Replacing the Square with a Smile

Curating a strict, alphabetical album of one hundred visited countries demands ruthless editorial discipline: exactly one frame per sovereign border, with no room for nostalgic sprawl. For well over a decade, Morocco was anchored by an evening wide shot of Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech from our 2010 run. It served its purpose at the time, showing the smoke of the open-air food stalls, the dense crush of evening crowds, and the familiar rooftop silhouette of Cafe Argana under a fading sky. Yet looking at it years later, the scene felt oddly distant. It was a picture of a crowded public space, not an actual encounter.

Circling Morocco again this past June finally gave me the chance to update the ledger with genuine life. That vibrant desert frame does far more than just look striking; it instantly brings back the sharp baking heat of the valley, the red dust sticking to our shoes, and the easy warmth of our roadside meeting above the palm oasis. His broad grin, the bright blue cloth catching the harsh desert sun, and those extended arms capture the hospitable spirit that Jay and I ran into repeatedly while traveling through the interior. The swap was long overdue. It shifts the record away from anonymous market cobbles and pins our memory directly to the generous people who welcomed us along the way.

 

Jay stands in a differnt image with our instant acquaintance in my daily eJournal writing from June 10th of this year.  And the images of all of our 100 visited countries remain alphabetically locked in this Flickr album.