can you see Africa? 'cause I can.

it is a rainy monday afternoon, and i should be studying for midterms. instead, i am writing to tell you all that i have successfully crossed the strait of gibraltar into morocco - and returned! due to the horrific weather on friday, our party of three was delayed many hours in crossing by ferry. alas, we spent the afternoon getting acquainted with yet another incredible spanish pueblo: tarifa, the bridge between europe and africa that divides the mediterranean from the atlantic. the city occupies a strategic place in a legendary zone, the "pillars of hercules", once thought to be the end of the world by the sailors of antiquity. for this reason, it was inhabited from prehistoric times to the present by phoenicians, romans, muslims and christians. in fact, tarifa was where the first arab, a berber named tarif, touched the soil of the peninsula, the chief of an incursion in the early 700s. to pass the time, we visited a fortress built in 960 A.D. by abd al-rahman III, the first caliph of the peninsula.

we also practiced our archery in the castle,

went to the beach,


adopted a dog we promptly christened mercadona,

watched as people appreciated the wind that had canceled our ferry,

exercised,

and looked yearningly at our destination.

if you look closely, at the horizon the houses of a moroccan town are visible. on a clear day, you can see the entire coastline, and on a clear night you can even see the car lights.

once in tangiers, the port city in morocco where we spent two nights, we realized that it was exactly the same - spain is clearly visible from the main city plaza, and european soil is only 14 kilometers away. this experience of seeing europe so close yet so far away was especially relevant for me, as i have been studying african immigration to spain. while we spent 45 minutes on a ferry that cost us under $30, crossing the strait in a small cayuco raft costs over 1000 euro and has a death rate of over 1/50. thousands of people have drowned in the strait, a chilling fact we could not ignore while we crossed.

tangier is the paramount of european domination, as it has been occupied by the spanish, portuguese, french and english its entire existence, only having gained its independence a mere 55 years ago. as such, there is at least one neighborhood dedicated to each of these colonial influences - we passed through the spanish, french and english neighborhoods, as well as one called "barrio california," to my severe embarrassment. another result of the european domination is that practically everyone knows more than one language, something that americans could definitely improve at. arab is the native language, with french being taught in schools at a young age. spanish, however, is the language of the street in northern morocco, and we met only one person that did not speak spanish. quite a few street vendors we met knew english as well. one showed us his artwork, which depicted "democracy coming slowly to morocco on a bicycle", which was particularly timely in light of the dozens of moroccan protesters that were injured in a manifestation in casablanca on sunday, four days after king muhomed VI promised constitutional reforms.

another surprising discovery was that, through the multicultural influence in tangier, there are several widely practiced religions - in fact, there are two synagogues and several cathedrals. the largest cathedral is on the same block as the main mosque, as seen on the right. the many traces of european colonization left in this city are undeniable, culminating in fascinating a cultural, linguistic and architectural mix that i feel fortunate to have seen, as it widened my perspective on the diversity found within the arab world. when we went to assilah on saturday, a small fishing town on the atlantic side, we were fortunate to hear the afternoon call to prayer to the mosque, and hundreds of people flocked to the mosque as we sipped our moroccan tea.

we had very good experiences with the people, and were fortunate to have met many helpful people that spoke to us in both english and spanish. the most impactful cultural difference for angela and i was that, as women, we would not have been able to travel freely with peace of mind. we were very thankful to have kurt along with us, and all three of us were very careful, always returning to the hotel soon after dark. there were never many women out after dark, and those that were we had been told were "women of the night," as no decent muslim woman would be seen in the street at night. as we passed the tea rooms, there were often forty or fifty middle-aged men watching soccer, an environment that none of us had a desire to enter. even during the day, all women were accompanied by other women or by their husbands, and the sunday morning soccer game we witnessed on the beach included a total of zero young women. i left morocco grateful that i live in a country in which i am free to live independent of other people and free to go where i wish.

on sunday we made the journey back to sevilla, tired and deservedly feeling, hardly believing it was true, as if we had crossed continents. we have many fond memories of morocco, a country in which pizza hut with a sign in arabic exists beside a kebab stand, a cathedral stands next to a mosque, veiled women walk in high heels, baroque architecture adorns the shopping center beside islamic-style arches, and the mixture of old and new, traditional and modern, make it what it is. we witnessed that culture can change vastly within a mere 9-mile boat ride.