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| 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.
