The earthquake in Morocco and the events of the last few days here in Marrakech have made me think about needs, happiness and wealth in our world.

When do you become rich?
What is wealth?
When will your wealth be enough for you?

After spending two days on boxes and blankets outside on the street in Marrakech, I felt solidarity with all the people here and happy! We had each other. We had everything that means happiness. And yet it feels like a trip into an unreal world. In a few months I will go back to my beautiful home in Germany and these experiences will be a thing of the past. However, it will remain unforgettable in my heart. Many will continue to spend nights outdoors and live a subsistence life.

Two days after the earthquake: The Moroccans' art of survival

Today marks the second day since the earthquake struck Marrakesh on September 8, 2023.
The third night begins. Two nights of sleeping outside are behind us. My two Moroccan friends and I, like many other people, have repeatedly spent the night away from their homes. They sleep everywhere, on traffic islands, on the side of the road and in open spaces.

Last night was damp and cold. This time we hadn't found any boxes to protect us from the cold earth. These boxes are like sleeping pads. They are totally warming. When we walked into our apartment this morning completely exhausted and exhausted, we fell into bed exhausted and exhausted. We slept almost all day.  

The moment the earth shook

It's amazing how you react when the house shakes.
I stopped dead in my tracks.

Then I packed my passport, my money and my laptop. I was completely calm. It wasn't until all the lights went out and Hamid took me by the hand and we ran down the stairs that I realized what that was: an earthquake! The 6-story apartment building shook for 30 seconds. The whole street was full of people. All the lights from the houses were off.

Maddo shouted to Hamid and me: run!! Let's run!

Review:
Now, like many other people on the street, we were sitting on boxes and waiting.
It was said that there would be more quakes during the night. All the houses were dark. The streets are clogged with cars. We were lucky. We are in the new town. The Medina, the old town, has lost a lot of its facade. We sat on a patch of grass at the side of the road. With many others. Suddenly everyone here was chased away. The lawn should be watered. WHAT?? A foreman harshly ordered the other worker to do his job! For that to happen, people have to leave!

The facade has to be right?!

The major 2023 annual meeting of the World Bank Group and the IMF will soon take place here in the city of Marrakesh. The work must continue. With his head ducked, the man follows his foreman's command and asks people to get off the lawn and spread out on the sidewalk. An insignificant little story, an observation. And yet she tells a lot.

We are now watching shocking images and videos from the Medina, where much has been destroyed and people are running through the streets in panic.

Everything can change from one moment to the next.
From now on, other things are important. But people help each other here. It's nice to see that again.

Opposites. Two sides of the coin and life goes on

Towards the evening we accepted an invitation to Gueliz, a modern, beautiful district in Marakesh. We met three friends there. My wish to go out here had come true all by itself before I started my trip to Morocco on September 2nd.

Kind of gross. This district is so different from the Medina. Very European. Southern European. Sophisticated. I really enjoy the atmosphere and the company!

One of the friends speaks excellent, flawless English. He lives in London with his English wife. The conversations are very interesting and I get to know new things. Slept outside in the morning and today in this incredibly beautiful, chic bar. We enjoy it and drink beer.

On the way there, I see from the car how people and their families are settling back into the streets and squares.
Some even cook.

After the varied detour to the bar in Gueliz, we continued shortly before midnight. We drove to another friend's house who had cooked for us. An extremely delicious dish! Again with lots of bread. (I really need a bread break! 😂). Then we went back home. The next friend came to visit. It's now 2 a.m.

Here in Morocco it is normal in the summer time to turn night into day.
Almost like during Ramadan. I adapt. Anything else doesn't make sense. It's good to be thrown out of the routine.

I ask myself whether one is allowed to have fun in the face of the misery of so many?
We laugh a lot.
At the same time, we reflect on our feelings about what is happening. There is empathy, compassion and situational comedy at the same time.
One said that he was all alone at home and didn't understand what the rumbling meant at first.
He thought about what to wear. In retrospect, this thought is so absurd, but if you've never been faced with an earthquake in your life, how are you supposed to know?

Tomorrow we want to raise money and buy food for those who are very affected by this.
Everyone wants to help. Me too. I'm glad there's something I can do for people. On the other side in Europe, people ask me how they can help. They send us money so we can provide more help. This is so beautiful!

Almost everyone who has a car buys food and brings it to the people who are so badly affected by the need.

Tomorrow is a new day.
I look forward to it. It's a different kind of joy. One I haven't known since. One that thrives on being able to do something for others.

I didn't even ask myself to leave given the situation. My original plan was to explore the north of Morocco. Instead, I'm soon going to the desert village of Mhamid, which I've known for 12 years. Probably for longer. But who knows? in Morocco, plans are ideas.

I want to stay here with the people who mean a lot to me.
As always, I'll find out here how plans change.
Constantly. That's why I don't do any more! Everything comes as it should.
That is life. That's something we can learn from the people of this country: to adapt to circumstances at any time. Everything else just doesn't make sense!

Helping each other is in the blood of the people here

We go to a large department store outside of town.
What I experience here touches me very much! Everyone in this department store is shopping for the disaster victims in the very devastated Atlas region. The cars are fully loaded and the road into the Atlas is crammed with cars that drive like a caravan to people in need and make the arduous journey into the Atlas Mountains. We drive 5 hours there and 5 hours back.
Beforehand, we went to a privately organized collection point to find out which villages had not yet received any help. Some people also come here to drop off the things they have purchased. Knowing that they can trust this organization. We eat something first and then continue our journey strengthened.
So if you can't and don't like eating meat, you're out of luck. There is only meat and bread!

