One Wild and Precious Life

My grand summer adventure in Morocco is concluded.  I have returned to America.  But my journey has just begun, and I am not done with Morocco yet.  In fact, there is much more ahead... Last week, I awoke to a day in Marrakech of 108 degrees.  I never needed an umbrella during the almost five weeks there, but the skies outside of my apartment looked ominously dark.  I decided it was time to go.  In a matter of hours, I changed my flight, packed my bags, tidied my apartment,  lugged two suitcases and a carry-on down five flights of stairs, gave away perishable food to my apartment complex guard, turned in the keys, notified my teacher that I would not be able to make our evening lesson, texted my husband to pick me up at JFK that night, lugged my bags out to the avenue, hailed a taxi, and made my way to the airport.  Deposited in the departures area by my cab driver, I was immediately approached by a stranger to assist with my bags, but I declin...

“Jam Session” 25 July 2018, Café Clock, Kasbah, Marrakech         What an amazing find!  A hip place in the southern section of the kasbah (the older part of the medina) – new juxtaposed against old.  Trendy music in a funky ambiance.  A cozy downstairs courtyard and seating, and a shaded terrace upstairs.  Vegetarian and vegan fare or meat, whatever your preference.  Activities every night.  Tonight, I’ll have dinner and take in a jam session.  I will come back tomorrow for a cooking class and maybe stay for evening storytelling.  I took a cab here driven by a fellow named Ahmed.  We talked in Arabic for the whole 20-minute ride: I told him I’m American; I am in Morocco studying Arabic; in America I teach English; my husband and daughter are in America; and I’m 54; he told me he is 46, that he has two boys – Elias and Hamid – and one daughter – Hima – and that his wife is expecting their fourth child (to which I repl...

Lying in my bed looking at the blue sky and sunlight through my curtained window, I hear the daily constant of nearby construction.  Each day there is the banging of steel girders and of mallet on wedge as bricks are pounded into place.  But today my attention is drawn out the window into the courtyard below by two turbaned street musicians, one with a simple, hand-held, bendir snare drum and the other with a traditional ghaita flute.  They are walking the streets playing for money, and I watch as a young boy hands them a coin through a gate and another from a first-floor window.  They protest that the amount is not adequate and there is a heated exchange until the boy runs away and the other closes the window.  As they walk away, they suddenly look up to see me in my fifth-floor window.  They wave, I wave, and I close the window and retreat. After a cold, delicious midday salad from Les 2 Freres, listening to a mentally-ill elder shout vehemently...

I walk out to the avenue to catch a taxi.   As I stand on the side of the road checking my phone, I realize that I am about to step on a dead cat and her kitten, decomposing in the dried grass under the African sun, the kitten’s mouth still searching the mother’s belly for the milk that would not come.   In Morocco, cats are everywhere and welcomed, but there were not enough scraps for this one.   Today is my last class at the language center.   I would like more, but I did not arrange for more, and now there is no spot for me.   I could join a group, but they are more advanced.   I don’t want to slow their progress, so I decline.   I feel awkward.   I have brought my camera today.   I ask another student to take a picture of me and Saida in front of the board with my writing in Arabic on it.    Instead of going home, I wait for bus #1 in the opposite direction.   It is a long wait.   A young woman and a middle-aged...