Last year I played with some Moroccan musicians who travelled to Germany for the first time. After a few days of observing their ongoing expressions of shock mixed with great amusement I asked them what was up. Their reply was something along the lines of ” this is supposed to be the civilised world and yet they are all walking around with dirty arses, trying to clean them in vein with dead trees!” . The fact that there was no water in our bathrooms for hydration after excavation was of extreme amusement to them- especially the mix of apparent cleanliness on the outside (not to mention a vast array of extremely powerful and offensive after shaves and perfumes) with an inexcusably unhygienic situation in the more sensitive areas (not to mention the forests that must fall to fight the lost battle of rear-flossing). It seems that not only has our dear occident untold blood on our hands after centuries of unbridled war mongering, we also have dirty rears to boot. I think their amusement was justified, it is something that still puts a smile on my face when I strut through cities, and it certainly put some vigour into their Gnawa rhythms:
17.02.09