I stood in the petrol station, sifting through the loose change, bus tickets and lint that occupied my jeans pockets. I was 21, a student and buying what I found most important at the time; cigarettes and Red Bull. Unbeknownst to me a man stood behind me, patiently waiting his turn, Red Bull as well, in hand.
"Your jeans. Your jeans, they are very nice."
Stunned from my purchase I turned around and there he stood. Head cocked slightly to one side, with milk chocolate skin and dreadlocks, beautiful dreadlocks flowing freely, all the way to his waist. It was true, I did have very nice jeans. I thanked the man and whilst I was half way out the door he shot his hand out and introduced himself.
"Ahmed. My name is Ahmed and it is very nice to meet you."
Ahmed was a musician, a natural linguist, a dreamer, a recent immigrant to Canada, and a world away from home. But, above all else, before anything, Ahmed was a Moroccan Berber, extremely proud of who he was and where he came from. He told me stories of home, of an endless sky, with thousands upon thousands of stars and one moon amongst the shadows of the dunes. The Sahara Desert. And in the morning, when the sun started to rise, warming up the sands, its rays dancing in the dunes, it was he said, "heaven on earth."
My dreams of the Saharan Desert and Arabian nights were not born from Ahmed's passion for his mother land. I perhaps, have Disney's Aladdin to blame for that, but instead reminded me and reignited the flame, of my own personal desire to walk amongst the dunes with an endless sky and thousands upon thousands of stars, to see, 'heaven on earth.'
And now, a dream has come true. Morocco here I come.
