Morocco, Dear Morocco
A howl against wasteful loss.
I was hit with an uppercut at the news: on Friday, 11.11pm, Morocco was hit by a 6.8 Richter-scale earthquake. The day was September 8th.
It’s a matter of human nature that we care about what we know. We care about what we know because in getting to know things - in understanding - we also connect with them. It’s one thing to see a place you’ve never known crumbling to the ground; it’s another if you have “known” its people and walked its streets. Even if only during the span of a week back in September 2022.
I can’t imagine what it feels like when you call those streets and the Jema El-Fna Square home. But after walking its streets, seeing the beauty of Moroccan architecture and color, and the friendliness of its people, I think I can begin to empathize.
I don’t know whether it’s correct or not, but I also know that I don’t care how it’s viewed: I simply don’t want to look at images of Morocco’s destruction, at least for now.
I need time to process.
Sometimes life makes it hard to remember (and it’s oh so much easier to know this intellectually, from afar, and without having slept an entire night outside my home for fear of aftershocks), but there’s one thing people do: we resist and rebuild. The Morocco of tomorrow will eventually become “better” than what came before it, and its people happier than they ever were before. Wounds will heal or fall into memory, scars will vanish from the streets.
Perhaps I’m simply denying the loss.
Fighting it.
But I don’t think so. I want to remember the Morocco of yesterday because its beauty is a mirror to its future. Because the human connections I strengthened and created there are the source of most of my care, and because I know they will also enable and be a part of a beautiful Moroccan future. They will build it and be built into it.
The following photographs were taken in Morocco from September 21st through September 28th 2022. They’re mirrors, of sorts, and memories as well. They’re slivers of reality. And they’re beautiful to me.
Be well, Morocco. Be well, friends.
Love,
Francisco
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Simply an amazing, heartwarming take on what is happening 🙏🏽 Thank you so much 🇲🇦