3) The Bad Eye šļø
September 8 2025 - Diary Entry #3
The orange ball of the sinking sun is just visible at the far end of the road along which we are driving. It will disappear at any moment behind the horizon and cease blinding us, and then night will descend, rapidly, and we will be left alone with the dark. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that Sebuya, the driver of the Toyota, is growing anxious. In Africa, drivers avoid traveling at nightādarkness unnerves them. They are so afraid of it that they may flatly refuse to drive after sunset. I have observed them at times when they were nevertheless compelled to do so. Instead of keeping their eyes focused straight ahead, they begin to peer apprehensively to the sides. Their features grow tense and sharp. Beads of sweat appears on their brows. They fidget in their seats, and slide down behind the steering wheel as if someone were shooting at the car. Despite the fact that the roads are rough, full of potholes, washouts, and ruts, instead of slowing down, they accelerate, tearing carelessly along, anything just to reach a place where there are people, where one can hear the hum of human voices and where the lights are shining. ā¦
They are afraid of something, grappling with a demon that I do not see and do not understand. For me, this night has well-defined and straightforward characteristics: it is dark, almost black, hot, windless, and, if we stop and Sebuya turns off the engine, full of silence. But according to Sebuya, I know nothing of darkness. In particular, I do not know that day and night are two distinct realities, two separate worlds. In daytime, man can cope somehow with his environment, can exist and endure, even live peacefully; the night, however, renders him defenceless, easy prey to his enemies, and conceals forces with nefarious designs upon his life. That is why fear, which during the day slumbers in a manās heart, secretive and subdued, is transformed at night into an overpowering fright, a haunting, tormenting nightmare. How important it is at that time to be in a group! The presence of others brings relief, soothes the nerves, lessens the tension.
ā The Shadow of the Sun (1998), Ryszard KapuÅciÅski
The sun shone bright and early into our room. Various birds were chirping when we woke up. My head was hurting a bit and my throat was still sore. We got ready for the day then had breakfast on the backyard patio. Mon Amour & Tati Ninsa were talking about inheritance and her children. She has three: the painter, then a real estate son, and a daughter with mental health issues. Nobody knows exactly what, but my best guess is undiagnosed bipolar disorder or something in the cluster B personality disorders from the sound of things. Mental health isnāt exactly a thing in Morocco. Or at least not with the old school generation. Maybe it is with Gen Z here because theyāre incessantly on social media like their Western generation counterparts. For better or for worse. Mostly for worse.
Eating is always a large production in Morocco. Multiple dishes get laid out to be consumed but not in their entirety. There is always too much food on the table for all the mouths to eat it. The greater the number of people, the more food. A type of Menoās Dichotomy Paradox but for nourishment. It would be impossible to finish it all. Excess is part of the hospitality.
A turtle slowly crosses the lawn. It reminds me that time isnāt as important here as it is back āhomeā. In apostrophes because now here is my home. Here being with Mon Amour. Here being Morocco. Here being more specifically The Farm, but we havenāt made it there just yet. The turtle elegantly makes its way across the entire garden, slowly but surely. I wonder where it is going, what it is thinking, and how about its breakfast too?
After eating then packing up again, we get confirmation that the meeting is on. To Kenitra we shall go. Round Deux. Second timeās a charm? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
We say our goodbyes and leave to get some gasoline since the tank was almost empty. Driving away from the gas station, Google Maps navigation gives us about a 50 minute estimate. Not too shabby.
Mon Amour is driving. It was her Dadās car. He passed away a year and a half ago. Pancreatic cancer. Devastating. Itās been a living nightmare ever since. The Farm heād spent his lifeās work on for the past 50 years went into disarray. As some old African saying goes (Iām probably butchering it): When vultures surround you, try not to die. Or the Moroccan variant: When the cow falls, they bring out the knives. The original Biblical version being: Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. [Matthew 24:28 / Luke 17:37]
As we are signalling and waiting to take a left turn to get onto the highway, Mon Amour is looking in her rear view mirror and says out loud: āHuh. What. Are you gonna stoāā
BOOM.
We are hit from behind. My hat flies off my head and my body lurches forward. Luckily we were both wearing seatbelts. She is obviously in shock and I snapped into action, having been in two car accidents before. āAre you ok? Are you hurt?ā We both pat ourselves down and determine we have no immediate injuries. āWeāre ok. Alright. Park the car over there.ā I point to the side of the road where I see some cars parked. Seemed a safe place to temporarily get out of any incoming traffic on this busy intersection. Still in a state of shock, she managed to put the car into gear and park it safely out of harms way.
