Welcome to Au Maroc!

I'm Tabor, and thanks for visiting my Morocco travel blog. I arrived back in Denver on December 13, 2014, so I will no longer be posting here. To begin reading, you can jump to the oldest post from a couple weeks before I traveled there, jump to the most popular post and watch the Southern Excursion video, or just scroll down to view posts in reverse chronological order.

To view more of my work, check out my full portfolio at taborjames.com.

Thank you and enjoy!

Shukran and Besslama

My sweaty hands fiddled with the key for a few minutes before I could get the door to unlock. I swung it open and let out a sigh as I set my mass of luggage down on the floor and felt weightless. I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with my arm and kicked my shoes off. Kneeling on my bed, I swung the window open, and leaned out.

In the months preceding this moment, Morocco was just a word. It was paperwork. It was forms. It was emails. It was an awkward Facebook group. It was a new backpack, contact solution, and passport copies.

But then, it was under my feet. The streets below my hotel room window were populated and electric. The mid-afternoon sun glared in my eyes. I took a deep breath of humid air, and exhaled Delta Airlines. In this moment, Morocco was my reality.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a moment of fear and self-doubt. I wondered why I didn’t just go to Paris and study French like I always thought I would. Since when did I want to go to Africa? Why had I put so much effort into coming to a country I didn’t even know much about?

But then, right there in that hotel room, I stopped. Just as I had done with my luggage, I took the fear and doubt off of my back, and I felt weightless.

Three and a half months later, I found myself in the same hotel room where I had left all of that fear and doubt, laughing at myself for ever packing it in the first place.

And now, I sit in the airport. I’m heading home, and the contents of my luggage are different now.

I leave with a new understanding of where I’m from and where I’m going. I leave with new friends and a better understanding of myself. I leave with more self-confidence and less fear.

Shukran to the entire J-Squad. You were all by my side during the good and bad times, and I will never forget you. Shukran to Badrdine and the entire staff of the CCCL. I don’t think any of us can fully express our gratitude for what you’ve done for us. Shukran to my family for sending me on this journey with all your love and support. I will see you very soon.

And most importantly… Shukran, Morocco. I can only hope we have given you some small fraction of what you’ve given us.

Signing off one last time from Rabat…

Tabor Smith. Ad Explorata.

Familiar Faces and Prodigious Places

Has it really been 18 days since I last checked in? Where does the time go? I blog to you today on our 81st day of being here in Morocco, which means we have just over three weeks left in this beautiful country. This trip has been great, but that crisp Colorado air is calling my name.

Home sweet home. Complete with plants. I feel like an adult.

As I mentioned in my last post, Al, Caitlin, Olivia, and I have moved into a home together inside the medina, not far from the CCCL. The home is a very traditional Moroccan home, but very clean and modern. We each have our own room, a small kitchen, and a beautiful terrace. An older woman lives on the second floor of the house, but has her own amenities and generally keeps to herself.

Olivia and Caitlin are both talented chefs, and the nearby vegetable market, which the J-Squad has dubbed "Vegetable Alley," provides us fresh and inexpensive food to cook with.

These past few weeks have gone way faster than expected. We've kept in touch with the other J-Squaders, many of who live around the medina. One group is renting an apartment not far from the medina and another scored a beautiful house with an incredible view in the nearby Kasbah des Oudaias.

Dennis and Aimee stand in front of Hassan Tower, the
minaret of an incomplete mosque. Construction halted in
1199 after its founder's death and the minaret stands
about half as tall as intended.

This past weekend, we had the pleasure of hosting Frankie Stiles for her 21st birthday. Through a family connection, she found a nice home 20-30 minutes south of Rabat, so she wanted to come rejoin civilization to celebrate.

During the same weekend, my friend Dennis Smith flew down from studying abroad in Italy to visit. Another friend from DU, Aimee Wagner, who is studying abroad in Meknes, took the train into Rabat as well. We checked out the Hassan Tower and the adjacent Mausoleum of Mohammed V, took some time to pet the cats in the Andalusian Garden of the Oudaia Kasbah, and strolled along the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. We had limited time, but it was great to reunite with the two of them.

The minaret of the Hassan II Mosque
in Casablanca towers 60 stories high.

In two days, the first draft of our Independent Study story is due, so everyone is working hard to make sure that comes together. The day that Dennis and Aimee took off, I took the train down to Casablanca with my Moroccan journalist partner, Nora, to meet with a couple more members of the Oukasha family. It turned out to be a tremendously productive interview, and afterwards, one of them offered to take us on a walk to the Hassan II Mosque.

Depending on who you ask, the mosque could be the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, or 10th largest mosque in the world. It is undisputedly the largest in Morocco and Africa, and its minaret, which stands 689 feet, is the tallest in the world.

While we didn't get the chance to go inside, it is one of few mosques that actually allows non-muslim visitors on guided tours. Still though, walking around the massive structure is a humbling experience. The detail put into every square inch of the mosque is absolutely incredible. The new background to this blog is one particular mosaic that caught my eye. The photo I took of it is now my background on pretty much anything that has a background.

I also forgot to mention that I now have two articles posted on Reporting Morocco. The first, called A Water Problem, is a profile on Karime, the friendly man we spent some time with during our village stay. The second is a Reporter's Notebook called Helping a Friend and Offending a Local, in which I talk about an interaction Katherine and I had with a man in Essaouira. Check them out if you please!

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!