Originally posted at Talk Morocco Julia Roberts, McDonald’s, Mickey Mouse. This was how a young Moroccan student of mine described the United States to me. Images from his youth: Pretty Woman, glimpsed illicitly on satellite TV as a boy, or downloaded by BitTorrent. McDonald’s, which arrived in his hometown when he was eight, a beacon […]
Over at The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani ruminates on Facebook’s role in Middle Eastern politics, a subject I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. Drawing on the recent example of Egyptian reformer El Baradei and his enormous Facebook following, El Amrani marvels at the level of Facebook use for activism in the region. […]
So much of travel writing relies on sensory memory – the aroma of spice and fire in Mumbai, the sound of crickets at dusk in Maine, the feel of still, humid Caribbean air. Thinking back through my years there, it would seem a natural conclusion, then, to write about Morocco through the lens of taste. […]