Today I Make my Marrakech

After the exhausting travels from the day before, I somehow find myself awaking early and eagerly heading out alone into the unknown. Today I claim my Marrakech. The town crawls like a teeming ant hill--the hustle and bustle of motion. Grinding horns and bells alert you to their presence. Cars, trucks, horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, donkey-drawn wagons, people-drawn wagons, and curious little motor bikes you start with pedals all race by, passing over the hot plaza tiles from shadow to shadow. Museum Marrakech is my first stop. Aimlessly I wander with a general sense of direction before suddenly stumbling upon the museum. Islamic architecture, with its mysterious culture and exquisite detail has always fascinated me. After the museum I head through the souks (marketplace) towards the Palais El Badi. On my way I find every imaginable animal for sale. Lizards, snakes, owls, turtles, monkeys, and some furry rat thing all dangerously wait in a hot musky cage. Chickens are bought live--butchered, plucked, and cleaned for all to see. Fruits and vegetables are neatly stacked on blankets in the street.
Near the palace whooping cranes nest. A majestic animal, it sits atop the old city walls making guttural clicking noises. People smile more here. The place is loud, smelly, and thick with smog. The nearby Atlas mountains cloaked in a cancerous veil contrast the vibrant clay red of Marrakech; radiating a sense of comfort, warmth.
For dinner I return to the square, eager to eat from the carts that role in around sunset. The square bustles with energy, smoking aromas waft from the food carts. Vendors yelling in all tongues eager to lure you to their smorgasbord of delights. Musicians, fortune tellers, story tellers, comedians, acrobats, and snake charmers feel any available space. Twenty men eagerly sit in a circle placing wages on which scorpion in the box will survive the longest. The operator, continually closing the box to shake it with renewed furry.
Food cart #1, that is where I will eat. Chicken kabobs, sausage, potato cakes, and bread with not one but two sauces. All cooked to order, right in front of me. Clearly they are a family which operates this eatery. The father, grill master of course, and the mother whipping up a mad batch of couscous. Her sons practice their Arabic, French, English, Turkish, Spanish, and Italian on the patrons. Who says you need to go to school? Now I watch the mother draw in customer after customer it uttering the only English I think she knows, "couscous?", she confidently beckons as she lifts a teeming scoop from the pot. Now this is important, as I am nearing the end of my first night, I see the mother preparing her famous line. So I mimic, "couscous?" My timing is flawless, her sons erupt in laughter and a genuine smile beams across her face. My joke would not only bond us, but to generate my Moroccan nickname, "couscous?".
Rhythm describes all that is Marrakech. An underlying pulse of repetition, prose, and beat. The architectural forms, cars, noises, movements, floor tiles, and birds all appear to respond to some underlying law of meter.