love and hate relationship – part deux

I guess you all know of my only one real relationship over the past year (until last June). It was with Morocco. It was love and hate at the same time. Sometimes it was only the latter or sometimes only the former – sometimes both at the same day. Usually hate in the morning and love in the evening and for sure at night. I could really feel the relationship because of those strong and extreme feelings. I would curse the Kingdom for the way certain things worked (or rather did not work whatsoever) there. I would praise it for the people I met, the conversations I had or the parties I went to. Or for the beautiful views, the avenues, the weather, the cheap cabs etc

Unfortunately, I do not belong to the kind of people who normally can appreciate what they have got at the certain moment. Although not always, I could do that in Morocco (probably more often than anywhere else where I had lived). Even after 12 months of my stay there, I could not sometimes believe that I was in that country. I would walk down the avenue of Mohammed V and could not understand how come I am really inhabitant of Rabat. Or when enjoying my time on the rooftops of the Kasbah des Oudayas, in le Grand Comptoir, Rick’s Café or le Pietri – life was like a glamorous Hollywood movie and I was aware of that at those certain moments.

That is all gone for the moment. It’s part of my memories, this blog or my friends with whom I am luckily in touch and whom I will eventually see within next months.

What is happening right now? I am in Belgium. There were a lot of fears within my last days in Poland right before heading for this experience (as it was in Morocco’s case). But there was no excitement upon arrival – or during the first days. It was not the same anymore. The first season is not as exciting as the one from the Moroccan TV series.

I have no extreme feelings about this country – no love, no hate. I am ok with being here – but what kind of feeling is this? Is it any? You don’t really live when you don’t feel anything. I don’t feel really great here. I don’t feel depressed and I don’t feel extremely happy. There are great places and I have some cool people – so why isn’t it the same or at least a similar thing anymore? There are thousands of expats here – way more than in the Kingdom’s capital. As I have noticed these expats are not the same here as there. As my Polish work mate here said people had come to Brussels mostly to make money. Not in all the cases for sure but still it’s the majority. And the people whom I met in Morocco were mostly for the change in the society, for their own self-development or simply to undergo an adventure.

I guess now that I will find more soul mates in complicated and difficult countries like Morocco than in countries where life is easier for ordinary people like in Belgium.

You may now be sure that I won’t stay here for too long. Unless the life becomes a movie again. Unless I move to a more exciting season. I do believe it will happen eventually. As my friend Stephanie says we always attract the same kind of people wherever we are or wherever we go. I do believe that there is my “species” somewhere here. I do believe that we have our own caves. I do believe that we all emit the same waves and signals so that we can find each other eventually. I didn’t happen right away in Morocco. So I’ve got to wait here.

If you want to understand my feelings better watch this part of an unquestionable masterpiece of art - the movie "The Hours". Morocco is for me what London is for her whereas Richmond is for her what anything else is for me... We are luckily for me not as similar - not to such huge extent...



"This is my right, this is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anaesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription, thereby she defines her humanity. I wish for your sake I could be happy in this quietness..." - V. Woolf

"you cannot find peace by avoiding life" - V. Woolf