A Pilgrimage of Sorts

I recently read about a retired Chechen man who rode his bike to Mecca. The story, as I took it, seemed to illustrate a particularly curious way of fulfilling an already curious phenomenon - the pilgrimage. I'm not sure that I could define what constitutes a pilgrimage without resorting to obvious examples. Catholics go where there were saints; everyone goes where their prophet received or delivered the message. Unitarians, if they were to formalize such a thing - which would go against their religion - might go to Cambridge to worship at the Temple of Well-Educated Open-Mindedness.

Last week I went to Khouribga. Readers of this blog (i.e.: those burdened by filial obligation) might recall previous mention of the City of Phosphates from a description Al Akhawayn University's 2006 Ramadan soccer tournament. In fact, the actual Khouribgui soccer team, L'Olympique Club de Khouribga, is undefeated atop the Moroccan First Division, thanks to the well-considered financing it receives from L'Office Chérifienne des Phosphates.

My excuse for going to Khouribga came from the opportunity to meet with members of AFVIC, an NGO working with illegal immigrants deported from Italy, and not because of anything soccer- (or phosphate-)related. Since my 'field research' over five months had amounted to three cups of coffee in Beni Mellal and a couple of bus rides around Fes, it seemed fortuitous that my first opportunity to use an expensive digital voice recorder would be in a city that I had fetishized over months and even years for its nothingness.

It turns out that much of Khouribga lives in, depends on, or wishes to be in Italy, usually around Turin. The connection probably derives from the fact that sometime in the 80's Fiat management chose to follow the example of Renault and Volkswagen and recruit 'main d'oeuvre' from a specific region of Morocco. Khouribga and the surrounding area was, apparently, as yet unclaimed. Like colonial spheres of influence, however, this decision would have unforeseen consequences, as (EU) Schengen visa requirements could not cut the social ties already established between Khouribgui's in Italy and the community in Morocco and the now-illegal immigration that followed such ties.

In any case, I set out for Khouribga without much reliable information on it. Anyone to whom I mentioned my destination would invariably ask why I would want to go there. Some people fortify themselves by reading tea leaves, or palms or Tarot cards. I first believed that Khouribga would live up to my baseless expectations when, after arriving by train well after dark, I bought some peanuts. They came wrapped in an off-white, letter stock sheet of paper with the typewritten following:

Page 3

- ne pas donner à boire (augmente la débit circulatoire d'où augmente l'hémorragie)
- évacuation d'exrême urgence à l'hôpital

C - HEMORRAGIE EXTERIORISEES
1°) Saignement de nez: compression avec le doigt, de la narine qui saigne en appuyant su la cloison nasale. Si le saignement persiste voir le médecin.

2°) Vomissements et crachements de sang.
- mettre le malade en position horizontale
- tourné sur le côté, immobile
- pas de boisson
- appeler le médecin ou transport à l'hopital

3°) Autres hémorragies extériorisées:
- hémorragie rectale ) pas du ressort du secouriste
- hémorragie urinaire

Khouribga has the markings of a city conceived and developed under French colonialism. It's monument, as such, is a clock tower that resembles a large paper-weight hoisted in the air. It stands at the center of four, long, straight, wide boulevards. The neighborhood marked 'old medina' looks a lot like the others. And there is a far-reaching 'administrative district' literally on the other side of the tracks that evokes Levittown without any building code updates or sidewalk improvements since 1956. It is in this neighborhood where the Italian-financed, twice-vandalized AFVIC offices are located. People read whatever they want into silence, and after looking through the profiles of some of the Khouribgui's deported from Italy, I sensed the absent presence of immigration in Khouribga's flat, tree-lined stillness.

Khouribgui's tell relatives that Turin is fantastic, even if they're sharing a room with other grown men, working for low wages as a mason. Not unlike other 'belated travelers' I seek fulfillment in the authenticity of the non-authentic (Khouribga, peanuts, argyle sweaters). Just as religion is an irrefutable ideology to its believers, the pilgrimage is inevitably inspiring because it is imagined even as it is experienced. In other words, Khouribga did not disappoint.



Author's note:
(Though in reality undetermined, I may well have betrayed a potential future as a post-whatever cultural anthropologist with that second-to-last sentence)