This is gonna end up being pretty relevant to tomorrow’s story, so I wanted to go ahead and give you this context!
Okay, so I loved Morocco so much. Truly. One of my favorite places I visited – in large part to the amazing driver I had for a fair part of the time, Mohammed, who was so very hospitable, and just the nicest man.
So, I don’t have a lot of complaints. BUT, the one thing I feel like I have to address, just because it will become pretty relevant in a future story in Morocco is that the catcalling was out of control – and I mean out of CONTROL.
Like, if you say no, or ask someone to please leave you alone, they just keep following you and trying to talk to you. Not one single man every laid his hand on me, but they would not stop following.
And catcalling is really bad in America too, and absolutely people in America have followed me too.
But in Morocco – MULTIPLE times, this was not a lone incident, or even one that happened just a few times – I would say it’s fairly regular actually, if you’re a woman walking by yourself, men would GET OUT OF CARS. Like, if a friend was driving, the car would pull over and the passenger would jump out to walk with you/follow you around.
Like, if you’re an American woman alone in Morocco, you will not be left alone if you are walking anywhere. For the most part, I actually didn’t walk anywhere alone, because of this.
But, I was in Tangier for 2-ish of the weeks by myself (because I had to hunker down and basically finish my thesis, and I had class, and Mohammed had other guests, and I didn’t have unlimited money haha). And as much as I was sort of ‘hunkering down,’ I didn’t want to never leave the hotel. After all, I was in Morocco!
But if you’re a woman in Morocco, as much as you possibly can, I would not walk by myself. Again, no one actually touched me. So, you’ll probably be safe in that sense. But it’s just disconcerting to have guys never giving you space.
This became such a problem that I may or may not have tried to pretend I was deaf one day, to see if that helped anything… aye aye aye aye aye aye, so buckle up for that adventure. but yeah… just settin’ the scene!