Marrakesh
The travel to Morocco was grueling, but rather pleasant. I hadn't realize that we had a six hour layover in New York; I placed a call to Brina in hopes that maybe she could stop by and have a cocktail and relish in my Penny Lane-ness (replete with wide brimmed hat). But Brina was off being a reporter, and so I sat down and got into some good reading: The Lovely Bones, the Economist, and the New Yorker (note to media: please don't dignify Samuel Huntington's xenophobia by giving him more than a paragraph's mention in your magazines, and especially don't give him 7 page articles in which he can just expound unsupported beliefs). And in what seemed like just a little while, it was suddenly time for us to board. The first few hours went by quickly due to friendly banter with fellow passengers, tots and adults alike. They put on the in flight movie around midnight and I fell asleep for the first time in literally days...
I woke up at some point after the movie ended. The cabin was dark; everyone was asleep. I had forgotten that there were that many stars in the sky; I forgotten how expansive the sky and the sea were, and how minute we are in comparison. I fell asleep again and woke up to see the coastline of Morocco as we flew into Casablanca.
As the plane was pulling into its gate, I heard the flight attendant say on the intercom in French that it was 12 degrees celcius. I look at myself and my fellow travel mates, all of whom had dressed for 30 degree weather.
I can't express how much at home I immediately felt upon looking at the landscape. The fields of wheat, the grinning brown-skinned children, the large cacti that look like agave -- it felt like a part of Mexico had been annexed to North Africa.
(Is the sky so much bigger here? The sheephearders and their flocks seem so small by comparison. I am so small and haven't seen but a small speck of the world. I couldn't but help of Larry and a photograph he took in Mauritania of a man and then red, red landscape behind him.)
We stopped somewhere for a bit of bread, mint tea, and espresso coffee. (The to-go version just means you can take the cup, saucer, and spoon with you, so long as you promise to give it back when you return down the road.)
The world passed by me in the bus, first golden wheat colored, and then red, and then adobe and green. We arrived in Marrakesh and were heralded by an sea of palm trees, which then lead the way to the well-manicured avenues of Marraskesh and its gorgeous architecture.
So now we're waiting at the center (couscous feast!),waiting for Salma...
Posted 01:43 PM (GMT)