If you listen quietly to Tangiers you hear labor, birds, sea, footsteps on cobblestone, German cars humming, more birds, music, Arabic, French, Spanish, the call to prayer. If you glance up from your hot mint tea sweetened to the point of honey you see a lady in a bright pink hijab and djelaba getting out of a cab wearing Jackie Onassis sunglasses, the white caps on the blue Atlantic through the ancient white washed walls of the Casbah, the free apartments as Karem called (once a jail) them when we hired him to show us around (Karem is 17 and his sidekick Ottoman, is about 10 – Ottoman fell in love with Tin), little boys racing down the cobblestone hill on a makeshift skateboard, and cats of all strange dimensions.
Leaving the plaza, we happened upon a large man sat twirling the tassels on his hat as he plucked a lute and he invited us in to hear his story. He was Abdelmajid Domnati and he had recorded music under the Gnawa Express, pure African rhythm – he called the CD we purchased from him instructional, it is magical almost reminds me of Congo Square and New Orleans rhythm without the Cuban beat that got introduced to it.
