...they do things differently there.

Part 7 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

Sam:

We set off into what was now becoming torrential rain. We sped down the wider roads and wound our way through the narrow streets until farmland started to consume the city. Eventually, all that was left was the occasional rundown house and the rolling fields and of course, the rain. Brown veins pulsed down green paddocks and began to join up with arteries that were the roads we where trying to follow. Annas and Michelle chatted light-heartedly as we cruised along the water-covered roads, but to Alistair and I, every kilometer brought a little more doubt.

At this point we had been driving for a good hour and a half to two hours, which I can assure you felt like 6, and the rain hadn’t eased up. Al and I where starting to question how we were going to get back. I mean the roads where already 2 foot under water with potholes and road floats everywhere and we weren’t even there yet. They way we look at it by the time we got to the spring, had a bath (which we hadn’t done in 2 weeks) there would be no way we would be able to drive home. As well as that, there was that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were just getting further and further away from our bags. When we had to start swerving around massive holes full of water Al and I thought it was time to say something. We interrupted Annas in mid sentence, “I can’t remember rain like this in Fes, even when I was a child…” to ask “Ah, how do you think we’ll make it back if it keeps raining like this?” Michelle casually waved the question away and carelessly cast “We go other way” in our generally direction. Not more than a minute after our question Michelle made an attempted turn up a blocked road and got bogged in the mud. Although we’d sat through stories of his driving expertise, it was clear he had little idea about what he was doing. I mean, if you made a checklist of what not to do, it seemed he could competently tick every box on that list. He stopped in the middle of the mud and water. He turned the wheel hard to get back to the road and accelerated hard. Of course we went nowhere. Luckily Annas did have some concept of how to drive, so he straightened the wheel, told Michelle to go steady on the gas and we slipped out of the mud and back onto the pulsing brown road.

After another 45 minutes or so we arrived in what seemed like a small mountain village. As we had become accustomed to, the town was a mess with shacks and semi-permanent buildings barely keeping the pounding rain out. We reluctantly got out of the car and begun to sullenly walk through the rain. It was already getting to around 7pm and we’d been up for a 13 hours with only 4 hours of sleep under our belt from the night before.

We could smell the baths before we could see them. That reeking stench of sulfur, like eggs that have been left out in the sun and then placed right under your nose. Sammy and Annas led us to the entry where we had to pay a miniscule amount for lockers. I’d been to “hot springs” before but the image in my mind turned out to be nothing like what we were about to see. 

Alistair: 

The Moroccans have a very different relationship to bathing than westeners, which can make it difficult for westerners not staying in western hotels. Sam and I hadn’t showered or bathed at this point in over a week but it wasn’t something we really noticed – we’d grown pretty used to being dirty for long periods of time. All the same, we were glad to finally get an opportunity for cleanliness. Moreover, we figured the hot springs to be a chance to take stock and evaluate our situation.

When we arrived, we had no idea where we were except that we were hours away from Fes. Sammy parked the car and we walked to a large, rectangular building. The floors were tiled and wet, and the bare concrete and dirty walls did nothing to offset my unease. Sammy paid, as always, and Sam and I found a place to get changed into our suddenly very western board shorts. The pools themselves were to be found in smaller rooms, packed to the brim with old, hairy men scrubbing each other or sitting by the edge, talking. Voices clanged and echoed in the chamber, and Sam and I stood in the doorway momentarily coming to terms with the sight. The yellowing water filled rectangular holes in the floor, maybe 10 metres long and 5 across, and spilled out to our feet as boys played and splashed. The sight of the men – fat; oily; naked – matched the familiar stench of the place.

As always, when we were seen, we were harassed. Previously lifeless men sprang from slumber and offered us massages for apparently very good prices, but Sam and I were in no mood for their hospitality. The room, despite a level of determination impressive even for Moroccan standards, soon found the two white men to be altogether unapproachable.

Sam and I slid into the water, immediately frustrated by the lack of room for swimming. Our one opportunity to clear our heads was a claustrophobic dip in tepid, oily water. We used what was given to us and took our chances. I reviewed the day over and over in my head, stuck in a loop of logic. I was desperate not to push some level of colonial prejudice onto the Moroccans. It was a process of deliberately quelling my instincts and rejecting any presuppositions. Instincts, for most people, are prejudices. Although I’ll write more about this later, for a long time after that day I struggled to explain my thinking in that moment. The truth is that in that moment, my desire to act fairly overrode what were in the end perfect instincts. I chose to ignore the gut that was telling me the worst. This is a decision that I have never regretted.

