Return to MoroccoInevitably my return to Morocco meant a trip down memory lane.
Good memories and also sad memories - to be honest. Since my last visit, nearly 9 years before, I wanted to ban the memory of a lost love from my mind and I swore I would never return to my beloved country that as well proved to be one of the most inspirational places I have ever been to.
Morocco proved vital in my exploration of photography, that at the time was concentrated on structure and color.
An exploration that still has not come to an end. Upon my return from my last trip to Morocco, that took me and my ex-girlfriend from the desert to the gorges of The Atlas Mountains and finally to the walled city of Fès - I immediately left on a journey that took me to all 26 locations where painter Vincent van Gogh had lived and worked. Rain was pooring down and I stood in a field - a single tree in front of me. The grass was of the freshest green I have ever seen and in the distance I could hear a thunderstorm approaching. The air was filled with the smell of moist. The tree appeared to be almost like a symbol of strenght - withstanding the elements that swept across the field. To me the tree also represented a learning moment.
As a young boy my mother Jeannette and I would sometimes accompany my father while on assignment. My mother taught me how to read in the shadow of a huge pine tree that stood right in front of our hotel. I remember seeing my father leaving our hotel carrying heavy equipment -heading for the mountains. I was a slow learner and very distracted by what I saw -
I loved to draw and observe. The tree for me became a place synonymous to a classroom in open-air. I took a few photographs.
My cell phone rang. ‘Hello Lex. How are you?
‘I am fine Vincent, how are you?’ I told Lex briefly what I had been up to and come across during the last couple of days. ‘Well, very good’, he said.
A silence followed.
Then he said: ‘Would you like to travel to Tanzania this monday?’
The break-up with my girlfriend followed suit as a result of my decision to travel to Tanzania.
My hotel in Arusha was unpleasant. Dark had fallen when I arrived around 10 O’clock at night. The garden was huge - the narrow concrete paths and apartments all looked similar too me. The rooms must have been very modern in the eighties, but the decorations were now fading away and I remember a strong smell of plastic. The walls, floor and ceiling were all covered with a thick hairy brown carpet. I was clear to me that in case of fire there was definitely no chance of survival. I returned to the Hotel bar for a drink and observed people moving in the colored neon-lights. The dark skin of a sexy dressed girl had a blue and yellow glow. I ordered a coke and a girl came to sit down next to me. I wasn’t looking for any company and neither for a conversation - but when a second girl sat down at my right I all of a sudden realized I was sitting in something like a brothel. I escaped quickly, immediately losing my way in the garden with a girl right on my tail.
I was happy to see the morning light appearing when I woke up, in the distance I could see mount Kilimanjaro. I will never forget the sight as the earliest light hit the peak covered in snow. Around 9 o’clock a driver came to pick me up. He carried my luggage to a car and on the side of the jeep I read: ‘National Geographic, explorers in residence.’ I felt I had finally arrived in Tanzania.
We drove up to a vast field at the foot of mount Kilimanjaro where other crew-members had already started filming.
Without any cell-phone reception, with the worst means of communication you can possibly imagine I spent fourteen days dealing with my break-up and at the same time taking photographs of Masai. The tundra’s are a vast stretch of land, barren and mostly uninhabited. It is one of the few places where the nights have deep black skies, no sound disturbs the silence, except occasionally - one can hear screams of animals being attacked by lions. Despite the fact it was one of the most incredible journey's I have ever been on, it proved to be one of the most difficult ones as well.
As a I experienced, taking photographs and strong emotions at the same time were an impossible combination.
A dog named MogadorOn the morning of August 17th I took a walk outside the old city walls of Essaouira. The fair just outside the walls had gone. "How long ago did the fair move?’, I asked a guard sitting on a chair and leaning against the wall of the Jewish cemetery.
‘For two years now Sir’.
‘I remember your face - did you work here back then?’, I asked.
‘I have been working here for twenty years, Sir.’
He smiled and bared his teeth, rotten and browned by too many cups of sweet mint tea.
‘Thank you, I go on, I wish you good luck’, I said
‘Don’t you want to see the cemetery Sir? It's not big, but it is well worth a visit.’
In the lee of the wind I followed the wall that separated the cemetery from the road - the releasing lime and the gray surface of the wall reminded me of whitecaps on waves during a storm.
Once outside the city walls I followed the road to the sea. A skeleton of an industrial complex had become a haven for dogs - looming in the shadows and following my movements. On a winding path near the sea a horse and carriage passed by - in the distance a thick veil of smoke obscured the coastline. A fire raged at the foot of a dune I was standing on and near the water tiny figures leaning forwards were searching garbage and piles of rubble left on the beach.


On my way back I found the streets deserted, an occasional car passing flared up clouds of sand. In the distance I could see the fragile silhouette of a dog delineated against the sand. I took one photograph. It walked several minutes before I came closer.
The little dog was very weak and it seemed like she could drop dead any moment. I took another photograph.
‘How are you doing, are you ok?’, I ask in a soft voice.
I took a long time before she answered.
‘Death is coming, she said in a broken tone of voice,
‘My name is Mogador, I am very pleased to meet you -
I do not have much time left anymore.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better if you lie down in the shade - it is a lot cooler’, I said.
‘I heard you were here’, Mogador continued slowly without answering my question, ‘the news has spread rapidly’.
At that moment she could not keep her balance and she sank to her feet and fell into the sand.

After a long silence she said:
‘I have heard the horrible story of the cat with three legs - it was a terrible and sad accident - but is she safe now..?
...you did save her didn’t you?’
I waited and searched for answers with the right words.
There were no proper words.
Heartbeats in my throat.
I wiped the dusty sweat from my face with the sleeve of my shirt and took a deep breath.
‘We have not succeeded, we have searched for her this morning; in the streets, in courtyards, underneath cars and also near the sea - everywhere - unfortunately we had no luck.
She has been seen last night but this morning we couldn’t find her.
A man in the streets near the gas station told us she has died this morning.’
Mogador looked at me as tears welled up in her eyes.
It took several minutes before she calmed.
‘It is time’, she said.
In the distance a truck was approaching in a cloud of dust. Time passed.
The shadows slowly crept up to Mogador, who now had curled up.
At that moment the truck drove by, blazing a cloud of dust over the Mogador - a chill crept through her small body.