I'm Mohamed's father. I'm from Casablanca (yes, the famous American film with Humphrey Bogart). Casablanca and Rabat are big cities, Rabat is the capital but Casablanca gets more tourists. It's a bit like Europe in some ways with pizzerias, MacDonald's, Spanish restaurants... tall buildings, wide avenues, squares full of pigeons...
I have a degree in Physics but I've never managed to get a job in physics. There is quite a lot of unemployment in Morocco and so lots of people have emigrated to other countries, such as Spain for work.
I used to work in a restaurant there and I started going out with María, a Spanish girl who was studying Art and History. She loved our art and our history, which has got all kinds of links with Spanish cities like Granada, Cordoba and Seville. Well, yes, we got married and after a few years, we came to live to Spain. Now I've got my own restaurant. María is a professor in a Spanish university. We were very different then and I suppose we still are in some ways.
Our two children Mohamed and Mina were born in Morocco, and when Mohamed was five we came to Spain. Both our children feel more Spanish than Moroccan. Mohamed looks like me and Mina looks like her mother, who is blond.
I'm hopeful about the future. I know I have better opportunities here, and my children will as well. We don't want to break ties with Morocco and both my wife and myself speak Arabic and French to our children. We've had loads of holidays in different parts of Morocco (Tangier, Marrakech, Fez, Meekness, Rabat, Ifrane... and, of course, Casablanca).
