the bright, harsh constant sun of southern spain/northern africa´s
andalucia. the snake-like, necromancer’s sound of a solo arabic flute….

he’s the fourth man squeezed into the back seat of a
ramshackle taxi that won’t go anywhere until it’s more than jam-packed
with sweating human flesh. he’s just walked across the spanish-moroccan
border, five kilometers south of ceuta, a dollop of spain still calling itself
europe across the strait of gibraltar, but in all other ways, north africa.
the fast ferry from algeciras was loaded with spanish day-trippers in their
calf-length “pirates” and tommy helfigger t-shirts, but when he
walked through the “salida”, they were nowhere to be seen. like
moroccan magic, they were all hoarded into their pretty blue and white tour
busses like so many well-fed sheep, while he was the only customer left looking
for a taxi in front of the ferry terminal.

“anyone want to share a taxi to the border?” he
crooned, hoping to pull in a stray backpacker or fellow traveler to the moroccan
“frontera”. the local “tour operators”, perhaps more
accurately called hawkers or touts, mimicked him with their deep-throated
moroccan accents. “enywon wan to share a texi to de bor-der”.
they all had a good laugh at his expense. “texi to de bor-der….?”

after twenty minutes of failing to find a single soul heading
in his direction, and another ten of necessary haggling, he’s recruited
an unlicensed driver to drive him south for five euros. un peu de francais,
un pocito de espanol, and he’s found out from the arabic-speaking driver
that the euro is worth a hundred and ten “dirham” in morocco.
he has to walk across the border like he’s seen the mexicans do at the
tijuana-san ysidro U.S. border, and like he’s done before at the israeli-egyptian
border in the sinai. pulling a weathered green, vinyl bag on wheels with his
right hand, and carrying his trusty black canvas back pack like a well-seasoned
traveler, he meets a smiling, broken-toothed, ali, along the broken concrete
footpath in no-man’s land between the two national border patrols. ali
is rail-thin, wears a torn red t-shirt, and seems to speak some version of
french. he ventures a query.

“etes-vous….? va across la frontera?”

his mish mash of french-spanish-english is made even worse
by the three weeks he’s worked so hard on remembering his junior high
school spanish, while trying to cover all of spanish andalucia in less than
a month. he’s hit two cities a day, by bus and train, making day trips
from madrid to fortified segovia and palatial anranjuez,

stopping in regal toledo for just two hours

before he’s back on the train for madrid.

he’s been to cordoba, the moorish capital of andalucia
to see the red and white domed “mesquita” for five hours

before hopping back on the fast train to sevilla.

unfortunately, he’s lost his locker ticket somewhere in maimonades square,

and it has the number sequence for reopening the sesame with
all his belongings. not to worry, the spaniards are good and friendly people,
and after showing his passport, the head train station clerk re-opens the
locker for him, just in time for the train.

you might say he’s a “hard” traveler, consuming
culture, geography, history, food, and people as fast humanly possible. he’ll
tell you he’s “loving it all, no favorites, just different”,
but the normal leisurely tourist or traveler would tell you he’s possessed.
no wonder he gets sick almost every trip he takes, despite his back pack full
of antibiotics, vitamins, herbs, and homeopathic remedies.

after sevilla, it’s five days in granada to present the
paper that brought him here, “changing the world one story at a time”.
it’s a little over the top, “changing the world” and all,
but what the hell, it’s a lot more lively and entertaining than “the
statistical analysis of learners with disabilities using english as a second
language in the tertiary school system in ireland”. he’s the only
“theatre guy” at the conference, and he owes it to them to provide
a little zip and entertainment to the drudgery. so he’s recruited a
former student , now managing a guest house in the “albaicin”,
the arab quarter of granada,