We would come to find out that the car behind us was driven by a police officer of sorts, one that works outside the major cities. They have a specific designation that I canāt recall and didnāt quite understand at the time. Essentially not a city cop but a rural one. Like the RCMP in Canada. He immediately admitted full fault when we all got out of our respective bashed up vehicles. The fact that he was hurtling down the road over the speed limit, didnāt see us signalling, and simply didnāt go into the righthand lane to overtake us was baffling. Moroccan driving is bad, yes this is a fact. Lots of swerving and overtaking without signalling ā just general Africa style driving. More laissez-faire. But generally they are quite good at their own version of driving. They have their own shared road code that everyone seems to abide by. Lots of headlight flash signalling and hand waving. But this crash was out of the ordinary. And the fact that he didnāt have his driverās license on him was unusual and unexpected too.
Fortunately, a city police officer happened to be delegating traffic on the intersection behind us and saw the crash happen. As he came over to check on us to see if we were alright, he made it clear that we were not at all at fault and it was the other guyās fault entirely. Good. I didnāt exactly plan on getting into a car crash on day two in Morocco, but knowing we were 100% innocent was comforting. At least there was an eye witness who happened to be a reasonable police officer.
The entire front righthand side of his vehicle was crushed. Absolutely mangled. Our back lefthand side was crunched into. Not terrible but the bumper will need to be replaced. He was clearly apologetic and a bit nervous after scouring his wallet and vehicle for his driverās license, only to not find it. The insurance police inspectors were called and surprisingly showed up a mere 15 minutes later. They leisurely stepped out of their police vehicle. A short balding portly man with hideous teeth wearing a pink shirt and his badge around his neck on a lanyard. And a tall unassuming man wearing a black polo. I assumed they were partners but what the hell do I know. All the conversation was in French and Darija. I had to get Mon Amourās attention every now and then in order to try and determine if this was all a big ruse and in fact Moroccan police and insurance companies are corrupt to the core. Thankfully this was not the case though. Maybe my prejudice was to assume the worst. Trusting internal governmental bureaucratic systems isnāt exactly my forte, let alone in a foreign country where I donāt speak the two official languages.
The whole scenario was utterly bizarre, like a skit or scene from an international Oscar award winning foreign film. Lots of talking. Plenty of arm waving. Even a hug occurred between the driver guy and the balding portly police inspector at the end of the whole ordeal. Apparently because the driver who crashed into us is a rural police officer, they have some shared camaraderie. Mon Amour told me afterwards when we drove away that they let him off easy since he was speeding, didnāt have his license, and surely would have got into major trouble had the police officers reported him to his department for reckless driving. They could have had him sent to jail. I think that explains the nervous joviality that occurred at the end when we all shook hands and parted ways.
The entire process took a couple of hours. Time wasnāt really important at all. Once the police officers did their review and wrote up their report, we all waited for the insurance guys to arrive. Which they eventually did half an hour later on separate mopeds. One of them wearing a āManhattan Baseballā black and white jacket with greased back hair, the other one with a man-bun and a Louis Vuitton bag (a knock off Iām sure) slung over his shoulder and AirPods in one ear. These were the two fine gentlemen who would make sure the insurance report would be filed and weād be able to claim against his insurance, and he would be able to claim his car as a write-off. The total repairs on his car would surely cost more than the value of it. At least thatās my novice gut instinct about the situation.
The surreality of the situation kept on piling up. On three occasions a man driving by on the other side of the road would shout and wave at one of them. Saying hi I assumed. It was also a Monday afternoon, so we had peak afternoon traffic as kids had just got out of school and were being dropped off by buses and picked up by their parents. As they walked by his parked wreckage of a car, their faces lit up. The damage was significant so definitely something cool to look at and take a picture of.
Writing up the insurance papers, the baseball greased back hair man placed all the licences and insurance forms in the windscreen wiper so they wouldnāt blow away, as he jotted things down while leaning on the bonnet of our car. Proper protocol is a tad lacking it seems.
I didnāt quite understand or believe that these two casually dressed men were insurance workers and the ones that would be filing the claim. Iām not sure how it all works here. But Mon Amour told me to relax and said that she just got off the phone with one of the head insurance guys in the country telling him what happened. Connections help.
Our car will need to be fixed but it was drivable. But by the time we finally wrapped things up and left, it was late afternoon. We calculated the amount of time it would take to get to The Farm and decided to make the trip. Weād only be driving in about 30-40 minutes after the sun goes down. In my mind: that is cutting it very close and not ideal. In her mind: no big deal.
We shook hands, got a sincere apology from the man that careened into us. I tried to tell him itās ok, since we are all alive. I think he understood. I hope so.
We go back to the gas station we had just visited a few hours before to grab some water and something to eat. All this drama and waiting in the sun had made me thirsty. Not particularly hungry but due to time restraints we werenāt going to have dinner on the road so we might as well get something to keep us going.
