Mzexperiences

I wake up to the sound of someone shouting. Someone shouting at the top of their lungs.
Not in anguish, pain or fear. Someone is shouting with the seamless control and familiarity of a marching troubadour who spends every waking hour expressing his love through song.
It is the spontaneity and perceived improvisational quality of this awakening which draws me in and simultaneously out of bed. It is not a rehearsal nor is it a performance. It is a response. This someone is responding to the rising sun and to Him who commands it to do so.
The first time that I experienced a call to prayer was on my first morning in Fes on the north-western edge of Africa.
I am someone who prefers to pray at what I believe is a reasonable hour and sometimes not at all. I found myself responding to this in the same way that I respond to most noises that wake me up. The only difference here is the heart-rending absence of the ‘snooze’ button.
I head for the streets. Fresh mint tea in bed is not as tempting when there is an expedition under way.
A true flaneur walks carelessly and follows whatever fate brings before his feet. This is a dangerously romantic and naïve approach to adopt when entering into these ancient, entangled and misleading walkways for the first time.
They are organic. They are alive. ‘Don’t Panic!’ I recall Douglas Adams’ advice in the face of this tsunami of the unfamiliar. The ever-growing, meandering and eroding medinas of Morocco.
They are in a permanent state of reconstruction. Temporary timber structures hold the old walls apart which long to kiss and block the lifeline upon which I walk. Within each tributary a ribbon of blue sky, fresh air and shafts of invaluable sunlight roar past in one gushing, turbulent stream.
The first time that I saw my life reflected in the lives of everyone around me was the first time that I saw a dead camel. Only the head remained on a stick. Blood dripping onto the paving where matted cats danced around this rare treat. It was in this festive market that I noticed that we are all swimming through life.
A butcher is standing in front of me. His shop is as neat as his hair. It is combed back so tightly that I can see the light glisten off every strand like the parallel lines of black water flowing between the paving upon which we all walk.
He is urging the passers-by to enjoy some of what I presume is the rest of the bodiless animal. I, like everyone else, move on to enjoy the delightful, fleeting moments of sun.