Baksheesh

Baksheesh
Culture clash: Bring respect, practice tolerance, learn acceptance, and end up in total confusion.

“Marrakech is not for the fainthearted,” I read somewhere before I flew to Morocco. I also read that its people are kind, that the cuisine is a mix of French, Berber, and Bedouin, that it would be in my best interest to cover arms and legs, and that I should not use my left hand in public.
Tourists, of course, are always allowed a few slips in etiquette as long as they are trying to do the right thing, but I learned soon that it was difficult to do the right thing and relax at the same time. A phrase in the Lonely Planet guidebook should have warned me. “The combination of hustlers and heavy sell has had an adverse effect on the city’s tourism. According to a government study, 94% of first-time visitors never come back for seconds! This is one of the lowest rates for a city in the entire world.”
I was well informed, I thought, but I was not prepared for the contrasts that forced me to pay attention with all my senses. Car horns, donkeys, overloaded mopeds, women covered from head to toe in black, palm trees, litter, stray dogs, spicy street foods, beggars, the call to prayer, and then the cool trickle of a waterfall in the elegant Imperial Borj Hotel atrium and the spotless, soundproof luxury of my room. On the street everybody wanted something from me; upstairs I was totally alone with overwhelming thoughts about poverty and culture clash.
It was my first trip since I retired, my first trip ever into a non-western country. I saw it as romantic homage to my mother and my early childhood preoccupation with the storks on our church steeple. Long ago my mother had announced my September birthday with a frown and a hint of sadness in her voice, “It must be getting cold soon; the storks are getting ready to leave for Marrakech.”
Even at the age of six I had felt a vague urge to follow them into a land of sunshine and date palms and desert sand. The adults shook their heads when I ran across the stubbly wheat field in back of our house in an attempt to fly; when I leapt from the garden shed and sprained my ankle they shook their fingers at me. “No more of that nonsense.”
It took almost 60 years before I flew to Marrakech - on the wings of Royal Air Maroc. On a sunny May morning my guide in white djellaba and pointed slippers stood across from me on the grounds of the El-Badi Palace when I heard the sound of clapping beaks from above the ruins.
El Bissouri Moulay Hachem smiled and placed a hand over his heart, “Madame, the storks of Marrakech welcome you.”
Because I didn’t want to eat lunch by myself I invited Moulay to join me, an offer he reluctantly accepted. The tour company didn’t pay for his lunch and he usually went home to his wife and little daughter at noon. The restaurant was located in the newer part of town and was run by two sisters. I wondered if this was a compromise to soothe a westerner’s disdain over the machismo of a male dominated society. Or were they the sisters of the head of the travel agency?
I handed my prepaid coupon and an extra twenty-four dollars for Moulay’s meal to the beautiful middle-aged woman who wore Western style clothing. Later, after lunch, after she had sprinkled rosewater on our hands and my guide had discreetly withdrawn to the street, I slipped a ten- dollar bill under the lamb stew tajine.
I wasn’t sure if this was appropriate. In the West we don’t tip proprietors. I had already spent quite a few single dollar bills on men who opened the elevator door for me, men who turned the light on in my room, men who pointed me in the right direction toward the pool, men who told me where to buy bottled water. Men who stared at me until I realized that they expected to be reimbursed for efforts that I had mistaken for courtesies. I was confused by the constant demand for baksheesh - alms to insistent beggars - tips for minor unsolicited services – outright bribery with the promise of better service. But I was also aware of well-heeled tourists’ arrogant expectations. I had been told of tight-fisted Germans who angrily turned away from outstretched hands. “Let their government feed them.” This woman, I decided, was kind and patient with a newcomer to local customs and dishes. She had accommodated the unexpected pair, the young local guide and the foreign gray-haired lady, politely. She deserved a reward.
These two hours at Al Fassia, on Avenue Mohammed V, were the most intimate time I would spend with a Moroccan during my three days in Marrakech. Moulay came from Rabat where he had studied at the university and where his mother still lived. He was a linguist. He was working on a paper about Moroccan Arabic, about schwa, the unstressed vowel. He was a devout Muslim. A Sunni Muslim, like 99 percent of Moroccans. He spoke fluent French and broken English. Drinking too much soda pop had given him an ulcer, that’s why he refused the dessert of cinnamon sprinkled orange slices. The Qur’an allowed him four wives but he could only afford one for now. He thought I must be rich to be able to come to Marrakech. Did I inherit money from my husband? Certainly my husband must be dead, why else would I travel alone?
Moulay’s eyes opened wide when I told him that I had been married three times, and even wider when I said I didn’t have a god to guide me in my daily life.
“No, I’m not rich. No, I didn’t get money from my ex-husbands. I worked for a water company for the last nineteen years, because I wanted to be independent. This is my first trip abroad except for visiting my homeland, Germany. Yes, most Americans believe in God. Yes, I think Morocco is beautiful. Tell me more about schwa.”
