Friday, July 6. Arrived yesterday at the Hotel Semiramis. Beautiful hotel, glorious gardens, wonderful sun! Napped, then drinks and dinner with the Beast Fable Society Congress participants. Nice people, interesting conversation. No jet lag spoken here. Then a fabulous dinner with Moroccan musicians, dancing, and singing. Quite the lead-in to Father Greg’s terrific keynote address, which used slides of fable illustrations to make the point that fables can be used and interpreted in many ways, but at the heart remain the same as a form of didactic literature.
Saturday, July 7. Had our first session of the Congress, with talks on La Fontaine, followed by talks on Calvino and fables of the fin-de-siècle. All elicited fascinating discussion afterwards—we wanted to go on discussing all day. The talks related to one another in unexpected ways, thus sparking interesting connections. After lunch we took our first tour of the city of Marrekech with our wonderful guide, Khadija. We visited the Koutoubia minaret, the Bahia Palace, and had tea on the roof of the Dar Tamsna guest house in the medina, which is dedicated to Moroccan and African culture. The view was magnificent, and it was our first taste of mint tea in Marrakech. We could just barely see the Atlas Mountains in the distant haze of dust from the Sahara as we listened to the cry of the muezzin summoning the faithful to prayer.
Sunday, July 8. What originally was planned as a quiet day to recover from jet lag turned out to be quite busy. The shoppers among us went to a shopping cooperative for a short lesson on rugs (more mint tea) and then we were turned loose to look at rugs, leather, pottery, clothes, silver, furniture, crafts, etc., etc. Then some of us took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Marrakech in the later afternoon, culminating in watching the snake charmers in the Jemaa el Fna, the huge central square. Finally after dinner we attended the Folklore Nationale du Maroc, an annual concert of traditional music and dancing that we were lucky enough to be able to see. Held in the El Badia Palace, we saw and heard wide variety of dances and songs from all over Morocco. The Touareg women with their jangling necklaces were especially wonderful.
Monday, July 9. Back to the world of fables on Monday morning, with papers on Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Leonard Woolf’s The Village in the Jungle. The next session featured papers on Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain and the Ponca Rabbit stories. We kept going with a revaluation of John Gay’s Fables and a paper on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Then we left our cerebral world of discussing just what is a fable and entered into a much different world as we toured the souks of the old city. Tiny shops with brightly colored spices, little cave-like spaces with weavers or people forging irons, a man spinning silk in the street, loaves of bread being pulled from the oven at the bakery, the furniture workshop in the “fonda” built before Columbus sailed. Donkeys moving through the narrow streets, women in veils gracefully walking in front of us, children smiling, henna tattoos.
Tuesday, July 10. Final papers of the Congress this morning, thoughts on Derrida and a reading of a “postmodern” fable about the last sturgeon. Then into our mini-vans to travel into the Atlas Mountains to the Ourika Valley. Beautiful red, red ground and rocks, against the bright green of trees growing on the valley floor. Spectacular vistas. Toured a Berber house, and had tea with the welcoming Berber woman who lived there. Lunch on the terrace at the beautiful Ramuntcho Auberge. Back through rugged but beautiful country with dry stone houses, boulders, and pine and polar trees.
Wednesday, July 11. The day we will remember most vividly, I think. Our trip to Ouarzazate. What a day. Up at 6 to leave at 7, winding our way into the foothills, then up and up, switchback after switchback, up and up to the Tizi’n’Tichka pass at 2,269 meters. Spectacular views, then down, down to the edge of the Sahara and to the Ait Ben Haddou Kasbah, a fortified village classified by UNESCO as a world cultural treasure. Standing in the 110 degree heat in front of the Kasbah, that beautiful and imposing mud-brick castle with its lovely detail work and narrow streets. Dark red adobe walls, narrow streets, hot, hot sun. Then to Atlas Studios, to see where our movie images of the Sahara are created, then back to Marrakech.
What a week of fables, of thought about literature and art, of stimulating conversation, of sights never before imagined, of sounds and smells, and new friends. Our deep thanks to Ben Bennani for sharing his Morocco with us.
