Leaving the Western World

We’d been driving all morning through the Anti-Atlas ranges. There was no actual destination; we were just going for a drive. Gilles was behind the wheel of the rental car. Picked up a couple of days prior in Marrakech, it was most certainly not insured for the unpaved dirt roads that we carefully thudded across. The air conditioner was on full blast, but it was fighting a losing battle against the relentless early summer heat of the Sahara. The CD player was broken, so we listened to the one cassette tape Gilles scrounged up on loop. I could feel the sweat rolling down in between my thighs as I fought off the touches of motion sickness compliments of the windy mountain roads. There was no escape from the oppressive heat, nor from the grainy repeat of Ravel’s Bolero, but it was perfect. I could have sat in that rented overheated sedan for days. The mountains were otherworldly. For the first time in my life, I’d left the western world. I couldn’t peel my eyes from the car window. I’d been to deserts before, but this time the desert scenery was dripping with magic.

We stopped for lunch in a small village. We were immediately welcomed by a young man in a red soccer jersey. He spoke a bit of French, enough to understand that we were after food. He took us to what appeared to be the only store in the village. Like every other building within sight, it was dusty pink. With the help of our new friend’s translation skills, we bought tuna and bread. I was satisfied enough with that, but Gilles had a fondness for eggs. He wanted an egg on his sandwich.

“Avez-vous des oefus?” he asked. Do you have eggs?

None of the men in the store knew what an “oeuf” was. Gilles tried to scrounge up the Arabic word for egg.

“Bay-dah?” he asked. Blank stares again. They did not understand his rudimentary Arabic. I found myself curious to know how to say “egg” in the local Berber language.

Gilles tried a third time. He motioned for everyone in the small shop to back up. He then folded his arms and started to flap them while crouching and stomping his feet. He clucked, and then held up the imaginary egg that he had “laid.” I briefly caught the flash of comprehension rush across our new friend’s face. He turned and bolted from the shop, reappearing a brief moment later with a megawatt smile and one perfect egg. He led us to a local café, where we made our sandwiches.

“Bon appétit, mes amis,” he said to us, before vanishing as quickly as he had appeared.

Bon appétit indeed.