and “the beef” has done a carnival-like rap in
the lobby of the faculty of education to recruit some bored bodies for his
paper. the improvised rap instantly turns more than a few heads and awakens
the yawners, and “the beef” helps him fill the house. he’s
promised himself not to read his paper – hell, they can read it themselves
online – so he just wings it for twenty minutes, telling them that education
is not only about acquiring and regurgitating knowledge, doing and presenting
research, but it’s also about teaching and effecting students, giving
them the tools and courage to discover themselves, to follow their own dreams
and voices, and to become creative, alive, contributing adults and human beings.
you see, he’s been a clown, a poet, and a truth-seeker for half a century,
had cancer and almost died, so he’s on a crusade to change the world
one story at a time. a crusade (not king george’s) to connect people
through their stories, to see what they all have in common, rather than to
see their differences. a crusade to connect people through their authentic,
autobiographical histories, rather than to separate and sort themselves by
nations, religions, fears, and labels. oh, and one more thing, the courage
that it takes to overcome fears and limitations, that goes for teachers too
– the conference goers out in the audience – and for himself too,
the big mouth up front.

and before he’s done, after the twenty minutes of improvised
buffoonery and truth-telling, one of the conference attendees, a soft-spoken,
but bright-eyed australian bloke named martin, raises his hand with “a
story” he’d like to share. “i’m going to change my
life right now. i´m going to leave my job in sydney and move my family
to granada. i want them all to learn to speak spanish.” “alright,
martin,” he says enthusiastically. “when did you decide this?”
“right now,” martin smiles from under his shy beard. “during
your paper.” he smiles back. proof positive. changing the world one
story at a time.

but that was a fortnight ago. since then he’s been to
the “playa” in tiny san jose near almeria, one of the almost “pueblas
blancas” of andalucia. a perpetually sunny beach on the “cabo de
gata”, head of the cat, in the very south east corner of spain’s
costa del sol. he’s caught his mandatory, phlegmy flu in granada, and
he’s carrying it around from the albaicin to the universidad in granada,
to the playas of san jose, to the tapas bars of malaga, to the duende bull
ring of ordonez in ronda, to the sleazy port of algeciras, and now to –
morocco.

you see, he’s had this inexplicable feeling about getting to morocco.
to chefchaouen, to be exact. he’s not absolutely sure why, but with
all three of his security blankets — job, marriage and home – all a
bit wet or shaky, he just knows there’s something waiting there for
him. no matter that after nineteen years at the same university, he’s
up for a promotion that promises no financial gain, just dismissal if he doesn’t
pass his peer review. no matter that after fifty-four years of bachelorhood,
finally breaking down and marrying a young thai girl from chiang mai, that
she’s now in thailand talking about “independence” (from
him) while he’s living day to day in andalucia. no matter that after
thirteen years in his rented “home” in poor man paradise near
echo park in LA, that his landlady has him on the short leash of a sixty day
notice any time she wants to cash in on the over-swollen housing bubble eager
to burst. no matter. somehow, he just knows that the answers he’s searching
for are lying at the foot of a mountain in chefchaouen, morocco. chefchaouen…
the magnetic city in the north african marijuana mountains of berber morocco.
chefchaouen… the katmandu of the dawn of twenty first century at the
tip of the african continent. chefchaouen… the one magical-mystical
place in the universe calling his name.

he’s had to walk back over to the moroccan border authorities
and stand in line next to the rows of waiting-to-be-inspected automobiles,
because he didn’t get his passport stamped in the right place. he’s
had to trudge with his none-too-sturdy bags back over the pitted and neglected
concrete, past the chain link fence, and show his papers to the french-speaking
moroccans in uniform. lucky for him, after careful inspection, he’s
gotten the necessary certification, and smiling ali has waited for him with
the last seat in the afore-mentioned local taxi. there’s a heavy-set
moroccan woman in the front passenger seat, two serious looking moroccan men
in the left side and middle of the rear seat, and one remaining seat on the
right rear – for skinny ali and not-so-skinny, himself. he gestures to ali,
“we’re both supposed to get into the one seat?” “oui,”
ali nods generously. he asks ali one last time, “chefchaouen?”
ali nods toothlessly in the affirmative, “…ouan.” he squeezes
into the ramshackle taxi; ali slides his butt as far forward on the seat as
possible, and they head south into morocco…