Marrakech...

[MrsAmera 41]

"According to legend, the all-male orchestra at the hadra ritual was supposed to be all black. These musicians, said the legend, had come from a fabulous empire called Gnawa (Ghana), which stretched beyond the Sahara Desert, and beyond the rivers, all the way down south, into the heart of the Sudan. When they had come north, they had brought with them no luggage but their enchanting, irresistible rythms and songs, and their preferred city in Morocco was Marrakech, the open door to the desert.

Everyone said that Marrakech, also known as Al-Hamra, or the Red-Walled City, had nothing in common with Fez, which was located too near the Christian frontier and the Mediterranean, and was swept by too many bitter cold winter winds. Marrakech on the other hand, was deeply tuned to the African currents, and we heard many wonderous things about what it was like. Not many in our courtyard had seen Marrakech, but everyone knew one or two mysterious things about it......

The walls were flaming red in Marrakech, and so was the earth you walked on. Marrakech was blazing hot, and yet there was nearly always snow up above it, shining on the Atlas Mountains. In ancient times, you see, Altas had been a Greek god living in the Mediterranean Sea. He was a Titan fighting against other giants, and one day he lost an important battle. So he came to hide on the African shores, and when he lay down to sleep, he tucked his head into Tunisia and stretched his feet as far as Marrakech. The "bed" was so nice that he never woke up again, and became a mountain. Snow visited Altas regularly each year for months, and he seemed to be enchanted to feel his feet trapped in the desert, and twinkled to passersby from his royal captivity.

Marrakech was the city where black and white legends met, languages melted down, and religions stumbled, testing their permanence against the undisturbed silence of the dancing sands. Marrakech was the unsettling place where pious pilgrims discovered that the body was a god too, and that all the rest, including reason and the soul, and all their authoritarian priests and earnest executioners, could fade and disappear when the drums slit the air. People danced in Marrakech, people said, when their differing languages did not allow them to communicate....."

- Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. Fatima Mernissi

"Don't you want to see if there's a campground in Tagngier?" I asked. "It's quite a town."

"No," Muggleton said. "We're way behind schedule. We should make tracks for Africa."

"This is Africa," I said. "Tangier, Morocco, Africa.

"No, no," he said. "I mean the REAL Africa."......

"I turned in and lay in my tent, battered by the stiff wind off the Atlantic, and thought of the steamy city of Tangier: the dark, deep-cushioned restaurants, the steep stone streets of the medina, the eager touts tugging at elbows, offering hotels and tours and, to the right clients, kif and young boys to smoke it with. I thought of Asilah - I could see the lights of the town just below us - where even now there would be laughter and music in the beachfront cafes. That was modern Africa - urbanized, sophisticated, lively full of sex and petty crime and hot music. So what was this? This wind-cursed rocky plain. Centuries beofre, a mighty Portugese army, bent on Christian conquest, had landed at Asilah and marched south to be annihilated. They must have scuffed at the same rocks, bent under the same sharp wind. Was this the REAL Africa?"

--- Looking for Lovedu: A woman's journey through Africa. Ann Jones.

I love to highlight quotes as I read - these are two quotes I've seen recently that made me smile and take enough time to highlight them.

[Henia 11]

Interesting post, thanx for the post...

[amal 4]

hmmmmmmmmmmmm very interesting