Backstory: Europe bound - why a Moroccan heads north

'Oh, you're just going to love Fatina, she's the most beautiful woman," Jessica croons as we careen down the wrong lane of a narrow mountain road in eastern Morocco.

Frankly, I'm more concerned with whether we will even reach Fatina's house, than what my friend thinks of the family that has taken her under its wing during her Peace Corps stint.

But a dozen or two blind corners later, our "grand taxi" - a beat-up Mercedes with four people wedged in the fume-filled back seat - finally spews us out in a dusty school yard.

It's my third dizzying day in Morocco, and nothing is making sense to my Western mind. A cross-country train trip relieved me of the clatter of Casablanca - the honks and belches of its run-down cars echoing off the dense housing blocks fringed by arcs of laundry and thickets of satellite dishes - only to confound me more with the rural juxtaposition of bucolic beauty and human poverty. The clicketyclack of rusted wheels on railroad ties became rhythmic, almost soothing, after the first few hours, but the scenes did not: garbage strewn haphazardly; clumps of idle men staring as we passed; lone shepherds wandering with their sheep through rocky, plantless patches.

But this is why I came. And I'm definitely getting my money's worth.

I don't know it yet, but this day will offer me new insight on a topic I'm all too familiar with as the Monitor's European news editor: immigration. The Paris riots this past fall were but the most apparent example of the tensions that exist between North African immigrants and their European hosts; there's a lot more simmering beneath the surface.

Today in this little town, I find answers. Things start to make sense. And for that I can thank Fatina's son, Abdel Aziz Hammouin.

Before I even meet him Aziz's purposeful stride catches my attention in this rural setting where people seem to universally shuffle. Sent to pick us up, he greets us warmly and insists on slinging Jessica's 100-pound duffel over his shoulder as he leads usalong a corn-cob-strewn path toward his family's home.

At 28 and lacking a high school diploma, Aziz still lives with his parents in these hills above Jerada, selling used furniture.

It's not an easy life. The income is negligible and he has few comforts as an American would know them - he has no car, perhaps only a few changes of clothes, and shares his parents' small house with three sisters. Though the Hammouins have a satellite dish tucked behind the goat pen that allows them to flip through more than 600 channels - including MTV, ESPN, and Al Jazeera - they don't have modern plumbing or heating. The bathroom is equipped with a standup Turkish toilet that is "flushed" by washing it down with a bucket of water.

Between his mother's doting encouragement and his society's expectations, Aziz is under considerable pressure to marry - and thus to secure a home and income that could support not only him but a wife, who probably won't bring in an income of her own.

I start to see why, under these circumstances, Aziz would be willing to leave his sweet family and the familiar hills of Jerada for a job - any job - in Spain. But still, now that it is known that a Moroccan Islamic extremist group was responsible for the March 2004 bombings in Madrid, Spain doesn't strike me as the most hospitable spot for a young Moroccan man to head for.

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