I have a fascinating
story to tell you. So I have three friends who have North-African origins. Elias
comes from Algeria, Saad was born and raised in Morocco and Ferjani is from
Tunisia. They suggested me to organise a road trip with them and visit these
countries. The point of the road trip is for me to understand more of the
cultures that are so different from ours but at the same time equal. First we
passed through France and Spain because we travelled by car and we also wanted
to enjoy the beautiful beaches and views. When we arrived in Tanger (Morocco)
we directly hit the road to Agadir. There we visited Saads family and ate
tagine (its a Berber dish that is named after the earthenware pot in which it is cooked, it consist of different
vegetables and meat).We ate it with our fingers and Im not really used to
that. It was delicious and kind of healthy because there were a lot of vegetables
in it. It was really salty but I guess its normal to them. Just like most of
Arabic countries, the main religion is the Islam. Every day I could hear the
prayer call, it was beautiful to hear it and seeing all the men there go to the
mosque was amazing. I joined my friends to the mosque and watched them pray,
which seemed a bit weird to me. There was no sound, only the imam could say
things out loud. We spent the next day in the mountains and camped there, I
really enjoyed the amazing view we had on Agadir by night. In Morocco its
usually hot, but at night its very different. I was freezing. The morning
after we went to a hotel and asked if we could shower there, they said yes,
that was very kind of them. After that we said goodbye to Saads family and we
went back on the road.
We were driving to Algeria, Elias country. Elias doesnt have family
there anymore, but he knows the country: every year he goes there with his
father. Algeria is a big independent country and we really wanted to know more
of it, so we visited every city we could. There arent many differences between
Morocco and Algeria, the thing that really got me exited for Algeria was its
past. Algeria and its people had known a lot of hard times, like the civil wars
and the generals who ruled the country in the early 60s. Elias didnt like it
when we talked about those things so we kept quiet.
After 5 days of traveling around in Algeria we arrived in Sousse, Tunisia.
It was awesome. First we went to a restraint and ate like beasts, Ferjani gave
us a special Tunisian sauce called Harissa. He didnt tell us it was very
spicy sauce and we ate the whole tube, it only took a few seconds until we
realized that our mouths were burning. It was like we put torches in our
mouths, when the pain was finally over we wanted to kick Ferjani but instead we
laughed so hard that we got kicked out of the restraint. Those are moments Ill
never forget. My favorite pain is the one I feel in my stomach when I laugh
with these guys. Later that night we went to the beach, there was a concert
organized by the city. There was Middle-Eastern music and we danced till we
couldnt anymore. After that we spent the rest of the night in a local bar and
drank a lot of tea. I saw this lovely girl there. I was looking at her all the
time and Ferjani saw it too. He had my bag and played the wingman for me, he
hooked me up and so I talked to her. Her name is Farah, she was so lovely. She
comes from the Netherlands and her parents are Tunisian, we spoke Dutch so it
wasnt a problem for me to start a conversation with her. The end of the road
trip approached and the time had come fore to go back home. My mother waited
for me to come home, when I arrived she was sitting in the kitchen with two
cups of coffee but I prepared green tea for myself. We talked for the rest of
the evening and told her everything we did, after that she went to sleep. I
stayed in the living, I was video chatting with my friends and were making
plans for another road trip. This time I was going to choose what we would do.
Before I went to sleep I called Farah because I wanted to keep up with her.
This was a journey to never forget, I hope you had as much fun reading my store
as me writing it for you. Thank you for your attention. Good night.
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