I am halfway through a holiday in Morocco and am lucky to have survived, lucky to be alive and I have Morocco to thank for the happiness.
So, what do I mean about breaking out of health and safety? I guess I'd better hold my hand up and say that I'm not even a child of the 60s. I am a child of the 50s and December 1949 at that. We'd never of being careful-climbing trees, paddling in the brook and throwing stones at our rivals from the other cul de sac. If you throw in playing in the woods and coming home from the recreation ground in the dark I think that would sum up my life.
But, everyone knows that we don't allow our children to do that any more and often for good reason but I have to say that it was nice to break free.
Now, at first glance, it wasn't free of all control. In fact, when I landed at Rabat Airport the security made Heathrow look like a picnic outing on a Sunday morning. The bags were checked at least three times before we entered the arrivals hall and then twice more before we left the airport.
The drive from Rabat to Skhirat was along a modern freeway with the signs of prosperity on both sides of the road. The cranes and new blocks of apartments heralded a bright future for the area and even parts of Skhrat itself saw new builds going on. But there was a different feel about the place. We passed the 'shops' which were really no more than lock-ups. We passed the lanes which led straight down to the beach and we passed quite a few open spaces which had been commandeered by stray dogs-hundreds of them.
On our first evening, my daughter's fiance, Arabi, suggested that we do some shopping for the apartment and walked us out of the complex, passed on of his brothers (though everyone who has been to Morocco knows that a friend you have grown up with is as close as your brother or sister, is family) who was on security and out onto the road to the shops.
Health and Safety Shock 1: There are wide pavements in Skhirat, but nobody uses them. You walk in the road and the car coming towards you is actually on what we would call the wrong side of the road, but no one cares.
The scooter rider passes you with a crash helmet, but it's hanging off his handlebars. There is a passenger on the back of the scooter, a young girl, but she has a towel wrapped around her and a baby wrapped in the towel.
Health and Safety Shock 2: We arrive at a shop and Arabi orders the food and then a bottle of orange juice. Now the shop carries everything known to man (except a fire extinguisher) but the orange juice is on a shelf some twelve feet or so off the floor and you can't see step ladders. There aren't any. What there is, is a pole with a hook on the end which snags the bottle, pulls it off the shelf so that the shopkeeper can catch it (you wonder, for a moment, why many of his teeth are missing)
Health and Safety Shock 3: In another shop, where Arabi asks for a SIM card, the 'woman' behind the counter has a face so fierce and a body so weighty that she could ask any price for the SIM and you would pay it, just for safety's sake (yours, not hers).
Health and Safety Shock 4: On the way home, Arabi, decides fish would be a good meal. No fish and chip shop here. Down to the seashore where the fish market is in full swing and you could almost swear the fish are still breathing they are that fresh. The music blares and the men at the fish market wave their gutting knives around as nonchalantly as we wave our hands. It's only when you see the knife take off a fishes head, with no resistance, and then open up the inside that you get some idea of how sharp the knife is and why so many of the men have scars across their faces. Arabi haggles and you're glad it's him not you.
So, not even a day in Skhirat and we have seen health and safety blown apart and do you know what we feel? We feel free! Free from "you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't go here and you can't go there." We walk back along the road, as dusk falls, and the traffic picks up. Yes! We walk on the road still, though we are more aware because we may hear the scooter coming but it doesn't have its lights on and it's still on the wrong side of the road.
Morocco. I loved it.
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