EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALJune
22, 1999
Between Fez and Azrou, Morocco
Notes From the Bus
The station. A broken-down man sits on a cushion beside the toilets. Another man
approaches with a flute concealed in his sleeve. He passes it to the old man, who places
it on a box at the cushion station. The man goes into a drop-toilet stall, emerges seconds
later, and walks away without retrieving the object.
Most customers pay in Dirhams. A Dirham pays for the old man to get up and throw a
bucket of bleachy water (the flush mechanism) into the toilet stalls. Young boys carry
gallon bottles into a room with a dribbling tap and fill up. They circulate through the
buses with pop cans with the tops removed. Thirsty customers drink the leaky pipe water
from the decapitated pop can cups.
The hard-boiled egg seller paces the aisle with a basket of eggs and bread and liquid
yogurt. A woman pays for the egg sandwich, and the man stuffs the eggs into pita bread and
sprinkles salt over it before handing it to her. Her wide-eyed children, fixated on the
activity, watch as their mother stuffs the sandwich into her purse.
Through the window I can see the other vendors. The egg-man’s accomplice, a boy,
carries extra eggs and bread in a black garbage bag. He sits on a bench at the station and
pulls eggs from the bag as they are needed. The two men beside him are eating the
caramelized nuts they haven’t sold.
Beyond Fez, south into the Middle Atlas Mountains is a patchwork of sunflower fields
and undulating brown hills, cedar forests and rocky terrain. The bus slows down every so
often and from the side of the road, where there is nothing, a handful of people run
beside us and then jump into the doorway at the back. They pound on the side of the bus
when everyone’s on board and the we speed up again.
The woman across the aisle is spitting in intervals into a see-through plastic bag on
her lap. Her tattooed mother keeps her hands clasped around a large burlap sack.
There’s a ripe-breathed toddler in the seat in front of me. He’s standing
backwards attracting our attention. He makes a buzzing noise, spitting as he plays with a
pair of plastic toy glasses.
An elderly woman gets up with the help of her son. She gets up a lot. She goes to the
back of the bus and then returns to her seat a few minutes later. Each time she passes she
braces herself on Rich’s arm. The palm of her hand is deep sienna, permanently dyed
with henna. On her last pass, she lingers a moment over Rich, stroking and squeezing his
elbow.
It’s like a furnace. The bus is equipped with curtains to block the unrelenting
sun. Regardless, it heats us up like hothouse tomatoes and we remain stuck in our seats,
stuck to our clothes and pouring sweat with the other passengers who know it’s cooler
in the mountains.
After three hours we arrive in the village of Azrou – a small town with a big
Mosque humming in the shadow of the fertile Atlas peaks. Hotel Cedre overlooks the centre,
and from a large balcony we stand in the late light and for once, stare back.
