Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [80]
“He-lllll-oooo, Cash.”
Who would believe there could possibly be a malevolent way of pronouncing those two simple words?
“Don't worry,” he sighs in a thickly accented tone, far from happy, “I'll see to it.”
We have more assistants working with us today than on any show so far. It's Willy's doing. As part of some complicated back-scratching exercise, he's invited along a posse of thuggish friends—four big, hefty guys, at least three and possibly all four of whom are completely unnecessary—and allotted them roles in the production. Spoiled for choice, we have one carry Kevin's tripod and camera bag; another walks behind the first guy, making sure he doesn't drop anything; the third is there to drive the extra vehicle we now need because we have too many crew members; and the fourth has been given the all-important task of smoking continuously while the rest of us work. If you ask me, we should put our communal foot down and dismiss three of these hangers-on outright, get it over with. But… well, things are never that easy with Willy, I discover. Somewhere along the line, he's done deals and made promises he can't renege on. Additionally, he's already annoyed about the hotel problem; one more complaint at this stage could push him right over the edge.
Our first location for this episode, the place where I'm supposed to be all washed up with no clue where I am, is in the Ourika Valley, an hour's drive south from Marrakech in the glorious High Atlas Mountains, which slice through this country west to east.
Although Morocco is close to Europe (extremely close: Spain's about seven miles away, across the Strait of Gibraltar; with the wind at your back you could probably jump it), it has thus far managed to withstand most major European influences and stay true to its Middle Eastern roots. Which seems laudable, even miraculous, especially when you learn that it's not in the Middle East at all, it's in North Africa.
In the early days, this region, known as the Maghreb, was populated mainly by Berbers: hardy, nomadic shepherd types (the word “barbarian” comes from them) who'd drifted this way from Egypt to set up small tribal encampments across the coastal plain and into the hills, where, for many years, they continued to live their quiet, pastoral, barbaric existence uninterrupted.
Unfortunately, this is History we're talking about. And in History nobody gets to live a quiet, pastoral existence forever. That's just not how things go. As we've learned, there's always some brutal dictator or scheming madman and his army lying in wait, ready to strip the shirts from the backs of others. And that's what happened here too.
Eventually, the skies darkened and a bunch of other cultures came bulldozing through the Maghreb. The Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans—all tried their hand at overthrowing the local tribespeople, taking their land and crushing them into lifelong servitude. What they didn't count on was the iron will and defiance of these humble peasant farmers, forged over centuries of hardship. Berbers: they're a tough, feisty bunch, man. They know how to put up a fight. They're also surprisingly choosy about who enslaves them. Instead of caving at the first sign of foreign aggression, the way the Lesbians usually did, for example, they stood their ground for years, battling relentlessly to maintain their indigenous culture and independence.
That is, until the seventh century A.D., when an enterprising Arab army from the Seven Large Patches of Sand to the east swept into the Maghreb, not to conquer it, but with the sole aim of opening up trade routes across the desert. Rather than launch a hostile takeover bid, the Arabs experimented with a different approach altogether: bribery. They bribed the Berbers with gifts of ivory and gold. They also introduced them to a fabulous new religion called Islam that came with all kinds of bells and whistles, both for this life and the next, and which, they said, had everyone captivated back home.
Well, how could the peasant farmers resist?