they are waiting patiently

Black birds scissor the gritty, pastel sky. The fleshy terra-cotta houses hide behind the fleshy terra-cotta walls, and the air, textured with a tangible dust that gets behind our teeth, is warmer than our compact bodies, absolutely struck with wonderment. The smoke rises from the heart of the medina in the distance, but we cannot see where it is coming from: the way is barred with an impenetrable wall of people, most of whom are loitering, lingering, and lollygagging around the periphery of the main square. They are waiting for nothing; they are waiting patiently; their eyes are glazed and their faces are peaceful. The taxi drops us in the middle of an intersection as the sun is setting peach in the cobalt sky. Men are waiting nearby with wheelbarrows; they are waiting for us. One man puts our luggage into the belly of the barrow and heads straight into the sea of people. J & I look at each other, link arms, and follow.

Marrakesh smells of clay, sun-warmed leather, sugar-thick mint tea, a vague homestead blend of bread baking and cotton sheets drying on the washing lines, pulpy orange juice, the sticky salt of sweat, meat smoke, and cooking spices – cinnamon, ginger, ginseng, anise and clove. It is punctuated with the regular sounds of the prayer calls – these people pray to pass the time – and bicycle horns, the snake charmer’s oboe, children playing in the streets, beggars banging their tin cans, a solid woven-rug of market gossip, roosters crowing, donkeys lowing, and the drageur’s calls: “gazelles, gazelles, ca va les gazelles?” This is a place so intoxicating, enthralling, and entrancing that it does not need the elaboration of adjectives. It is best described using an inventory of nouns, and so we transcribe our world to words; catalogues of the senses.