Morocco

1988 -- The most outstanding memory of this place was the guy that offered to buy me from my parents. I swear those guys have a thing for little blonde girls. Of course my parents said no—they were waiting for a higher bidder. Kidding.

They were a funny bunch; as a child I ran around playing with all the local children … swimming, games. For the most part they were nice. We went to Casablanca—how could we not? There, at the dock we were on, a family lived. Damien and I made friends with the children -- if you could call the teenager girl a child. For the most part she tolerated me, but the boy and my brother made fast friends. We have photos of them holding hands. The teenager was somewhat obsessed with my Barbies. At this time I was Barbie mad—yes, a lapse in judgement, brainwashed by the hype and the fact that every other girl of my age had one. Back to the point, the girl always tried to make off with my dolls, and did take several of the pieces of doll-clothing I had made. I was pretty peeved at that, considering that they were my favourite doll-clothes.

We must have had been in Casablanca during a festival time or something, for they had a goat that they skinned and then cooked and ate. I watched them skin some of it, despite being told by my parents not to. I thought that I'd be too ill to eat any of it later on, but surprised myself by eating pieces of fat-wrapped something-or-others that came from the animal. Enjoyed it, too.

When we were going down the coast, apparently we were too close to Rabat, for the naval forces came out—two ships!—to tell us we had one hour to be out of a certain area otherwise steps would be taken. They then escorted us away. They must have been worried we were going to bomb their capital or something.