In the land of my fathers.
58 years.
It had been over half a century since a Benrimoh stepped foot on Moroccan soil.
I’d held the stories my father told me of Casablanca like a shotgun loaded with a blast of uncontrollable nostalgia to my head for years.
How was I supposed to react? Would I bear witness to the same Morocco my family had called home for dozens of generations? Would the streets my uncles roamed throughout their youth even unrecognisable?
Obviously things are different.
Change is the one inevitable facet of life, as much as our nostalgically oriented minds might wish for the opposite.
The community pool by the Corniche is now site to one of the largest Mosques on the continent and in it of itself the new emblem of the city.
But remnants of the past remain.
Cinema l’Arc on Boulevard Ziraoui where Mémé worked is still there, albeit abandoned.
To think this is where my father watched his first movies.
When I showed my family the photos of Casablanca today, they couldn’t believe that there was a metro running on Boulevard Mohamed V.
In the end, it’s a place that’s evolved like any other city in the world.
I’ll still wish that I could walk those same streets with my father. But I’m thankful that I have all his stories to cherish, as my own personal time capsule of Casablanca in the 1950s that one day I’ll pass down to the next generation.
ديما مغرب