Morocco! Where it all began
The Worldchump blog has now been in existence since 2007. In that span of time, I've faithfully covered a lot of countries, hot spots, and cultural idiosyncrasies that people won't encounter on their standard package tour or their four star hotel. Worldchump first existed not so much to have an audience, but to preserve my own memories in other ways than social media. I've achieved that, for the most part, and hope to continue to do so for a while.
There is only one regret I have: why I didn't start it sooner. From 2000-2002, for example, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. Two years, right there, among the best of my life. What a daily (or even weekly) journal that would have made!
Morocco has played another significant role in my life, however. I routinely say that my life can be divided into two parts. The first part was my life in Europe and the United States. Not a bad time at all. I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, watched MTV in the 80's, and had a happy upbringing, all things considered. I went through the Techno phase as a student in Germany and through Grunge in the States.
Even so, I always maintain my life really began in 2000, when I joined the Peace Corps and met Liebi, now my wife, best friend, and co-worldchump. From 2000 on, I've lived a life I could have never dreamed of when I grew up in a small town long ago. Since 2000, I've traveled all over the world, never staying in one place for more than three years. I've lived in Northern Africa, The Middle East, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the United States (including New York City for two years, and Washington, DC for another), and now Europe. But if somebody asks me now where it all began, I tell them in Morocco, back in 2000.
And 16 years after leaving Morocco it was my destiny to return, this time with the entire family, plus Noah, my nephew, who at the time of my Peace Corps service was a little baby. 16 years doesn't sound like a long time, but for Liebi and myself, it sometimes seems like 16 decades, since we packed so much into those years. And that doesn't even begin to describe how Morocco itself has changed.
After the Frankfurt airport disaster, we spent three and a half hours in the air on our way to Marrakesh. Marrakesh itself would first be a pitstop, as we were all aching to get to Rabat, which, ironically, was our first stop as Peace Corps Volunteers back in the day. We took a train from Marrakesh and laughed at the arm rests coming off with a simple pop with the palm of the hand. While everybody else was lost in their books, I simply stared out at the landscape that, so it first seemed, had changed so little.
Here was a small old village with the obligatory minaret sticking out in the center in the same way you would expect it from a village church somewhere in Alpine Bavaria. Earthen colored houses that utterly lacked symmetry were clustered together as if they were huddled together on an island, around them mostly dry wasteland that won't grow anything in 110 degree heat and might not grow anything even in temperatures lower than that. Over there in the fields are donkeys minding their own business. And, of course, there's a sun that's beating down in August, the hottest month of the year. Morocco, the Third World. Nothing's changed.
I perk up when we reach the outskirts of Dar Beida, or Casablanca. This was where I first landed back in 2000, whereupon the Peace Corps Volunteers were then herded onto a bus and driven to the capital of Rabat, where our training would begin. That said, Casa really isn't much to look at. Hundreds of thousands of houses with the lollipop satellite dishes. But then I see something else from the corner of my eye. Was that actually a tram? Could it be that somebody decided to provide relief to the chaos that was once Casablanca? Joy!
In Rabat, we miss our stop (don't even ask) and finally disembark in Sale, which is just across the river and up the coast from Rabat. We ask a taxi driver to give us a lift to Rabat. He shakes his head and points at the tramway across the street. Right there, brother, he says. So the tramway isn't a mirage! Not in Casablanca, and not in the capital city of Rabat! The tram for all of us costs a little more than a euro, and it actually takes us all the way to Agdal. I don't believe it. Rabat. Has. A. Tram!
We finally arrive at our place in the neighborhood of Suisse and settle down for the day. I stare at the skinny palms looming above me and swaying in the breeze. This isn't the Peace Corps anymore. No living with the other volunteers like a gang of misfit teens. No anxieties, just rest and relaxation. What a trip this going to be.
There is only one regret I have: why I didn't start it sooner. From 2000-2002, for example, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. Two years, right there, among the best of my life. What a daily (or even weekly) journal that would have made!
Morocco has played another significant role in my life, however. I routinely say that my life can be divided into two parts. The first part was my life in Europe and the United States. Not a bad time at all. I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, watched MTV in the 80's, and had a happy upbringing, all things considered. I went through the Techno phase as a student in Germany and through Grunge in the States.
Even so, I always maintain my life really began in 2000, when I joined the Peace Corps and met Liebi, now my wife, best friend, and co-worldchump. From 2000 on, I've lived a life I could have never dreamed of when I grew up in a small town long ago. Since 2000, I've traveled all over the world, never staying in one place for more than three years. I've lived in Northern Africa, The Middle East, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, the United States (including New York City for two years, and Washington, DC for another), and now Europe. But if somebody asks me now where it all began, I tell them in Morocco, back in 2000.
And 16 years after leaving Morocco it was my destiny to return, this time with the entire family, plus Noah, my nephew, who at the time of my Peace Corps service was a little baby. 16 years doesn't sound like a long time, but for Liebi and myself, it sometimes seems like 16 decades, since we packed so much into those years. And that doesn't even begin to describe how Morocco itself has changed.
After the Frankfurt airport disaster, we spent three and a half hours in the air on our way to Marrakesh. Marrakesh itself would first be a pitstop, as we were all aching to get to Rabat, which, ironically, was our first stop as Peace Corps Volunteers back in the day. We took a train from Marrakesh and laughed at the arm rests coming off with a simple pop with the palm of the hand. While everybody else was lost in their books, I simply stared out at the landscape that, so it first seemed, had changed so little.
Here was a small old village with the obligatory minaret sticking out in the center in the same way you would expect it from a village church somewhere in Alpine Bavaria. Earthen colored houses that utterly lacked symmetry were clustered together as if they were huddled together on an island, around them mostly dry wasteland that won't grow anything in 110 degree heat and might not grow anything even in temperatures lower than that. Over there in the fields are donkeys minding their own business. And, of course, there's a sun that's beating down in August, the hottest month of the year. Morocco, the Third World. Nothing's changed.
I perk up when we reach the outskirts of Dar Beida, or Casablanca. This was where I first landed back in 2000, whereupon the Peace Corps Volunteers were then herded onto a bus and driven to the capital of Rabat, where our training would begin. That said, Casa really isn't much to look at. Hundreds of thousands of houses with the lollipop satellite dishes. But then I see something else from the corner of my eye. Was that actually a tram? Could it be that somebody decided to provide relief to the chaos that was once Casablanca? Joy!
In Rabat, we miss our stop (don't even ask) and finally disembark in Sale, which is just across the river and up the coast from Rabat. We ask a taxi driver to give us a lift to Rabat. He shakes his head and points at the tramway across the street. Right there, brother, he says. So the tramway isn't a mirage! Not in Casablanca, and not in the capital city of Rabat! The tram for all of us costs a little more than a euro, and it actually takes us all the way to Agdal. I don't believe it. Rabat. Has. A. Tram!
We finally arrive at our place in the neighborhood of Suisse and settle down for the day. I stare at the skinny palms looming above me and swaying in the breeze. This isn't the Peace Corps anymore. No living with the other volunteers like a gang of misfit teens. No anxieties, just rest and relaxation. What a trip this going to be.
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