Nasser Lebbadi Castro

School Trip: Tangier

In this writing I am goingo to say my experience of the school trip in Tangier. The trip was one month ago. The trip was very interesting.

In this day I learned a lot of things about the history of Tanger when Americans were there, specially the history of Paul Bowles.

Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with Tangier, Morocco, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life.

Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making several trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York he wrote music for theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with his first novel The Sheltering Sky (1949), set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931.

In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, Morocco, and his wife Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was Bowles' home for the remainder of his life. He came to symbolize American expatriates in the city.

Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried near family graves in Lakemont Cemetery in upstate New York.

But in Tangier I saw another things, for example I saw  the TALIM ( Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies), in this place one guy explained about the history of Tangier in the 50’s, when it was a international place.

There were a lot of pictures about the people who lived in this time, well only the rich people and the famous people.

Next the clash and I saw the Paul Bowles’s museum in this place we listened a small talk about the life of this person and where he worked. The place was very interesting with a lot of things to write and his books.

Then we went in The “Continental Hotel”, a luxury hotel in Tangier, in this hotel the famous people were staying there. It was very interesting, the ambience of the hotel was perfect because it represented clearly as society was 40’s and 50’s.

In this hotel there were props about the last century, with chair, drinks or picture. But the bar was very expensive.

Another site that we went is a kind of museum of events in the history of Tangier, like a battle of foreign people vs the people who lived here, in lead figures.

This battle represents the sadness of imminent defeat or the fight to protect their country. Other things that I could see in this museum is a lot of posters and picture like this:

Finally in this school trip, I learned one thing, Tangier was a international placeand it can be a special place to the history of last century, and I want to go back.