It got worse when we got to the Medina, with its claustrophobic capillaries. The faux guides were awful. They’d latch onto you for half an hour or so, making you feel guilty if you cold shoulder them – “did you come to this country to not talk to the locals” or “what are you doing here? This is my place. Do you know my place better than me?” One especially persistent guy, a lanky, fresh-faced boy with closely cropped hair, focused on Mitya as we walked around the Casbah. He was jovial, claiming not to want any money, and just wanting to talk. However, that tore at Ivan’s patience, who roared back in French with “laissez-nous”. A heated argument took place. As Ivan hadn’t said a word to this guide, preferring to have an aloof distance between him and the local, this took everyone by surprise. Ivan was moseying around, keen on seeing the sights, smelling the smells, hearing the sounds, and didn’t care about Mitya’s new friend prior to this. But he unleashed, furious French flying, and the guide was bug-eyed in his surprise. I wanted to step in and say “he’s just talking, we’re not going to do anything he tells us”, but this was exciting to see. To see the emotions really spill over. And the guide was right. He had hit a sore point for me. Why was I here if I wasn’t going to talk to the locals? Am I to not trust anybody at all and assume everybody is out to grab a buck? Even if they are out to grab a buck, I can still talk to them. I never fully convinced myself.
Eventually, the faux guide stepped back. Mitya mouthed sorry and we walked off. He shouted at us, like an alcoholic, though if he could, it would have struck Ivan directly between the eyes, “I’m not the first, I won’t be the last. Go wash your trousers.” I wonder if he heard us guffaw at the epithets he unleashed – Ivan’s girlish giggle and Mitya’s more tempered chuckle ringing in the guide’s ears, but the statement was so ridiculous we rubbed our arrogance in his face. He turned and walked away, muttering to himself.
“He must know you don’t wash your clothes very often, was he telling you to wash them?”
“Did he notice the mud on the cuff of the pants?”
“Maybe he’s got this weird hygiene phobia thing going on.”
However, our barb-wired walls applied only to the locals – we soon met some Germans, whom we naturally assumed to be totally trustworthy, simply because they were “white”, and wouldn’t be after our money. People who I might have nothing to do with back in New Zealand become golden in the eyes of a cynical traveller. We were in a country that was exploited by “white” people, and we instinctively trusted them more.
