Women Shimmer, Men Simmer - Azilal, Morocco, July 31, 2010

Travel log:
The colors are unmistakable. Every angle reveals a new and subtle shade.
The dresses and headscarves the women wear shine in the sun. Sequins light up the colors, orange, purple, blues and greens against imposing backdrops of red-backed or white-capped mountains and lush green fields dotted with dancing red poppies. The cities are painted pale pinks and yellows. The hillsides seems to ebb and flow as sheep and goat herds graze peacefully.
Even more striking are the faces that look back at the foreigner, of "Aromi" (the usually derogatory word derived from Roman.
In this land where so many people have either visited or conquered, the skin-tones run the range. African influence makes some Moroccans as dark as any people on Earth, some have the more Middle-Eastern look. Many, especially in the isolated mountain-side towns, are quite pale with a ruddy redness and fixing grey eyes. Women's brunette hair, when it can be seen, glows burgundy in the sunshine.
For the men, the energy is more internalized. They frequently go with a glossy southern European look, but for the city-dwellers there is a nocturnal intensity simmering. The daytime is a more proper place for women and their colorful attire; but at night the women yield the streets and Morocco's smaller cities and towns brim with an energy trapped.
It is impossible to shake the feeling that something is about to happen; something wants to happen, but never does. Gangs of young men walk up and down the streets while old men sit at cafes watching and sipping tea in swirling clouds of smoke. There is laughter, the young men (and sometimes old men) shout or push each other, hang on each others' shoulders and hold each others hands.
For the unmarried men, the shame of dating leaves only the option of cozier relationships with their friends. Prostitution is an option which is usually thought of as less shameful than dating, but those intimate friendships are often not acknowledged at all.
The secrecy and desperation for more from life creates a mood as anxious as an unfinished sentence. To a Westerner who knew a different life, it seems that the answer to the unasked question could be just around the next corner, but so far, it has not been. The feeling is palpable and hangs in the air like a fog.
The same crowd that cruises the main strip of Azilal, in Europe or America, would be in search of women to chase down and chat up, but no respectable girl would be out at this hour, or be thought a prostitute.
In the West, the social scene is centered on bars or clubs, but that does not exist in Azilal. Even in the larger cities, clubs are often the domain of men and sex workers. There are precious few answers to the question of diversion here and so many of them seem to fall short of expectation.
Maybe that's what the young men look for when they walk up and down the sidewalks. Maybe that's what the old men talk about over their teapots and smoldering ashtrays.