In the Company of Men: Travels in North Africa

When I wrote this, I was in a minibus traveling from Libya to Egypt.  With me in the bus were eight other men, no women.

It's been like this in many places as I have been in northern Africa:  I am usually alone or among men.  At cafes and restaurants, I still do a double-take sometimes:  Whether there are 20 people in a small cafe or over 100 in a large tea garden, the patrons are uniformally men.  Men drive taxis and buses, they run shops and stalls in souqs, they are policemen and soldiers, and they run hotels and other parts of the tourism industry.  There are exceptions to be sure, but not many, at least not in my experience.

For people who live here, the experience is different.  Men go home to their wives and daughters, they visit their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, and they undoubtedly have female friends or at least acquaintances (or, anyhow, their wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers do).  But I lack those family ties here, so my daily life has much less gender diversity.

It's no surprise that my experience here contrasts with the United States, but it also differs dramatically from my travels across southern Africa.  A Zambian woman in her 50s orchestrated my solo border crossing into the Congo; she made me a delicious chicken dinner at the restaurant she owned, called a friend to help me at the border crossing, and then walked me through an intimidating minibus station, found me the right bus, and negotiated a fair price on my behalf.  My best friend in the Congo was a female teenager who showed me around Lubumbashi and tolerated my pitiful French.  Four women in their 20s intervened on my behalf at a concert in Botswana when some young men began hassling me.  And when I asked a female college student for directions in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, she grabbed my hand and walked me all the way to my destination, then invited me to her home to meet her mother and two sisters.  In every country I visited in southern Africa, countless little girls (and boys) came up to me and say hello or offer a smile.

My experience in North Africa has been different.  In southern Morocco, I recall walking alone in a small town and noticing two or three women sitting near the sidewalk up ahead.  One of them looked at me for a split second and then moved her veil (at that point covering only her hair) to cover her entire face, all but her eyes, and then looked away.  The same thing has happened several times since then.  I am sure these gestures aren't hostile, but they remain prominent in my mind.  My other gender-related memory is from Libya.  I recall going into an ice cream store, buying a scoop of ice cream, and sitting down at one of the tables in the back to enjoy it.  I noticed two or three women in the dining area, but didn't think much of it.  A moment later, the store owner (a man) came over and told me I had to leave; the dining area was for women only.

The men in North Africa have been incredibly kind, generous and hospitable.  I don't think I've encountered such warmth from strangers anywhere else in the world.  I get phone numbers, food and drinks, and invitations to visit restaurants, shops, and homes hundreds of kilometers away.  And I get the small stuff too -- a hello, a smile, a handshake.  But I still miss the full spectrum of humanity.

(NOTE:  I wrote this before I arrived in Cairo, Egypt, where it's a bit different -- but that's another story.)