Saharan Sands in Morocco

 

Sugar-packed mint tea coursed through my blood, and the light, quick pounding of Berber drums resounded throughout the tent. Travelers brushed aside the weariness setting upon them from a long day of camel riding through the Moroccan Saharan, and filled the colorful tent from edge to edge with their multi-language babbling.

A hand callused by desert sands grabbed my arm, and suddenly, the colors and voices of the Berber tent were spinning violently around me. “Dansez!” the shrouded face of a young man commanded as I clumsily began moving my bare feet. I quickly attempted to mirror his deft moves, lifting my knees and swaying my legs back and forth. My lack of rhythm was not conducive to the quick hops and jumps of the traditional Berber dance. I was beginning to resemble a scrambling chicken trying to avoid the chopping knife that would inevitably lead to me being served as a lovely tagine.

My eyes darted to my two friends sitting on the edge of the tent, laughing and taking pictures of my nimble maneuvers. I thought of dropping the man’s hands and running quickly to their sides. But, as I was spun in a circle, the glimmer of admiration in the smiles of dozens of tourists struck me.

With an extra enthusiastic kick and a sideways prance, I fully embraced my chicken-like status. I shook off my inhibitions, smiled and laughed. The tent full of strangers nodded at me encouragingly, recognizing my dauntlessness and cheered at my clumsy and spastic renovation of the traditional waltz. As I spun and hopped and kicked, my blood was suddenly coursing with more than just sugar-packed mint tea. It was coursing with liberation and courage. I was dancing hand-in-hand with freedom.

As the drums pounding faded and the boisterous laughs and squabbles turned to peaceful whispers, I found myself sitting with my friends under the brilliant stars of that Moroccan Sahara Desert, over a dinner of chicken tagine. We sat with the young dancing man, who unveiled to us the hardships of life in the North-African country. He spoke of his poor family who lived back in Marrakesh, of his life as a tour guide, and most poignantly, of his travels. In beautiful, accented French, he had spoken to us, in a low, serious voice, “I have traveled everywhere in the world.” Avid and curious travelers ourselves, we leaned in closer and pressed him to tell us how he had accomplished such a marvelous feat. “When I want to travel,” he said, “I close my eyes and point to a place on a globe. Wherever my finger lands, that is where I am. I go there in my mind.”

The young man taught me that night that capturing independence and freedom is as simple as pushing aside your inhibitions and allowing yourself to dance like a crazy chicken. But it is also more than that. Freedom is accessible no matter where you are, no matter what your limitations. Freedom is simply the ability to boldly swan dive into the depths of your own imagination, and use it to carry yourself to another land, where all restrictions, financial, physical, or mental, fade into nothing more than trivial specks of Saharan desert sand.

About the Author: Pamela Barry is a recent graduate who studied Romance languages and International Development. She loves to travel, write, read and run and just returned from a year of teaching and traveling in France.

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