sit on the terrace of the riad. They must take turns. I really should stop now, the wind is blowing and sand is getting in the keyboard.