Lemmings

I was on a cruise to the Mediterranean and we stopped in Casablanca. I had been constantly told that it was dangerous ‘there’. And I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the prospect of wandering off in the Casbah by myself–more about getting lost and missing the boat than getting assaulted and forced to buy rugs to fit into my suitcase somehow. So I signed up for a tour group. Tour groups are an interesting phenomenon in themselves. In who joins them, how they are organized, what you get out of such a package. In our case we packed a little van with overweight Americans with their secret neck pendant wallets and whipped through the streets.  The historically European quarters are wildly different from the Arab quarters and if not segregated, the differences are still disturbing. Then again, is the Casbah a cute slum, kind of like American Chinatowns? Rick’s Cafe was in the European section, which I should have guessed. I assume it came after the movie, kind of like a one-off Planet Hollywood Restaurant. 

Then we piled out of the van and walked through the casbah. I’m tempted to say we all stuck closely together, but that wasn’t true. We even got rather spread out–mostly I suspect because a lot of us can’t walk very fast. They had a number of helper guides to try to keep the various bodies moving the the right direction. It would be easy to get turned around and completely lost. I didn’t feel threatened but I didn’t feel especially welcomed either. Mainly because we were getting in everyone’s way and acting like tourists. I sensed ‘they’ were muttering ‘d*mn tourists’ under their breaths, much as I do in San Francisco when I’m stuck amongst the tourists.