moroccan men look like jesus

omg...

the men in morocco look like jesus...

copper, chocolate, bronze, woolly haired gods with loads of thick black hair...

i was just walking the street and me and my girl, Alisha Sohpaul tripped over like 9 of them in 3 blocks...

Re-Dica-Lous

and the color thing....really non existent...people here actually like people who look like africans...not black people trying to look like white people....

I'm not invisible as a black woman here...but i'm also not the dark fetish or the "colored" mixed race upper class person here either like in other parts of Africa....

the only other place where the caste system isnt working overtime to sort of fuck you up is Belize....where africans and mayans are all mixed up and chillin....i did well there as well....

Now, my experience may be that I look like I'm from a lot of different places and act like bohemian village person eager to speak as many languages as possible...but also as a caribbean afro latina, i'm used to basic, beautiful country living, so that helps...

and because i'm from a place like this....i know that you should ask everyone's name and treat them like a friend, not a servant or employee, but as your host...even if they are working for you....that's just good geechie home training...I

i never travel like an american, I travel like a black woman from a poor island trying to learn how you make Johnny Cake and share recipes....and i believe this resonates with people...bec everybody kept stopping me trying to feed me...lol....

but little berber girls the color of honey in hijabs were just as loving to me as dark chocolate women cooking me moroccan pancakes...

i wasn't a weird bohemian rasta lady...i was just a black chick looking for something good to eat....lolz

there was such love...
it was easy to be love...
if u walk in this country like that, its what you get in return...

as u walk past people, you always speak to people of color (which is everyone here, even the white ones), show respect and being enthusiastic about learning everything about their culture from food, to language, to textures, fabrics, bartering, how the hijab functions...that innocent curiosity without judgement opened up a really beautiful part of moroccan culture to me: it's sensuality and sublime beauty...

and i believe that's the thing that has always fascinated me even as a little child about north african culture: multicolored seasonings reflecting spain's influence, the idea that the original arabs were actually black (the moor means black, moros mean black beans and rice in spanish, duh....arabs started out as black) but I digress....the music with its strings from the desert, the tuareg drums from mali, the indian inflections in the food and music...all felt familiar to afro caribbean culture, but heightened since it was closer to the source and really, deeply profoundly driven by the need for more beauty, texture and richness...

i loved pictures of tuareg women growing up and hence when i got old enuf to buy bedouin furniture and some bright carpets, of course i did...


the other thing i found really interesting...because of caste systems everywhere else I'm from or ever visited where light is right....its really interesting the way folks have blended arab, sudanese, berber, jewish, ghanain culture into this wonderful mixture...u know the kind of mixture everybody talks about, but no one's really mixing, just trying to lighten the pile....

now of, course, i was mixing a lot with berber or amazigh people who are the originals...folk from the mountains, the source and whatnot...they were there first...and they were weren't color struck at all....

we met a nomad man with wives of many colors....howling...

there's no reward or benefit for marrying someone light skinned or white...

and really important for black women is that looking african is a beautiful thing....

full lips, curves, voluptuous, natural hair is not a fad that everyone had to have a movement about, no one needed to touch my dreadlocks and ask me stupid questions (except fo course some western white woman as all the moroccan people shook their heads)...people genuinely find those features appealing...

i went to lunch with a light colored french moroccan who waxed poetic about the beauty of the senegalese people and how i need to eat more....he then proceeded to order more food and feed it to me...one spoonful and one handful at a time...did i mention that this was not a black man?

can you imagine in a big public restaurant, this french moroccan man putting plate after plate of food in front of me and when i said i was full, he proceeds to feed me with hands and spoon to make sure i was happy and full.....and folks at tables laughing and applauding....yeah, moroccans can be extra....


it's really a ridiculously beautiful place....