I've been down and out in Calogira five days now; without money, without responsibilities, without plans. It's gotten to the point where I don't bother picking destinations anymore. I rarely look at maps. I pick a direction and I start walking. When I'm tired, I sit for a minute and read or write. Then I return the way I came.
On Saturday I walked North, on Sunday West, on Monday South and today I rest, since I've already been East and it leads to the airport where I will go tonight.
North
The industrial zone. Thick, dirty air. Four-lane roads and crumbling sidewalks; glass shards. The kind of big empty space that makes you feel closed in. I passed a complex obscured by high walls topped with razor wire and cameras. What could require such tight security? A prison? Military base? A sign read "Oxygene Maghreb"---Moroccan oxygen.
West
A happy walk that didn't make me tired. Carts piled with pomegranates and small sweet oranges; sidewalk cafes with cloth awnings. Broken-down old Benzes cruised, playing Arabic music with the bass turned up. Kids played soccer on dirt fields, stray dogs sleeping in the shade. I decided this was the most beautiful face of Morocco.
South
The ugliest face of Morocco: the shantytowns. I walked after dusk past huts made of scrap aluminum, plastic sheets for roofs. They looked like piles of trash scattered in fields which grew no crops. The only light came from the passing motorbikes sputtering through the fetid night. Emaciated livestock stood despondently in the cold mud, their waste flowing out into the street through a narrow ditch winding between the huts.
I came across a man lying on his face in the middle of the sidewalk, his clothes torn and his feet bare. Others were stepping around him, but something about the pale soles of his feet, exposed to the night air, gave me the thought that it could have been a corpse and I was horrified. I crouched down and nudged his shoulder. He awoke, craned his neck and looked at me calmly and without recognition.
"Are you OK?" I asked.
Before that moment, I had thought I knew what a stupid question was.
He rolled over and fell asleep.
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