"Jackals With Knives"
Marrakech, Morocco December 12, 1983 Dear Folks, "It's totally insane...another world...too dangerous for a lone traveler...they kept coming at us...pawing, reaching..." The frightened faces, the trembling words, the disgust, the fear, the hate. All day at the port in Algeciras, Spain, three days ago, travelers from Morocco told one horror tale after another. Alain, a Swiss student told of two Moroccan men bursting into his hotel room and choking him. "I--I cried like a baby. I didn't want to die." Juan, a Spanish soldier, described a society in that Northwest Africa country growing more poor and more desparate each day, especially now that Saudi Arabia had stopped giving the country's monarchy any more money. "In a car you are half safe. But on foot you'll be robbed in no time," he warned me sternly. Helmut, a German businessman, related how he'd found nothing but greed and open corruption everywhere. "They weren't the least afraid to steal from me. I'll never go back!" He spat. Even the ferry boat ticket vendor tossed words of caution at me. "Never, I repeat, never let them know you are American or that you have any money on you. In Morocco a lone American traveler has no friends--only those who want your money." |
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Just one person, an American adventurer named Philip, offered hope. A Steve Canyon look-alike he had lived, loved, and fought all over the world since leaving 13 years ago an America that to him was nothing more than "one giant department store."
"The Moroccans know how the tourist mind works, and they prey on it, play on your fears. It's all a mind game to them. Stand up to the jerks. Tell them to go to hell. Inside they're nothing but cowards."
Less than six hours later, in the dead of night on an unlit and narrow street in Tangiers, Morocco, with my life on the line, Philip's advice was to be put to the test...
...It was 9:30 pm, cold, misty, with policemen all about, when the Morocco-registered ship I was on finally docked at the dilapidated port of Tangiers. For three hours the ship had plowed uneasily through storm-tossed seas, and I should have been only too glad to finally step onto Africa.
But I wasn't. I was scared.
Not only was I scared from what I had heard of the place, but I was also frightened terribly from what I could see awaiting me on the shore. It was like some scene from a bad nightmare or from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Lurking around the edges of the rotting buildings and walls of the dockyard were dozens of the men-of-prey the others had warned me about. Many wore long, dark robes with sharp pointed hoods. The robes and hoods covered all of their thin bodies, except for their mostly scarred and hairy faces. They watched our ship with the intensity of vultures gazing upon a dying lamb.
Other passengers were allowed to disembark with little trouble, after which the passengers hurried through customs and sprinted into waiting taxis. However, a young couple from Israel with a newborn and myself were detained and not allowed to disembark. I was an object of suspicion, it turned out, because I had written on my entry card that I was a journalist. The couple were simply guilty of being Jewish.
"Who do you work for?" the police demanded to know from me. "Tell us the name and address."
I was seasick and in no mood to argue, and yet I didn't want to give them the names of the newspapers I did work for. I made up a newspaper and an address. "The Picadilly Times-Review. Picadilly, Alaska, U.S.A."
They waved me through after a dozen more questions and a promise from me that I wan't going to write anything negative about their country."
The Jews were made to return to the ship's interior.
By this time the taxis were all gone. I headed into the city on foot. The stray packs of street hustlers saw me emerge from the customs building and descended upon me like jackals. I walked straight, not daring to look to the right or to the left. I tried my best to ignore the closing shadows.
Some asked if I wanted to purchase drugs. Others wanted to be my "friend." Still others fought amongst themselves over who would get to me first. A few even offered to protect me from any harm. One, however, wanted to rob me.
He was ugly--a wide nasty jagged scar running down the length of his skeletal face and with a hole where his right eye should have been resting. Perhaps the same age as me, he blocked my path with his body and pulled out from beneath his robe a small switchblade knife. "Say something!" he hissed angrily. "You want to die? Talk!" Then stepping closer, "Give me some of your money!"
I was so scared I wanted to faint. But I remembered Philip telling me that I must not show any fear. If I did so, they would be emboldened, much like a pack of wild dogs would.
Somehow I gathered enough courage--or foolishness--to fumble for, and pull out, a large hunting knife I had tucked into my belt, as Philip had also instructed. "Me die? You die!" I squeaked as bravely as possible.
The blade of my knife was a good two inches longer than the robber's, and he looked as if he'd seen a ghost. He ran off, along with several others.
Three of the men continued to tag along as I made my way blindly to the bus station, and those three kept a respectable distance. Their voices, however, never ceased assaulting my ears, as they remained determined to get me to part with some of my dollars or at least a few dirhams.
Not until I was on the bus that would take me to Marrakech, where I hoped to stay with an American couple until after the Christmas holidays, did I feel I was out of immediate danger. Only then did I allow myself to think how closely death had passed. And how scared I actually was.
When I reflected upon what I had seen just between the docks and the bus--the hundreds of bored young men staring at me, the filth on seemingly everything, the families in rags hovering around open fires, the beggers rushing from gutters and black alleys, the women brushing past with every inch of their bodies covered except for their intense eyes, the donkey-pulled carts with wooden wheels, the wild-looking dogs running loose and fighting over the goats heads tossed into the streets by the meat merchants, and the garbage of all sorts strewn about--my confidence sank to its lowes level of the entire walk. This time I've gone too far, I thought dejectedly.
I was suffering cultural shock at its worst. No longer was I in just another country--this was another world. This was another time period, one that I saw no chance of easily surviving.
As the bus pulled away from the station, there was a loud THUMP! at my window. Outside, my hooded "friends" were letting me know they were angry I'd not handed over any money. I shuddered. Next time there would not be a window between me and their fists.
Steven