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April in Marrakesh was vibrant. September, that vibrancy is gone. My mind is on Marrakesh following the devastating earthquake that caused widespread damage in the historic portions of the city.
I had only a day there – a very long day that started and ended in Casablanca. We toured the old city, its red sandstone walls creating the aura that most visitors remember. There was the visit to the Medina, the souks, the mosques, the Medersa Ben Youssef, the Dar Essalam restaurant that treated us to great food and music and dance, the Djemaa El Fna central square, and much more. I now see the reports of collapsed mosques I saw in the square, the video of dust rising from the iconic tower of the Kutubiyya mosque as it shakes in the tremors. I see photos of walls collapsed in the narrow souks, the alleys holding the old shops I visited just a few months ago. It’s impossible not to feel heartbroken by the destruction, even knowing that Marrakesh wasn’t the worst hit, with thousands perishing in the nearby Atlas Mountains region where the quake epicenter was located.
I took the above photo while sitting in a cafe looking out at the Djemaa El Fna. I’m not sure the two small mosques on either side still exist. The square was filled with fruit sellers, monkeys, cobra charmers, and a mix of locals and tourists as we sipped on hot mint tea, the local specialty.
The towering Kutubiyya mosque can be seen up the lane of horse carriages in the photo above.
Inside the Medersa above.
Above, a light lunch in the Medina (actually, this was just the appetizer; I lost count of the actual courses).
And horse carriage rides through the city.
Morocco was part of a much longer trip, cruising along the Spanish coast plus several days each in Lisbon, Barcelona, and a long day trip up to the tiny country of Andorra. Read more about that here.
As I write this they are still searching for survivors. At least 2,800 are counted as not having survived. There are many ways to offer help, which can be found at the end of this article and elsewhere.
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius is available for purchase at all bookseller outlets. Limited signed copies are available here. The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. If you read the book, please leave a review and/or rating.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.