This is an anecdote from an unexpected detour of a few months to Morocco in early 1979. I had been en route to Greece where I thought I’d find work and settle for a while. Meanwhile, through a series of synchronicities, I was enjoying exotic Morocco. This is one of many experiences I have had over the years where it seemed that only an extraordinary intervention could help me out of a incapacitating predicament, & it did!

Essouira: I had camped at the campsite just outside of the town for a few weeks.  Late one afternoon, I was invited out to see the captain of a yacht who was looking for crew to help him sail to the Canary Islands.  I loved sailing and crewing on sailboats was one of the ways I thought I would travel, particularly across the Mediterranean.  

I only realized that my passport pouch, with all my money and travellers’ cheques, was missing as I was walking back along the beach to the campsite that night.  It had been very rough and stormy at sea and I thought that with the jostling of getting from the small dinghy onto the yacht and back, my safety pin attaching this vital pouch to the inside of my skirt may have opened.  Thankfully the three newly met friends who had accompanied me out to the boat from the campsite, offered to accompany me to the police station (and jail) to report the loss.  It was close to midnight on a Saturday night and the policemen on duty were drunk.  This was the only time I’d seen drunkenness in Morocco.  They told me that if I had no passport, I was illegally in their country and that it was their duty to lock me up for breaking the law.  Both of these drunken men started pulling me in behind their large iron barred door to jail me, at which point my three friends pulled me by the other arm to keep me out.  It was scary as the police seemed to be quite intent on arresting me.  Fortunately, after my friends and I had physically won the tug of war, they finally agreed to let me leave.  I also had to promise them that I would come back promptly on Monday morning to report to their chief of police.

I had spent a depressing Sunday considering all the possible options of ways for replacing the passport and what I would do without any money. My prospects looked grim.  I could not think of a good solution and felt powerless.  So, I put it up to the universe humbly asking for help, then tried to stop thinking about it. 

To my great relief, on the Monday morning, I found the officer in charge at the police station to be efficient and sympathetic.  He wrote down all my details and told me that they would look for my lost valuables.  An hour later, disheartened, I was strolling numbly through the souk, when a man in a great hooded jalabah approached me.  He stopped directly in front of me and I peered into the dark shadows of his hood to where his face must have been.  In broken French he asked if I was the Canadian who had lost the passport.  Puzzled, I said I was, and he told me to go to the police station:  It had been found and was waiting for me.  This seemed too good to be true and I almost ran all the way to the station.  On my way, three or four other men approached me with the same message.  It transpired that a friend of the police chief had found my pouch on the ground in the souk.  After having purchased my groceries the previous day, I must have repined it improperly onto my skirt and it simply fell down.  What a relief!  My passport, all my travellers’ cheques, and the cash up to the last coin was still in the pouch.  I offered the officer’s friend, who was also present, a reward but both he and the officer refused to take it.  In a paternal manner, they advised me to try to be more careful in future.  I was so grateful!  Throughout my time in their country I found the Moroccans to be exceedingly honest, generous, open and sincere.