Nightlife

            Me and some other students from the program had decided to spend a weekend in Tangier. After seeing the city and grabbing some dinner, we decided to try and find a nightclub and go out dancing. We got there around ten at night, and the place was completely empty. This is pretty normal; night life in Morocco gets started later than it does in America considering that at ten at night most Moroccans are still eating dinner. We didn’t mind; the music was pretty good and it’s not often you get a whole dance floor to for just you and your friends.

            I love to dance. I’m not saying I’m a good dancer, but I love to dance. Back home, you’d never see me going out on a Saturday night in high heels because I go out with the goal of dancing as much as possible, and a girl who tells you she can really dance in high heels, she’s either a professional or lying. Anyway, so my friends and I are dancing, laughing, and generally having an awesome time. After some time, I wanted to get some water and just sit for a little. As I went to leave the dance floor, a bouncer was in my way so I explained to him that I wanted to get some water. He kept telling me that I should go dance some more. I probably had been dancing for an hour, and I just wanted some water, but he was like, ‘no, keep dancing’. Whatever. I pushed past him to the bar, got my water, and had a seat. I was watching my friends dance for a bit, and then I started watching people watching them.

            The club was dimly lit, and I had been dancing, so I wasn’t paying attention, but the club had started to fill up. With just men. They were sitting in tables in the dark around the dance floor just starring intently at my friends, some with smiles on their faces. None of them were talking to each other or anything, they were just leering at the girls on the dance floor. I realized that this was probably why the bouncer didn’t want me to stop dancing; we were the free entertainment.

            The night at the club was not an isolated occurrence. Everyday, just walking down the street, men just stare girls down. They’re so disgusting. the second week we got here, one of the girls got followed by a man for a while. One of our teachers there was genuinely confused as to why we were all so upset by this. He did not understand why being followed home is stressful to say the least, and he didn’t see it as being any kind of dangerous. All of the girls in the program, myself included, have been followed at one point or another.