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.

I wrote a small, now deleted, post about this a week or so ago, but would like to go back into the realm of the Moroccan Blogosphere, or “Blogoma,” as one of my favorite sites, Global Voices Online, which does a weekly (or bi-weekly at times) roundup of Moroccan blogs, calls it. The Morocco Report got a mention in the last roundup!

I use Google Reader to keep track of my favorite blogs, most of which are listed on the right side of this page. I religiously follow six or seven blogs, eagerly awaiting the next entry, which I devour with abandon. Yesterday, one of those bloggers, Cat in Rabat, wrote about her experience taking Spanish class with Moroccan students, saying: “I haven’t yet decided whether Moroccan students are impatient or just naturally exuberant. Regardless of the answer, I want to strangle them all.” Self-described as snarky, her musings crack me up on a regular basis.

A more recent find was My Marrakesh, written by American transplant to Marrakesh Maryam who has an interest in design and a knack for writing about it. Her most recent post on Moroccan traditional costumes, is enchanting, as are the photos that accompany it.

The View from Fez, which I refer to as my favorite because of its sheer breadth, reports on news, stories from the Fez medina, the woes of building riads, and so many other things it makes my head spin. Their several sister sites offer free Morocco classifieds and even a lifestyle guide (in which they were kind enough to include my post, The Meknes Bar Report).

Moroccan Musings discusses life as a rural volunteer in Morocco, and posts are often accompanied by gorgeous photos of Morocco’s countryside or blad.

The best coverage of the Nichane case came from Eatbees Blog, the best post by far being A Black Eye for Moroccan Freedom.  The blog also discusses truth, Moroccan locales, and of course, the author’s feelings about living here.

Morocco Time is yet another good one; the author writes about a variety of things, from the hammam to ethical Moroccan-made clothing to the misuse of insha’allah.

For those of you dying to learn Moroccan Arabic (derija), Moroccan Vocabulary is a recent find that covers a word a day in the language - today’s word is mshTa or “comb.”

Another new find is The a la Menthe (Mint Tea, my friends, which you know I love).  The post at top, on tourism in Morocco vs. Tunisia, really sparked my thinking spot.  Yet another blog which has covered the recent news stories well.

Even Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami (Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits) has a blog!

The Moroccan Blog Aggregator combines all of the Morocco blogs into one big posting and also has a list of Moroccan blogs in English.

Other links for Morocco news and information:

Magharebia.com - Maghreb news in English, French or Arabic

Maghreb Arab Presse - Morocco’s state-run press finally posts in English too.

Lonely Planet Thorn Tree - Tourist information lies on the Africa > Morocco travel branch.

Sahara Watch - in the group of blogs banned by the Moroccan government, this one covers news of the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara (inside Morocco: try this)

As all foreign bloggers living here surely do, I occasionally question my motivation and standpoint on blogging all things Moroccan.  When a story such as the recent Nichane case emerges, it’s hardly difficult for me to know where I stand, however, when there’s little of note in the news and on the streets, I must question why it is exactly that I write.

Part of it, of course, is the fact that I live in Meknes - a city not exactly known for its charm or excitement.  But surely, there’s something to do here, and I travel often enough that it couldn’t possibly be boredom that pushes me to my computer every night?

When I truly think about it, it’s more than that.  After all, they say “you’re only bored if you’re boring,” right?  I think what makes me write about Morocco is that feeling that I’m sure you all understand of being a part of something.  Not of something big, necessarily, and I certainly have no illusions of expertise, grandeur, or making it big time as a writer based on my blog alone; rather, it’s more like being part of the tiny seed taking root.

When I was a freshman in college, Livejournal was a fairly new site.  Since then, it’s grown and blossomed and become something I’m not as wholly interested in (and Morocco banned its access!) but back then, several years ago, when I joined and was assigned a membership number in the low thousands, I had no idea what it would feel like, awhile later, looking at the site’s several million “customers.”  It felt fantastic!  I’m sure the early MySpace and Friendster and Facebook users feel that way to some degree, and those who discovered YouTube at its inception.  Even back in the beginning of the internet, AOL and Prodigy users probably now feel some small twang at being the first.

And so, nearly two years ago when I started this blog, typing “Morocco” into Google brought up mostly tour sites and hotels; now, the myriad French, Arabic, and English blogs are the first links to pop up, sites like Global Voices Online and the fantastic news site Magharebia.com summarize and support our blogs, we’re linked in a circle (most of my visitors two months ago came from random internet searches, now other users like Cat in Rabat, The View from Fes, and My Marrakesh - as well as others - link in reciprocation to this blog and bring in the a good chunk of my 100 or so daily readers)

And that’s part of what I enjoy the most - this feeling of camaraderie with other people who have or are experiencing something just like what I am.  That ability to understand each other’s experiences, laugh at how similar things are all over the country, and also to find awareness in the differences.  I learn a lot from these others, all of whom have different backgrounds - some Moroccan, some European, others American like me.  All of us different ages, here for different reasons, but finding unity in being a part of a number of bloggers that’s still in the low hundreds, if that.

I salute you, fellow Moroccan bloggers!