0181. The Tekiouine Express (Mor 030--revisit)
After a couple of quiet days seeing old friends and family in Agadir, I headed out to add one more Souss town to my collection.
Tekiouine. This is the town that inspired my song "Tekiouine Express"--a song about the very real experience of thousands of Berber men who go to work in Europe and choose to leave there families in Morocco--coming to see them maybe twice a year. They do this because they feel that preserving their faith, culture and values is of utmost importance--and they don't feel it's possible to do this raising their families overseas. From my observation, most of these families remain very close-knit despite this separation.
Anyways, Tekiouine is where a lot of buses that go directly to Paris (a three day trip) start out--taking these hardworking men back and forth.
Unfortunately, my trip to Tekiouine wasn't quite so cheerful--a team of thieves tried to pick my pockets on the bus. Two of them stood in front of me as I tried to get off the bus, while the other tried to go through my pockets. They didn't get anything, but it did put a bit of a shadow on my Tekiouine experience. Hey, I thought Casablanca was supposed to be "dangerous" and the Souss was supposed to be "safe" (?)
I wandered around the dusty Tekiouine back streets onto some other village--up to a ridge that had a nice view of Ait Mellioul accross the valley. Not a whole lot going on on a hot, Sunday midafternoon. Even the market seemed pretty much abandoned.
Decided to take a collective taxi back instead.
Tonight I head back up to Casablanca. Wasn't a super eventful trip down here--in fact, neither Ait Mellioul or Tekiouine resulted in any significant contacts--but it was nice to see some old friends...
