Morocco...

My mom, myself, and my two brothers. (Tanalt 1999)

My relationship with Morocco started a few years after I was born. My family and I lived there for about three years in total, split between Fez and a Berber mountain village called Tanalt, while my father studied. My sister, the youngest of us four, was born in Fes.

I visited again when I was ten years old, just me and my dad. I was a brat, but it cemented fond memories in me that were firmer than the dream-like memories of my small child years. 

About six months ago, my brother left to live in Morocco and study with my father's teacher. Three months later, my other brother joined them.

I had been wanting to go back for so long that when we finally decided to spend our summer there, I didn't quite believe it. Not even when I was on the plane. It hit me when we landed, seven hours later, in Casablanca. It was a balmy day at 23°C, and it rained as we waited for our taxi to Fez. When I looked up, I could see the drops from wispy clouds, suspended for a moment in time, miles above us.

We didn't leave immediately for Fez; we  detoured for prayer at the historic Hassan II Mosque. It hugs the coast, with crashing waves at the foot of its walls. People look tiny against its mass. I craned my neck to squint against the sun at the towering minaret, tallest in the world (though Saudi will, I'm sure, try to beat it at some point).

I've been to Versailles (briefly) and Dolmabahce, Istanbul (less briefly) and though beautiful, they were almost grossly so. Hassan II mosque isn't like that. It's immense, it's incredibly detailed, and yet it doesn't overwhelm and overpower you like too strong perfume. Walking through it, I truly understood what 'drinking in the sights' felt like. 

Everything had been given due consideration, from the marble floors inlaid with vast Moroccan stars, to the enormous pillars, wide as (perhaps) six men linked arm and arm around it. The ceilings over the women's section were soothing mosaics of green, brown and white, touched with gold, pink and red, and were framed by precisely cut arches. The main areas were tiled in majestic green and blue, gold and grey, arching and stern. Dropping like flowering, sturdy crystals were glass chandeliers, some of them lit but most kept dark. 

It was a place you wanted to sit in and absorb, for hours, because the more you stared the more you noticed. But we had a five hour drive ahead of us, so we prayed, and left.