Abdullah's been told Martil is a better place to find someone willing to help him. It's a small town about 45 minutes from Tetouan, on the coast. We take the bus there easily from the centre of town.

At Martil, we walk immediately to the beach. Here, unlike Tangier, it's deserted. Very clean and quiet. Abdullah looks around and says "this is a much better place to cross from. No one around." As we're walking along the beach, we see a few fishermen bringing in a net onto their motor boat. We're both thinking the same thing, that it would be so easy for someone to rent this boat, or steal it, and make it over to Spain. The fishermen see us staring and they stare back with suspicion- maybe they know what we're thinking. If it is as easy at it looks, I imagine they've been approached many times about it, and they know what sort of money it can make them. More than fishing.

We sit a while at a cafe, drinking mint tea and wasting time. Eventually Abdullah, as he goes to pay, asks the waiter for advice on the hijra. The waiter tells him of another spot, another town Fanadiq not far from here. I'm amazed by how easy this information is to get, how open people are to talk about it.

At another cafe in Fanadiq, we sit, passing time (this process, repeated every day, forces me to drink so much coffee I get sick of it. I never thought I'd get sick of coffee). Abdullah tells me to wait there while he goes to talk to some other people. I tell him I want to go along, but he says he won't go with me, he say's it might be dangerous, and that people won't talk to him with someone else around. I know he's right about this. My reaction is mixed: at once I'm bitterly disappointed- I know this would be a pivotal point in the film, the first meeting with the man who's going to smuggle Abdullah into Europe. I had already been imagining what it would look like, how I would film it, how I would use it in the final editing. But this was all useless.

At the same time, there is relief. I think that maybe it might be dangerous, and at least I'd be spared that risk. I'm also relieved because I have no faith in the "hidden" camera I've put together. My camera isn't small- about the size of an old Hi-8 handycam. I have no miniature cameras or microphones, so I've stuffed the camera into a blue PUMA gym bag and cut a hole at one end for the lense. When I look at it, I see a camera, and I think there's no way I could use it to film anything secretly. But I've tried it a few times already, in the streets as a practice run, and it seems to work quite well. No one even looks at it. I've wrapped a piece of orange plastic around the lense to make it look a bit less like a lense. If anyone did look straight at it (it hangs at my waist as I'm walking with the bag over my shoulder) they would think "what's that piece of orange plastic sticking out of your gym bag?" But no one looks. From a distance it works fine. But I know if I tried to film someone while talking to them, close up, they would know. Then it would get dangerous.

While Abdullah walks around town looking for connections, I leave the cafe and film the area, the coast, the port. When he finally gets back, Abdullah is very excited. He bounds over to the table with a beaming smile. I'm still moping about the fact that I didn't get to film it. He tells me he met a man who would take him for 7000 dirhams, about 700 USD, hiding in a ship. He will dress well, walk into the port at Tangier like any other passanger, get into the hold of the ship and sneak out when they reach Spain. Abdullah thinks this is a terrific idea, and he's relieved that he won't have to cross in a zodiac. These inflatable rafts are the boats that carry most illegal immigrants into Europe- they often sink in the Straits, drowning the immigrants or forcing them to swim for kilometers to the shore. By zodiac is the most dangerous way of crossing, so to Abdullah the possibility of stowing away on a boat is a gift.

Abdullah trusts this man, Hakim, instantly. It reminds me of the way he trusted me immediately when I presented him with the idea of the documentary. I can't help thinking there's something naive about Abdullah's approach, by now he talks about the meeting with such excitement it's as though he's already in Europe. It's a promising point that Hakim agrees to take no money from his passengers until they're in the boat at Tangier.

I'm disappointed because I didn't film the meeting. Abdullah's talking to me but I'm hardly thinking about what he's saying and thinking of my own disappointment. Because I wasn't bold enough to follow Abdullah, because I wasn't agressive enough to insist I come with him. At the same time, I decide that if I start to jeapordize his chances of making it to Europe, if I interfere too much in the process, the experiment has failed. I'm no longer telling the story of a man's crossing, I'm telling the story of my involvement in his crossing. For the moment, that doesn't appeal to me. So I let it go.

He's trying to get too close to me. He wants me to be his best friend, his brother, he acts like we're doing this together. Then he starts to tell me what to do, starts trying to tell me how to film the documentary. I think he's getting nervous, overwhelmed by the possibility of actually going through with the crossing.

I'm finding it harder to spend all my time around him, not because of any contention with his personality, but because of the weight of it. Even as I talk about going back to Casablanca eventually for my job, he talks about going with me. He suddenly wants me to be involved in everything, and he wants to involve himself in all my work. He talks about what our friendship will be like when he makes it to Spain. He says he can come work in the UK and we can still see each other. I wonder if he'll be disappointed, and what he expects me to be to him. I tell him to worry about his life now, about what he's going through, and not worry about the film or any imaginations of the future. As I expected, he takes this as an insult. I'm trying to be honest with him, but he must think I've turned against him.

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