I happened upon an article this morning entitled “Multicultural Morocco,” published in the Travel (Travels with Lonely Planet) section of the online Arizona Star. Not bad; I appreciate Morocco travel writing that goes beyond the glitter of Marrakech and the medina of Fes. But this – oh no – are they ever going to stop talking about Babel?

It’s not every day you get to celebrate your birthday with the kid who showed up Brad Pitt in an Oscar-nominated movie. It’s rarer to do so while exploring a picturesque aspect of African cultural history — but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Okay, here we go…He tells us about his travels into the Draa Valley – wonderful, good description of the ksours “layered like Russian nesting dolls” – I like that. The decoration of the walls “thickly hatched diamonds and wheat stalks.” Very nice.

And then uh-oh, here we go:

A kid squatted next to me.

“Big movie star,” a man said, smiling.

I smiled back, figuring they were joking.

“Brad Pitt,” he said. Other boys rolled their eyes, like they’d heard this story a thousand times. Then one of the hotel managers spoke in fluent English.

“No, really!” he exclaimed. “He has just been in a movie with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. ‘Babel‘!” The boy nodded excitedly, and now his friends followed suit, eager to claim some shared fame.

At the time, I dismissed the story as hyperbole. About a month later, though, while watching a DVD of “Babel,” my jaw dropped as Boubker Ait El Caid — the boy in the drum circle — shot Cate Blanchett in the shoulder and basically upstaged a cast of A-listers with his impassioned admission of guilt.

But on my birthday, he and the hotel manager asked me to trade an American tune for their Berber ones. I hummed a few bars but got cut off.

“Is that Bryan Adams?”

“No.”

“We like Bryan Adams.”

Technically, Adams is Canadian, but they were already halfway into “Summer of ‘69.” That was how I turned 26: watching the stars enflame the African sky in a mud castle, surrounded by friendly Moroccans singing Western pop songs. El Caid was there, but there was little babble that night; our inability to speak each other’s languages warmed a shared affection, the connection that grows when two travelers’ curiosity and one village’s hospitality come face to face.

Really? Are we going to go there again? Okay, fine. Actually, pretty cool. I didn’t enjoy the movie that much – you can read about that on my site at Inthefray.org – but that little kid was quite talented. Certainly more so than Brad.

Props, Mr. Karlin – and happy birthday.