Estonians in Morocco

I am not particularly proud of this next story, however the events to be mentioned do make me question whether I did actually miss the boat to Hollywood or Broadway…

One of the common threads that link tourists the world over, because they are so obviously tourists and more so in certain countries is the unwanted attention they receive from the locals. Chefchaoun , otherwise known as the ‘blue’ city, is almost three hours from Tangier so Iris, Edith, and I spent the night there. The majority of our time was spent wandering around lost in the ‘blue’ medina which is blue because of the Jewish influence here. As far as being hassled to buy and walk into shops, Tangier is pretty tame compared to Chaoun (and anywhere else in the country for that matter). We arrived in the late afternoon, had dinner, and then wandered aimlessly taking pictures of the blue walls. (Some of us were also wishing we had not ordered the pigeon for dinner- not it!) But everywhere we went we were engaged in conversation and some seemed truly offended when we did not heed their invitations to look in a shop. By the end of the day I had reached the end of my patience.

Dan, my original housemate in Tangier, had come up with a really good idea for warding off unwanted attention and conversation with every shopkeeper. Since Moroccans all know somewhere between 3 and 6 languages, they are pretty successful at getting the attention of most tourists. But there was one (I am sure there are many but this one was chosen) language that we were pretty certain they wouldn’t know.

Around 9pm the ladies and I entered a shop to admire some (blue) artwork of the city. We had just been offered drugs by a guy who spoke all of our languages fluently, so it was hard to deter him from pushing them on us…we got away and I think I jokingly started talking about Dan’s idea. I was the first to enter the shop and the first to be engaged.

Shopkeeper: “Where are you from?”

Me:  (smiling)

Shopkeeper: “ English? Spanish? French? German? American? Russian?”

Me: (shaking my head but not saying anything)

Shopkeeper: “Where are you from.”

Me: “don’t…understaaaand…(pointing to myself)…Estonia”

Shopkeeper: “Where?”

Me: “Estonia. Little English.”

Edith and Iris were silent, especially because I dragged them in with me referring to them when I said I was Estonian. Well Edith stayed quiet and played along, Iris on the other hand couldn’t stop laughing.:)

Shopkeeper: “Estonia? I don’t know Estonia.”

Suddenly he reached under the counter and pulled out a map of the world…so I quickly scanned it so could point out Estonia. Then things got even more complicated as I told him my ‘Estonian’ name and he asked me how to say ‘good morning’ ‘good afternoon’ and ‘good evening’ and repeat them several times  to make sure he got the pronunciation! Somehow I continued to play along with a straight face and extremely accented English. Finally we said we had to go. He said how nice it was to meet us as we were the first Estonians he had met. He was so excited! So while this may have been a little cruel, to my knowledge he had no idea that we were not, in fact, from Estonia so we probably made his day. I don’t this will work everywhere though and I apologize to any Estonians who may be reading for misrepresenting your country…but I was niceJ Below are some pictures of the city.