I Am Very Great to Meet You Again

I don’t speak Arabic, and Mustafa speaks only a little French. Along with eight words of English.

“I am very great to meet you again,” he says, smiling, as we shake hands outside my hotel in downtown Rabat.

“I am very great as well,” I say.

Mustafa has been hired by my fixer, Merieme Addou, to drive for us today. We’re going to visit a poor village outside of the capital and there’s no way to get there by public transportation.

“Et votre famille?” he says, as we climb into his grey Renault truck.

“My family is well,” I say from the back seat. Mustafa is a little man, round around the belly, with sensitive eyes. His hair has grayed a bit since I first met him a year and a half ago, when he drove me around nearly half of this beautiful country. I pat him on the shoulder and he grabs my hand.

“Tom et Jerry,” he says in the rearview mirror, then starts cracking up. He must be 60 years old. Merieme, in her late twenties, fluent in three languages, a film producer and reporter herself for Germany’s Deutsche Welle, cracks up too.

She happens to be a cartoon fanatic. She grew up in an old house inside the Rabat Zoo. But both the house and the zoo are now gone. They were destroyed to make room for apartment blocks.

As I watch the two of them laughing, then speaking in Arabic, then laughing even harder, I’m reminded how damn lucky I am to have them on my team. Merieme has been able to arrange interviews for me with practically everyone except the King. And Mustafa, he proves his worth all day long.

We’re an hour outside Rabat, amidst the green fertile farms not far from the coast. Merieme has suggested one village that lacks many basic services such as electricity and drinking water. There, I’m hoping residents will tell what they’d like their government to do for them. But about two minutes down a potholed track, Mustafa suddenly pulls a U-turn.

“What’s up?” I ask Merieme. (More Arabic.)

“Mustafa has just remembered that they hate foreigners in this village.”

“Hate’s a strong word.”

“He says that they would chase you out if you went there. That they would stone you.”

“Bien fait, Mustafa” I say. Well done. Merci. Now it’s my turn to try some Arabic. “Shukran. Shukran febezz.”

More laughter from the front. “If you want to say thank you very much it’s shukran bezzef!” Merieme says, trying to control herself, “Not, febezz!”

“Okay, okay, bezzef. Jeez, you’re a tough crowd.”

We end up at an outdoor market deeper in the countryside. People are selling food, and clothes, and sheep. We sit and drink tea, and Mustafa gets up and comes back with some sort of fried dough balls, all strung on a long reed.

“You know this?” Merieme asks. “It’s what many Moroccans eat for breakfast.”

“No, but they’re good,” I say.

When we’re done there are a few doughnuty things left. Mustafa gets up and gives them to a poor man begging nearby. When he gets back to the table he says Tom et Jerry again.

“Tell him he needs to find a new nickname for me. Each trip he has to give me a new name.”

There is some consultation.

“Gerry… Karzai.” He says smiling. He’s not the first to compare my bald head, biggish nose and even bigger ears to those of Afghanistan’s president.

“Okay,” I say. “Shukran zebeff, Colonel Mustafa Gaddafi.”

“It’s bezzef!”

“Gaddafi!” Mustafa laughs. I may bear a passing resemblance to Karzai, but Mustafa could never ever be mistaken for the madman of Tripoli.

On the drive home I fall asleep while transcribing interviews on my laptop. When I wake up we’re back in Rabat. Merieme and I get out of the car to say goodbye.

“Merci,” I say. “Thanks for everything, Mustafa. My best to your family.”

“Gerry Karzai!” Mustafa laughs, shaking my hand and giving me two kisses. “May your family be well, inshallah,” he says. Then, “I will be very great, next time too.”

“I know that,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me.”