“Don’t touch me.”
Not the words I expect to hear my friend say to our tour guide on the final night of our trip to Southern Morocco. It’s after 10pm and we’re the only guests in a hotel in the ancient fortified city of Ait Ben Haddou.
Both of us American women tower over Mohammed. I easily outweigh him by 20 pounds. But he’s angry and has been yelling into the phone in Darija, which neither Kelly nor I understand. (Yup, we are two Kellys on this trip.)
We’re not sure who he’s been talking with, but he’s really agitated. Will the police come knocking on our door? Or the hotel owner?
Kelly and I have just commandeered a new room. The shower in our first one flooded, leaving the tiny space reeking like a sewer. The hotel staff’s odor-fighting tactic: Pour incense oil down the drain. (Not recommended, unless your tastes run to eau de rosy sewage.)
When we insist on another room, they say they can’t help. They have no access to other room keys. The staff disappears into the bowels of the dark hotel, and Mohammed offers no explanation. Is there a backup plan?
It’s late. We’ve had a long, disappointing day of shuttling from one tourist trap to the next. By the time we finally reached the red earthen walls of Ait Ben Haddou, the sun had already set.
Standing in the hotel at the base of this UNESCO World Heritage Center, some of its ancient fighting spirit takes hold of me. I realize I can make a move.
“I know where the keys are,” I say. I stride to a corner in the hallway and reach up to a shelf where one sits under a small basket.
I use it to open a closet where Kelly locates another basket, this one full of room keys. The three of us, two Kellys and our guide, paw through it. Mohammed opens the door to room No. 2 and urges me to consider it. No can do. There’s just a double bed.
Choosing a key with a silvery fob, I try another door and…jackpot! It opens to reveal a spacious, nicely appointed room with not one, not two, but three beds.
Kelly and I start shuttling our things into the new digs. The hotel staff return and they are not pleased that we’ve taken matters into our own hands. Under pressure, Mohammed’s loyalties quickly shift to his countrymen. “You don’t respect!” he tells us several times. What will Rachid, the hotel owner, say? As Mohammed yells into his phone, Kelly and I sit on our respective beds, waiting. The door stands open.
Done with his call, Mohammed approaches. Kelly meets him in the doorway, but I’m the one he wants to speak to. When he puts his hand on Kelly’s arm to maneuver past, she holds her ground with those three words: “Don’t touch me.”
He backs down and departs with a terse “Good night.” Behind the locked door, Kelly and I process the evening’s events. We had to make our move; no one was solving the problem and the other room was uninhabitable. “If we were men,” Kelly points out, “this wouldn’t have happened. We would not be treated like this.”
Still, I feel a whiff of guilt and fear. I’m not accustomed to defying authority so directly. Will there be more angry accusations tomorrow? Demands for extra money?
*****
On the way to breakfast in the morning, I encounter a beautiful, smiling, middle-aged Moroccan woman. She’s only the second woman I’ve met on this four-day trip, and she emanates authority. She’s eager to demonstrate how the drain in the first room is just fine. Then she inquires (in French) how I slept. When I say I rested well, she says (I think) that that’s the most important thing: If you slept well and ate well, then everything is fine.
And, apparently, it is. Kelly and I sit down to a strained but courteous breakfast with Mohammed. By early afternoon, we’ve crossed the High Atlas Mountains and are back in my house in Marrakech.
More than once, Mohammed told us that the movie Gladiator was filmed at Aid Ben Haddou. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if Kelly and I trespassed on the hallowed ground trod by Russell Crowe. Was it his hotel room we invaded?
If there’s one thing Morocco is teaching me, it’s to speak up for myself, set my boundaries and be prepared to protect them. It’s a good lesson to learn.
P.S. Ait Ben Haddou isn’t really a kasbah — it’s a kasir.
Well said!
Kelly, this is shockingly similar to an incident at a hotel in Soviet Turkmenistan in 1988
where I took matters into my own hands… you go, girl! I’ll tell you about it sometime in person when you’re back in NYC.
Oh that’s funny, Laura. I want to hear about it!