I stripped back the story 100 times until what was left was without emotion, assumption or instinct. The facts were confusing by their scarcity. As we have mentioned before, the only piece of evidence that pointed to any wrongdoing, was that Sam’s mother hadn’t been able to find prices as high as Mohammed had suggested. On the other hand, the evidence against wrongdoing was formidable, ranging from the backing of the government to the sheer scale of the operation. The truth was that Sam and I were paralyzed until we learnt the true value of these carpets for ourselves, and the only way to learn would be to access the Internet, alone. We were powerless without the Internet. Without it, we simply had no information to make any type of decision. Getting to it, then, became our only focus.

Part 6 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

If you don’t yet know what this is about, here’s Parts 5, 4, 3, 2  and 1.

Sam: Hearing that our news about how the carpet prices back in Australia differed from Michel’s testimony, Sammy was quick to jump to Michel’s defense. He said that his brother was a very smart man and wouldn’t make a mistake like that, he said that his brother was also one of the most trustworthy people he new. Sammy then said, “In fact, Michel’s business has been doing so well that I want to join him. I have just divorced my wife, that’s why I’m back home, but now I am single, it would be ideal for me to join up with Michel.” This extra detail seemed too carefully sculpted and too specific to have been part of any lie, and it went some way to allay our suspicions of Sammy.

After lunch we told Sammy that we needed to go, as we needed the Internet for a few things. Lucky, he told us that we could use his. It wasn’t working. After playing around with the settings, trying to get the Internet to connect (with no success) Sammy told us that he was going up to the hot springs and asked us if we would like to join him. We had had well and truly enough by this stage and wanted to go home, even if to just check if all our stuff was ok. I mean, if this was a scam, then they knew where we were staying (Abdul took us to the hotel and asked the receptionist for our room), they knew in which room we were and would have no trouble getting they key from the guy down stairs as he believed we were friends, or by paying him off.. There was a good chance all our things would be gone. Sammy, seeing our reluctance, said that he would be happy to drive us to our hotel, if we told him where it was, so that we could pick up our swimmers. The hot springs are one of Fez’ main attractions and we now had an opportunity to get there for free, check on our things at the hotel and lead Sammy to think that we trusted him. Also, it would look strange if we turned him down. Somewhat reluctantly, we agreed, and after Sammy packed his things, we were off.

Alistair: The weather had been deteriorating all day, and it was raining steadily as we began to drive through Morocco in the green Mercedes, towards our hotel. As we were driving, Sammy turned around in his seat. “My friend Annas is flying in from Paris today and I think I should invite to the baths. Would you mind?” Unable to say no, Sam and I agreed that this would be a fine idea, although internally I was pretty concerned at the thought. Was Sammy suspicious of us? Was he calling a friend as back up? Was he planning on roughing us up? When we finally picked up Annas, we found him to be an older, gentle man who seemed quite friendly, and we were able to relax a bit at the sight of him. I might have breathed a sigh of relief, but we had greater concerns – would our possessions be back in the room when we returned?

Sam: Eventually we arrived at the front of our hotel and Sammy said he’d wait downstairs, so we entered, got the key, and walked nervously up to our room. This was a moment of truth, we could very well turn that lock and open the door onto an empty room. With Sammy downstairs in a car, there wasn’t even anyway to try and hold him responsible, or question him if anything gone. The key hovered in front of the lock before making the plunge and with a squeak of the hinge, we slowly pushed the door open.

Alistair: Inside we found everything just as we’d left it. Wondering why I’d begun to get so paranoid, I took stock. We still had no evidence of any wrongdoing. The most likely scenario was that Sam’s mum had found some inaccurate information, and that everything could go ahead as planned. Next to this, it seemed fairly probable that Michel and Mohammed were simply misinformed, but Mohammed’s claim to have had so much business with Australians seemed to run against that. Finally, the third hypothesis – that we’d fallen into a trap – didn’t seem to work out. We had no evidence of it, and the sheer complicated nature of this theory – the intricacies, details and utter depth of the operation – made it seem so unlikely that once more I dismissed it, and, with Sam, climbed once more into the green Mercedes.