First Glimpse of Anger

The mustache was thick and black and shiny. I was so taken by the handsomest mustache I’d even seen on a woman that I didn’t register the words coming out beneath it. We passed the soapy air coming out the door of the hamam on our way to the taxi stand and this woman fell in beside us speaking in French as broken as my own. She was animated, and she was angry and she was shooting questions at me rapid fire. Where are you from, Europe? What’s wrong with your country that you had to come here? Why don’t you go back to your country and leave Morocco for all the good Muslims? We walked on like this for nearly a minute, she yelling, and me listening and not replying, trying to avoid the racing motor scooters that were oblivious to our little drama. As the neighborhood shopkeepers saw what was going on they hastened to stop her, and all circled their fingers beside their temples in the international sign for crazy.

In a year, this is the first outwardly hostile person we’ve encountered. As we hurry to the taxi stand I glance over my shoulder. It seems like the woman is accosting another foreigner. While the support from the neighborhood shopkeepers was nice, this mustachioed woman has gotten me thinking about our place in Morocco. We certainly have no intention of becoming Muslim in a country where 97% of people are. And what really is it that made us move here? Do other locals feel as she did, but keep quiet out of fear of the tourist police or of losing a regular customer? Perhaps we're naive in thinking her a loony anomaly, but as someone still obsessing about this woman’s mustache, how much serious reflection am I really capable of?