Long Don's Leiden Lowdown: A postcard from Mirleft

Hello everybody;
Thanks for your well wishes and goodbye messages from Leiden.

From the moment I landed at Agadir airport yesterday and stepped foot in Africa for the first time, one thing has just led to another; and now I am sitting in the centre courtyard (open to the night-sky) of a Moroccan-style house in small town Mirleft; belonging to some local hippies - Larcen (the older hippie) and Larcen (the younger surfie). There is the sound of Muslim calls to prayer in the distance and the dim light bulb lights up the colourful wall paintings and desert pot plants decorating the square courtyard. I speak French with the random visitors who come and go looking for Larcen. In these two days, I have also undone four months of European sunlessness.

I have just had my first shower (after more than 24 hours in the dusty and hot north African climate); after an afternoon of surfing in perfect windless conditions at Mirleft's Big Beach with some friendly Moroccan youths and my surfing host Larcen, under the watch of an old colonial French castle on the hill overlooking all of Mirleft.

A Moroccan cafe au lait: more like milk with a dash of coffee.

The Imazighen flag of the Berber peoples.

These youths also happened to be involved in an art project on the side of the cliffside stairs of Big Beach, painting a stylised map of the world with two Californians involved in a youth lifesaver aid scheme, training young Moroccan lifesavers. I am proud to say that I helped to fix and make accurate the chalk sketches, especially of Australia and Vietnam's coastline, off by heart, just before they were immortalised in yellow paint.

The surf was fueled by a lunch of Moroccan tajine - yes! real authentic Moroccan tajine - with Larcen, Larcen and a German. I was told that it contained cat meat. While the meat was indeed unfamiliar and undecipherable, the laughter between my companions made it hard to tell if it really was cat as they said. A thin emaciated cat with a limp eyeballed me as I ate.

Before lunch, we had picked up the boards and wetsuit from Larcen's beachside cave tucked into the cliffs of a nearby beach. It was a makeshift ramshackle cave that Larcen told me was made by his father.

The old colonial French castle on the hill was a short uphill walk from Larcen's house, easier than expected, even in the midday sun. At the top, just before the entrance to the rundown castle was a modern day French luxury resort 'Les 3 Chameaux': so now the neo-colonial French tourists can hole themselves in just adjacent to where their miltaristic forbears did. The castle was built to protect the French-ruled Mirleft town from the nearby Spanish colonisers who had also built a castle nearby, since destroyed.

At the start of the day I saw Mirleft properly for the first time as I had a simple Moroccan breakfast on main street with surfer Larcen just before he left for some morning errands, of bread and olive oil and a peanut butter sauce that tasted so much like peanut butter I should just call it peanut butter.

French colonial building for direct rule.

Moroccan breakfast!

Late last night I arrived in Mirleft from Agadir in a old vintage car that should not have still been running. Larcen the elder later told me it has been his for 30 years and is called the Scorpion of Morocco, explaining 'scorpion' with a little scorpion-like shuffling dance. I was packed into this miniature toy of a car with Larcen, another brother, and the two Germans Olaf and Andreas. There was an absurd moment when these four middle-men packed into this tiny toy car tried to find and hunt down a rabbit on the highway.

Olaf on the left, dressed perfectly for the part of explorer/mentor in his beard, khaki colours and spectacles strap. In a movie of my trip, he should be played by Michael Caine.

Yes, even in Morocco I could not escape ze Germans! The elder Larcen spoke German fluently with his German friends Andreas and Olaf, with whom I had Moroccan whisky (simply delicious tea with mint and sugar) and Moroccan cafe au lait (or rather milk with a tiny bit of coffee) at the local French 'Cafe Dubois'.

I was introduced to all these people and opportunities by Nourdine, my couchsurfing host who sadly could not join me to Mirleft as he had to revise for an upcoming exam, but who picked me up from the airport, welcomed me into his Agadir home and family Larcen, Larcen and the other brother.