Water. Coffee. Protein bar. Gum. Off we went.
We had to take the same exit where we crashed. It was comical in a way. āItās like exposure therapy,ā I said. The fact that we had potentially almost died there only a mere few hours ago and we were passing that same intersection again felt ridiculous.
To keep the day humming along at the same level of surrealism, about an hour and a half into the journey we got stopped by the cops. Mon Amour was going something like 53 in a 40 zone. There are lots of these police speeding stoppages on major rural roads. I remember them from my trip back in May. She told them that we had an accident and we need to make it to our destination on time. This helped quicken the process of them giving a ticket and her paying the fine there and then. Not a lot of money but the cop agreed to skipping the paperwork.
Off we went again. The sun was slowly escaping us. My nervousness was starting to creep up. When my family lived in Kenya from 2001ā2005, a rule my parents strictly abided by was: do not drive at night. And even better: do not drive after the sun goes down. Sunlight is your guide, your illumination, your ally. Darkness is the abyss, the void, the unpredictable. Anything and everything can happen at night. And when youāre driving on a country road with twists and turns and potholes and no street lights: youāre in trouble.
It was nighttime now, the darkness enveloped us. We were tired but only about 15 minutes or so from The Farm. I could see on my passenger side that the road was jagged and crumbling, chunks of the tarmac had been eroded away either from overuse or lack of maintenance or both. I saw a big pothole up ahead that I thought Mon Amour had mentally noted and was going to drive aroundā¦
BAM.
She didnāt see it. Our back right tire slammed into the pothole. The whole car jolted and I yelled obscenities for a brief moment. āDidnāt you see the pothole?! It was huge!ā
Once I calmed down, we started to hear a hissing noise. Not good. We slowed down a bit but the noise was persistent. Then eventually: it stopped. Now that familiar rubber-on-the-road noise started. Not good at all.
We had clearly punctured the tire. So close to home and yet so far. Another obstacle to overcome. I told Mon Amour that we have to stop and inspect it to see whatās going on. As fate would have it, we were approaching a gas station and were now in her territory. I didnāt know what this meant at the time but now it is clearer to me: everyone knows her because of her father, she has built up a respectable reputation in the last year here, we would be safe from harm and people would help us.
Alas, upon parking and getting out of the vehicle: indeed the tire was as flat as a pancake. Or more accurately: as flat as a mlewi (Moroccan style tasty flat bread/pancake).
Immediately some men came over to assess the situation and started to undo the spare tire from underneath the back of the car, raised the car up on a jack, and began to unwind the tire nuts. I tried to assist in order to prove my manhood but no-one would let me. Instead I figured my contribution was relegated to utilizing my phone flashlight, which ended up being rather necessary.
All in all, it was fixed within twenty minutes or so and we were off on our way to The Farm. The popped tire was placed into the trunk, with a solid dent on the rim which will have to get fixed. Potholes are no fun.
Arriving at the intersection of Zwayed (the village), my emotions were a mixed bag: elated that weād arrived in one piece, exhausted from jet-lag & the long tumultuous day, and sentimental at the thought that we were finally āhomeā. As the big gate cranked open and we drove in, my heart swelled up and my eyes watered. It was only four months or thereabouts since I had left this place, but it had never left me. Stepping out of the car and putting my feet on the soil, I had an overwhelming feeling of being welcomed and accepted. Not only by the land, the views, the sounds, and the smells, but also by the beaming faces and handshakes and hugs I received. Mustafa. SaĆ®da. Abdeslam. Khawkhaw. They were all there waiting for us to arrive. Holding back tears, I asked Mon Amour to translate that I missed them all this summer and Iām glad to be back. Twahachtek. (I missed you.)
On this particular day The Bad Eye (al-Źæayn) was out to get us, to try and dampen our spirits, to sow seeds of doubt and distrust. The concept is familiar to everyone here and integrated into their everyday metaphysics and cognitive framework. Part pre-Islamic folklore and part Islamic religiosity: it is the belief that envy or malice in someoneās gaze can cause harm ā illness, bad luck, loss of wealth, accidents. The Sauron of Morocco. Most cultures around the world have some variant of it though. The idea makes sense in a way that I had not quite ever experienced before until today. The expression āWhen it rains it poursā doesnāt quite work here, considering the utter lack of precipitation. On a day like today, perseverance is key and accepting that despite oneās apparent misfortune, you are fortunate enough to: a) live another day, b) gain in spirit & character building, and c) have a great story. The Bad Eye strikes of its own accord, trying to subdue its victims into submission. It tried hard today but didnāt succeed.
Lastly, the naming structure of The Morocco Diaries needed to be more intriguing than mere diary entry dates, hence the title change ā which Iāll be continuing moving forward.
