Log: Morocco

This morning, I pushed open a door that was somewhat stuck to its frame. When it sprung open, a hot splash of sunlight landed on my face. Or it was I who landed and stumbled into the path of the sun. It surprised me that the heavy clouds that had washed the city in a grey rain had already blown off in a new direction. And it felt good to push against the heavy door and emerge suddenly into the sun. So many different paths now seemed to sprawl before me, twisting and winding, narrow here, broad and airy there. Bright brass lamps beckoned to the right, to left woven carpets draped the coarse coral walls of the stacked buildings, followed by the scents of cumin, orange blossoms, and fried fish. All of it beckoning movement. The urge to wander seems to have risen to my head, and my thoughts also spill and spread in disparate directions.

I have begun and left unfinished entries about: eels and Camus, the persistence of New York City, victimhood in the writing of Paul Bowles and Jean d'Ormesson, food in Japanese film. Instead, I have let myself go deeper into the souks—buying nothing, jumping out of the way of motorbikes, looking at cats, thinking about the improbability of a new year and of Marrakech.

- Andrea

Borrowed amidst criss-crossing tram lines, flat boulevards, narrow cobblestone streets, pitiless drivers of taxis, scooters, motorcycles and the all-too-daring pedestrians—there is a little café-shop that always brings me a sense of peace in Rabat. When I walk in, everything hushes, and then the sounds, smells, and sights gently pick up again.

Wandering recently between the shop's teas, spreads, shawls and postcards, a book caught my eye. Without much thought, I flipped open the thick hardcover and encountered humanoid birds, exuberant vines, patterns and patterns of palms, tiles, leaves. I was immediately enchanted by the drawings, watercolors, and paintings of Abbès Saladi.

There is something about Saladi's work that makes me think of the film La planète sauvage. I could actually imagine an exhibition of Saladi's drawings set to Alain Goraguer's excellent film score.

Coming back home, I discover that there is very little information available online about the artist (perhaps there is more out there in Darija). Much of his work is in private collections and auction houses. I decide that I will gather a few facts from the book in the shop and create a Wikipedia article. In fact, if I had a library of my own, I would have bought the book about Saladi's oeuvre right then and there.

These sort of encounters remind me why I set out to travel in the first place. And there have been so many so far. It feels as if only a moment ago I was admiring Gerard Sekoto's yellow houses in Cape Town and now I am admiring Saladi's sinuous bird people at the other end of the continent. These encounters have only multiplied as I have learned to set my shyness aside and seek them out. But perhaps what I need now more than anything is time to sit with all of these paintings, poems, bits and pieces of art.

- Andrea

In Rabat, walls and rooms crumble into sea foam and towers rise on riverbanks. Cats always prowl just around the corner and in the shadowy depths of a worn and tattered grey building, I see a fire burning bright. Every morning, it spits out sweet cakes, hard breads, and cookies onto the sidewalk, to the delight of passer-by's. In Rabat, it rains plastic on the dirty blonde beaches and blue taxis race down perfectly palm-lined avenues. It has taken me a while to figure out how to write here. In the narrow, damp and dusty, streets of the medina, I am reminded of the smell of my great-grandmother's brick house in Bogotá. But once out among the merchants and the motorbikes, my ability to decipher what is before me recedes gently like the sea.

- Andrea