Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

Sometimes the brightest lights are hiding in the darkest shadows. After peering through the doorway of what appeared to be an abandoned building, I found instead that I was looking into the very heart of a workshop still practicing the ancient Moroccan art of delicately arranged geometric tile works. In an age of computer-aided designs produced by automated machines, it was striking to see the painstaking effort that went into creating the beautiful handcrafted mosaics. The old men and women working in the shop were eager to show me their pieces, clearly very proud of the craftsmanship that had sustained their family run business for several generations. This moment reminded me of the power of human persistence and ingenuity -- a welcome bit of thoughtful purposefulness in our frenetic modern world.