danielbaylis.ca

Dear Family and Friends,

I write you today from the windy rooftop of an Essaouira hostel. It’s a humid, overcast day. The seagulls provide a squawky soundtrack, a random melodic line over the constant white noise of the Atlantic Ocean’s unyielding movement. I am alone.

I am with you.

This week, I began some Moroccan wandering. With any hopes of meaningful volunteer experiences extinguished, I departed the debilitating heat of Marrakech on Thursday aboard an empty air-conditioned bus bound for Essaouira. I curled up in my seat, plugged my earbuds deep inside my eardrums and watched the fields of olive trees zoom past out the window. It was pleasing to listen to the travel playlist that I created before I left Canada. It was a soundtrack of a boy with a dream. It was helpful to be reminded of that pre-trip earnestness.

But despite the dreamy sentiments of the bus ride, I’ve noted a growing desensitization to certain things.

For instance, as I wandered the streets this morning in search of a cup of coffee and a discreet place to read my book, I ignored the elderly women with their hands pleadingly stretched in my direction. In the alleyway, the corpse of something that once resembled a cat was not registered as a tragedy, but simply something to avoid stepping in. I no longer politely decline the men offering to sell kif or hashish anymore. They are granted a cold non-response as I simply continue walking. I don’t particularly enjoy this person that I become, but the alternative of being a constantly ‘kind person’ would wreck havoc my energy levels and emotional state. The detachment is a type of survival mechanism; it permits sustainability as a traveler. There is an ugliness to it.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have come to learn that I’m not maintaining my role as a tourist. There is an implicit arrangement between locals and visitors that reads something along the lines of, “As a foreigner, you are here to spend money.” This generally denotes eating at fancy restaurants, going on 4×4 desert excursions and, most importantly, spending money on the colorful Moroccan products available in the shops and souks of each city. To stay in a cheap hostel and to eat at the inexpensive street vendors is simply not enough. The good tourist exhales Dirhams. Money should fall triumphantly into the (nippy) hands of each (supposedly) friendly Moroccan who approaches.

But I regret to inform the world that I am not a good tourist.

For financial and logistical reasons, I simply cannot purchase the beautiful offerings. There is no budget or backpack space for silk Berber rugs or handcrafted leather bags or intricately carved wooden boxes or quixotic cast-iron lanterns. In a state of retail nirvana, I could blissfully become bankrupt and immobile with trunks full of the most fine-looking Moroccan products. But I don’t allow this to happen. I have a greater purpose in mind, one that demands each of my diminishing dollars.

To the vendors, this is less than ideal. At best, a craftsman might simply smile with disappointment when I decline invites into their shops and explain that I actually have no home, and therefore no cold Canadian floors which demand their beautiful rugs. At worst, however, I feel a deep contempt and a dismissal with the unspoken question, “If you are not going to buy anything, what value do you have?”

It’s a question that, despite my previous statement of general detachment to many things (such as displays of injustice and wealth discrepancies), has been plaguing my mind.

As a foreigner, if I don’t have money to dispense, then what the hell can I offer? The interrogation of ‘personal value’ represents one of the greatest underlying questions of my travels. Is it possible to go into the world, and having meaningful engagement without the exchange of money? Is this merely an overly romanticized western dream? Is my best offering simply a promise to stay away?

Indeed, I come from the west with a backpack overflowing with romanticized notions of how the world might work. Yet ironically, the belief of one’s value beyond what might be in his wallet, from what I understand, is deeply an ‘eastern’ concept. Did I misunderstand something in my “World Religion 101” university class? Perhaps it is a privileged background that leads one to believe that he or she is an esteemed individual regardless of the ability (or inability) to spend money. Perhaps my naïveté is flashing above me like a marquee announcing that a fool has stumbled into town.

But let it be known that I have no anger or resentment to the Moroccan people that dismiss me for my lack of economic engagement. In some regards, I’m unfortunately the embodiment of injustice. I represent political and financial liberty that is more or less unattainable for the average citizen of this nation, and in reality, of planet earth. I try to walk with humility, but how can I? I have pockets lined with dirhams and a passport that enables me to hopscotch across a planet with relative ease.  From the windows of a bus, I see from the outside what it might mean to be born and raised in Morocco. But I don’t know what it truly means to be Moroccan. And to allow myself to feel slighted would be to lose track of my greater context on this planet, and the advantages that I embody and possess.

And so I meander through the markets, happy to look at the products, but serving little purpose as a consumer. In some regards, I suppose I’m simply another beggar. But my hands are not outstretched for coins. I’m reaching for indications of my value. I’m searching for evidence of generosity. I’m looking for threads – not the kind that will weave a new hat, but those that will weave a greater understanding of how I might be of purpose to the places where I wander.

With respect from Essaouira,

xoxo

Daniel

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