After a day of horse-carriage rides to palaces, mosques, the famous Djemaa El Fna, and a walk through the labyrinthine alleys of the souq, I said good night to my guide. Au revoir Msr. Moulay. A domain. Until tomorrow. I gave him a ten-dollar tip and my apologies to his wife and daughter for stealing him away from them at lunchtime. I thanked him for helping me buy a CD and for keeping close watch over me in the souq.
I took a short nap and bathed in my spacious tub. I guess I did travel in style. Travel in Style was the name of the San Francisco based agency that had arranged this trip for me. Azza Hussayin had put together the package. It was supposed to have been a group of ten people, but the number shrunk as the date of departure came closer. Political unrest in Morocco. Sickness in the family. Other problems. Mohamed alias KingTut916 had emailed me emergency contacts, mobile phone numbers, and a reassuring promise of greeters, guides, drivers, and of course the website of the fabulous “Imperial Borj International Hotel” in Marrakech. One day before I left home he offered the option to cancel. When I arrived in Casablanca I found out I was the only member of the tour group. I knew that drivers and guides expected ten tips of five and ten dollar bills at the end of each day. They were visibly disappointed. “Where are the others?” Moulay had asked. I wasn’t happy either about the extra pressure of being the only guest. Usually I hang back, take pictures, pay selective attention.
At five I opened the door to my patio and listened to the call to prayer from the nearby medina, the old town. It was an eerie sound, unfamiliar to my ears and, as I would find out, hauntingly unforgettable. I walked out on my fourth floor observation deck to watch the local life that goes on without my participation. I had the full view of the intersection, the back of my hotel and the front of the hotel across the street. Cabs were lined up on both sides of the street and the drivers got out of their vehicles to pray. Some kneeled on cardboard pieces, some on handcrafted carpets. A white-bearded old man, dressed in dark long-sleeved jacket and knit cap, stepped off his horse-carriage, unfolded a mat, took off his shoes and laid them in front of the mat. He washed his hands in a small bucket before he began the ritual of bowing, praying, kissing the ground. I was amazed at his agility and wondered why, in spite of yoga classes, I was not able to get up and down with the same speed and grace.
As commuter traffic increased, the speed and aggressive attitude of drivers became more frantic. Nobody stopped; it was a challenge to see how far one could get into the intersection before hitting another driver. Small beige hatchbacks, the local petite taxis, competed with the Mercedes grande taxis that take passengers from town to town. A woman, in black robe and headscarf sped her moped with gloved hands into the middle of the intersection until she was forced aside by a donkey-cart filled with hay.
Later that evening – it was getting dark – I watched three men load a truck with close to a hundred large trash bags. We tourists enjoy our packaged snacks and bottled juices; we create a lot of garbage that has to be hauled away daily. The men were joined by two teens who left their load of old tires across the street. A man and woman on a donkey cart stopped around the corner. While the old woman whipped the donkey every time it tried to move, the man picked up twenty bags of water bottles and strapped them onto the cart. Finally all six men sat down on the ground next to the hotel wall and talked. A waiter came up the walkway from the kitchen and placed a large pot of stew between them. Then a platter of rolls. Two scrawny cats circled the men, one cautiously, the other attempting bold attacks; eventually pieces of food were tossed in their directions. After half an hour of dipping and slurping and finger licking the old man with the donkey cart hollowed out a roll and filled it with stew. His wife had waited patiently with the donkey; I imagined a glint of happiness in her eyes when she tilted her head to let the thick soup run into her mouth. Within minutes the empty pot and platter were deposited at the kitchen door and all the men drove or rode off. One of the cats licked a few leftover traces from the sidewalk. Two policemen stood in the intersection talking to each other while traffic continued around them. As starlight began to glitter on the fronds of palm trees, traffic died down.
I closed the patio door to the echo of clip clopping hoof sounds and thought that this had been a good lesson in Moroccan culture. A lesson about working together for the common good. My upbringing under the Benedictine motto Ora et Labora – pray and work – was not so different from the Arab Ensha’llah – God willing. We work, we hope for a better life, and we cling together for comfort. As luck had it, I was born into a society where existential problems were less pressing than in Morocco. Even though war had robbed many of us of family members and homes, reconstruction was unstoppable. Bribery has, in general, been replaced by deal making in Western business situations. Alms are reserved for those without protective networks. With the luxury of being a modern woman I inherited the luxury of free thought and dependence on organized contracts. I live on social security payments and a pension and in an emergency I could request food stamps, Medical, public assistance. Public assistance? Isn’t that a kind of collective baksheesh?
Before I went to bed I counted my dollar bills and Dirhams. Maybe I was rich. I fell asleep with the smug intent to spread my insight and newfound wealth the next day. Of course it all fell apart when a horde of taxi drivers mobbed me in front of the hotel in the morning. Some followed me around the corner and offered to be my protectors, “Not good to walk alone.”
I smiled, “No thank you. Non, merci. Shukran. I’m not going very far. Just a few pictures.” I pointed at my camera and walked faster.