Scared of bees
Once, when I was little, my grandmother took me for a picnic, during which we were attacked by a swarm of bees. I was stung all over. If I was allergic to bee stings, I would have been dead. For this trip, therefore, it seemed best to keep my fear of these ‘beasties’ under wraps.

To start off with, everything went wrong at the airport. We missed the plane. ‘We’ were in fact a proper crew: a cameraman, a photographer and me. We were assigned to the same project, but had never met each other before. What if we didn’t get on? What if the cameraman was scared of bees too? It was pitch black when we arrived at Rabat-Salé. No luggage. That arrived the next day.

Queen bee
My mobile phone rang the next morning; it was our contact at the al-Amana microcredit organisation offering to send a driver to pick us up. That was out of the question: “We prefer to pay for travel ourselves to preserve our independence, but thanks for the offer.”

Al-Amana is located on an industrial estate. Security was tight, but we got a most friendly welcome. We were taken on a quick tour of the place and were introduced to the woman we were expecting to meet; young, intelligent and self-confident. All the men at the organisation treat her with respect, making it seem a little like a beehive, with her as the queen. The next day, we were off to see the bees – my last chance to duck out would be gone.

Character
The sun was blazing down, it was 30 degrees. We phoned for a taxi, booking it for what was going to be a long day. And so we met our driver, Hadj Ali. A real character he was, and we were hoping the beekeeper might be a similar type.

“That’s him,” Hadj Ali said as he pointed at a waving figure ahead of us. I phoned the beekeeper on my mobile, and it turned out Hadj Ali was right. “How did you know it was us?” I asked the beekeeper. “By the Dutch people in the car, of course,” he replied.

Mint tea
The beekeeper’s family were really hospitable, offering us mint tea and biscuits. The photographer said “The poorer people, the kinder they are.” At al-Amana the day before, we weren’t offered a thing. We were thirsty and had been hoping we might get a glass of water… but no, nothing.

We drove another 14 kilometres to a place where bees are kept in the traditional way. It was a remote, yet beautiful place: mountains, rivers, trees, sun and blue sky. Some locals gave us more mint tea.

Aggressive
The bees themselves were sick and posed no threat. They were African bees, the naturally aggressive type, but had been hit by disease which had taken all the fight out of them.

We also saw bees kept in a ‘modern’ way. They were also African bees. European bees are calm and ‘civilised’. “Remarkable… don’t you think?” I said to Roland, the cameraman.

Lots of buzzing
I did, however, find it all rather creepy. Lots of buzzing, mind you – which made me think that Jolan, at least, would be very pleased. Inquisitive bees busily swarming round the microphone, the camera and us. “Don’t get scared; they can smell it,” said the beekeeper. We were well protected, but I could still feel a bee inside my suit. My concentration disappeared in an instant. The beekeeper kept reassuring me and the cameraman and, indeed, when I finally I took off my protective suit off, I couldn’t find a bee at all.

At the end of the day, Hadj Ali drove us to Rabat. That same night, I dreamt about bees… laughing at me.