The Green Wall

In Marrakech, the medina walls stand nine cubits tall. Easy to miss the poverty. Or the contentment of a camel bellowing its low gutturals on a clay trail winding through the Ourika Valley, a tourist saddled on his throne led about by a boy who knows how to work a rope, make the beast kneel down on all fours. Forget about the vats of pigeon shit mixed with lime, the stinking hides and piles of matted fur scraped off by dye-stained hands that won’t reach fifty, your leather wallet fat with dirhams. Don’t resent having to pay outsider rates, three hundred dirhams for a bottle of huile d’argan at the Berber women’s cooperative instead of sixty. Is it really fair you come from a place teaching others how to write whether they have the gift or no, an off-season break the one chance you’ve got to prove if you’re a fake, the souks full of clay tagines and Berber bracelets made in China, Vietnam, Thailand, wherever labor’s even cheaper. Had to fly across six time zones in order to find peace of mind—status updates letting others know how good you are at being alone, no snake charmers to be found in the Jemaa el Fna. Whatever remains of your money and time, let it ride on roulette. Nurse your lait aux dattes by the pool. Only up in the Atlas Mountains where zero bars rule the skies can you still find yourself trapped inside a cab without a rearview mirror— your phrasebook Arabic useless when a tour bus rear-ends you.