A Moroccan Childhood by Margot BOUCHET

For my project in The Czech Republic, I had to chose an old person to interview him or her about a period of his or her life. So, I chose my grandma because she has had a really interesting life.

She told me about a period of seven years from the year 1947 when she he was living in Morocco.

“It was in 1947, I came to arrive from Madagascar. There I was in a convent school, the rules were very strict. We didn’t have freedom. The school in Morocco was very different than my previous one. The life at my new school was very free, with a lot of cultural diversities; there were Spanish, German, French, etc. I was like a shock for me.

Life was nice; with my family we did so many things during the week end, we went cycling, to the swimming pool, visited large cities (compared to the country where we lived) like Marrakech. I discovered parties where we went with my friends. There we used to dance, sometimes there were dance competitions. It was great fun but not like the parties you go to, we drank only orange juice, teenagers didn’t smoke like the young people do today. The next day, I went skiing. I often got sun burnt because the sun was so hot. The city where I lived, allowed me to be independent. I remember, going skiing, we were in a “doge”, it’s kind of a big jeep with only a white cover, and an iron seat. We were cold, so we sang to warm our selves. Skiing was very different than today, we went up on foot, and to ski down we had just two bends, maybe three at best!

However, sometimes it was difficult to live there. There was the Algerian War. My dad was a soldier, and he told some horrible stories. For example, he had a mission to go to the countryside, to bring back families who were burnt alive. He found a lot of families who were tortured… At school, the Arab population, were so mean with foreigners, and particularly with the Spanish. Moreover, they were the first to leave the country. I remember the Spanish city, everything was closed because of their fear. I lived far from school, and once a man followed me, and when I turned around, I slapped him and gave him a kick, and I ran as fast as I could. When I was young, I loved to go to the theatre. I used to go alone, then dad chose to accompany me, and after he told me that we shouldn’t go anymore because it was too dangerous. My parents decided to send back my brother to Paris my uncle’s home and me to Great Britain for our security. One year after, I returned to Morocco, and once I received threats, so when I went to my job (as a desk clerk in a hotel). I was in a big army car. With my mother, we liked to go to the market, but we had to be careful, and look around us, at baskets we saw because the Arabs used to put bombs in them. One summer, we went on holiday, to a center run by the army, close to the sea. I was with four of my friends, on the balcony, having a great time, and we heard a shot and the bullet passed, between my best friend’s head and mine. I was terrified!

So, we had to leave Morocco, that’s was better for us despite all the great moments we had spent living there.”