Almost Arrested

Guest post from Little Brother, Blair!

Mosque in Casablanca

I was almost arrested in Morocco. 

Really. 

At least that’s what I thought... 

When I was 15 years old, I joined a travel club in high school and we traveled to Spain.  Prior to joining the club, I had heard about the trip and the total cost. Way more money than I had. That trip was not in my future!

Then one day my mother asked me if I was aware of the trip. I said yes, but I didn’t have the cash to pay for it. She said that it was the chance of a lifetime, so if I paid for half of the trip with my 4H calf money, she and dad would pay for the other half.

I thought it was a good deal.

I signed up.

Prior to the trip, our travel group had a few meetings where we were instructed on how we should behave and how and what we should pack.

Finally, we were given a very big warning. We should be very careful about the laws in a foreign country.

Otherwise, we could get “thrown in jail and we would never see our families again”.

I didn’t think much about this because: I didn’t break rules.

Finally, the day of departure arrived.  Our travel club boarded a school bus that took us to the Calgary airport.  From there, we flew to Montreal, then to Copenhagen, Denmark.  We spent a day in Copenhagen (I’d sure like to go back there sometime) then, finally, jetted off to Spain.

While in Spain we saw flamenco dancers, ate strange and wonderful food, and toured fascinating places. One day we boarded a ferry and boated across the Mediterranean to Morocco, by far the most fascinating place of all.

I had never seen anything like it. The architecture, the markets, the people, the smells were not at all like anything that I grew up with on the ranch. I stared everywhere in amazement.

As we made our way down one of the streets, a lady dressed in a burka walked between my group and me. I didn’t pay much attention because I was busy gawking.

Then I noticed some police about 100 yards ahead of us. They were looking at our group. I started to wonder why they were interested in us. We were just farm kids from Canada. 

Suddenly, the police pointed at me and said, “There!”

Abruptly the statement “Don’t get thrown in jail or you will never see your family again!” ran through my mind.

I thought, “What did I do? Am I not allowed to look at the buildings or the people?”

I was gripped by fear as the police ran down the street toward me.

As they neared, the lady in the burka suddenly screamed, “NO, NO, NO!”, spun around, and ran right into me.

She was about 8 inches shorter than me but she could have been a star linebacker for high school football.

She ran off down the street as I stumbled backward, off-balance and terrified the police were coming to arrest me.

They ran past me after the women in the burka.

I breathed a sigh of relief…

…but it took me a while to calm down.