After endless curves and broken roads, we arrive late at night with two fully loaded cars.
We wait in an empty square in the center of the village.
After a short time the place fills up. We are the first to bring groceries. There are only men on site. I stay in the car and watch what happens.

You want a roof over your head

The question is: When does the roof fit?
The events of the last few days here in Marrakech have made me think about needs, happiness and wealth in our world.

When do you become rich?
What is wealth?
When will your wealth be enough for you?

I look at shitty walls of pigeons.
Looking up is my view of a piece of heaven. For some this would be declared a flophouse.
For me it is a piece of heaven on earth.
I have everything that makes wealth for me.
A roof over my head, a hot shower, lovely, caring people around me who serve me the best home cooking and even though I don't understand the language, our shared laughter, hand-to-hand communication and translations from English-speaking friends are enough for me understand. But there is little need for translation. We are so connected with our hearts and the eyes and the many hugs speak their language.

That's what remains when you can't communicate verbally: THE HEART ♥️ 

With the man here at my side, I get to know more and more unusual people and experience a Morocco outside the tourist norm and learn:

WE ARE ALL THE SAME !!!

After spending nights outdoors on the street in Marrakech, I felt solidarity with all the people there and happy.
We had each other. We had everything that means happiness. And yet it feels like a trip into an unreal world. In a few months I will go back to my beautiful home in Germany and these experiences will be a thing of the past. However, it will remain unforgettable in my heart. Many will continue to spend nights outdoors and live a subsistence life.

🙃 I know times when, despite the overwhelming beauty around me, I felt empty.
Feeling rich is an internal state.

I could rent the coolest accommodation here and I would definitely enjoy it completely.
And yet I live in a neighborhood in the Neustadt where real life takes place.
I have grown to love my surroundings.
And I love having my morning coffee here opposite the front door, shopping and feeling a little bit at home.

Salam aleikum! 

Value awareness

To have escaped with my life. Having been lucky enough not to be one of those people who lost their lives earlier makes me think a lot about values.

I love beauty, aesthetics, great bathtubs and decorative clothing. But knowing that this is not the happiness of my world sets me free. The freedom to feel at home in one world and the other fills me. This is my freedom. Not needing it anymore and yet taking it when I feel like it is my personal luxury.  

Many people here don't have the choice to play with life like that and take what they need.

My way of life.
I always intentionally travel with less.
Formerly in India, now in Morocco. Consciously noticing and appreciating the little things of joy triggers abundance, liveliness and adventure in me.

A €1000 handbag is nice to have.
But honestly, how long will you enjoy it? How long will your conquest give you abundance?

And what comes next? 

And then? And then?

When are you fulfilled?

The man who swapped his Lamborgini for a VW bus

I once met an old, very spry man in Hollywood 30 years ago.
We took the VW bus from LA to New Mexico.
There he employed 3 women to make hammocks. He told me about his old life in Hollywood:
he bathed in champagne, had endless parties, women, and money galore. He was extremely rich.

But at some point he felt so empty.

He told me that when the happiness of a newly purchased red Lamborgini could make him happy for just one more hour, he began to ask himself questions about life. He noticed that the “Kiks” of more and bigger ones were becoming too boring for him. He decided on a new life. He left almost everything to his wife, divorced and settled in New Mexico. He lived there from then on.

He was my second spiritual teacher. I didn't know that until later. At that time I was living in New York and visiting an acquaintance in Los Angeles. Slept on a waterbed, drank champagne on the terrace in the hot tub, rode a motorbike along the coast on the back seat of a super-rich model and looked at villas in Malibu with him and went to casinos.

Sounds cool? It was! But you know, heart connections are really cool.

Yesterday I was on a farm, 30 minutes from a village near Marrakesh. A man lived there with his girlfriend on 3 square meters. His garden and his house were built from rubbish. Old tires were cut open and used as flower pots. The bench in his house was made of bottles. Plants were planted everywhere.

I thought about Bob today.
About how little you need to be happy.
Of his choice to go where others today long to go. Maybe it's the normality
of people to always want what they don't have?

Bob, that was his name, was one of the happiest people I had the pleasure of knowing.
I was fascinated by his decision and his courage to lead a life that would be described as descent.

It's not that I deny success and money!
On the contrary. I enjoy challenging myself in this too. I see it as a game. And I see money as a wonderful opportunity.

After these events here, life will seem more precious than ever.
Because I have tasted these feelings of humility, gratitude, the joy of being able to help others in their time of need, sharing love, and that everything else is bullshit! Thank you for this rich experience!
And thank you for these people, all of whom I can get to know here!

Do you think you need Europe?
No, Europe needs you!!

My conclusion

Morocco shows me again and again how heart connections work and how to be guided intuitively.
Not everything I have experienced here since 2012 has been rosy!
To be honest, I have to say that I have gone through powerful life-changing, transformative processes here.
They were so necessary to learn to trust my intuition and never betray myself and my heart again.
It's often like this in life: change only happens when we find ourselves at our personal lowest point in life.
Today I say: I'm done!
I listen to my heart, follow my impulses, trust my intuition and no longer question it!
Since then I have encountered wonderful people and situations.
Because my energy has become completely different.
Inside and outside. Above and below.

These events here have led me to meet special people.
With their style, they showed me how you can live with little and with a lot of money and, above all, what really counts in life:

a roof over your head, a heart and connection!

Thank you Morocco!

Information about this:
Longing for Origins – Desert Travel