Avuncular American

Gaetana Enders, Tangerina in New York

It was only last month that Gaetana Enders, née Marchegiano, was back in the Tangier of her youth.  We don't often have the pleasure of hosting eighty-something researchers in our library, and I regret that I don't have a photo of Gaetana poring over a stack of books on Tangier, International Zone.

Another regret: she was in the final, fact-checking stage of writing her autobiography, and I wish that I had had more than a tantalizing look at the draft, filled with detail on the war years, when Italian families in Tangier were divided between loyalties to Mussolini, or, in the case of Gaetana's father, to Italy's monarchy.

Gaetana Enders, widow of career Ambassador Thomas Enders, passed away in New York on May 21.

Her trip to Tangier in late April was to revisit the city where she was born and grew up, and where she met her husband.  Which was at the American Legation.

In 1951, when Minister John Carter Vincent - who, as a "China Hand" was in diplomatic purgatory in Tangier, prior to his departure from the US Foreign Service in the worst days of McCarthy - wanted to give a reception for the visiting Thomas Enders, then still a student, he thought of young Gaetana Marchegiano.  She would be the hostess, and invite her young friends.

Daughter of the International Zone's judicial administrator on the Commission of Control, Gaetana not only threw a great party for Thomas Enders but soon became his wife.  She recalled her marriage in Tangier a few years later: "I was paraded through the medina in my white wedding dress, to the accompanying you-yous of the Moroccan women."

 

Wedding in Tangier, courtesy Enders family

Thomas Enders joined the Foreign Service in the late Fifties, and made a meteoric rise through the ranks, serving in several ambassadorial posts, including Canada, Spain, and the European Union.  After his death, Gaetana presented a rare map to the Legation in his honor, in the place where the two had met.

Gaetana led an extremely active life, first as an ambassador's wife, then as International Editor of ¡Hola! magazine (or Hello in its English edition), interviewing a series of international figures and celebrities.

Her final visit to Tangier, though she was still recovering from serious medical problems, was especially touching, revisiting as she did places like the Legation that were so important in her life.  We feel honored that we were able to share this moment with her, and our hearts go out to her family.

Gerald Loftus

Legation on the Holocaust Remembrance Map

With the Association Mimouna and the UN Holocaust Office, TALIM hosted a special event on Jews in Tangier during the Second World War.

Mimouna is a group of young Moroccans who work to underscore the Jewish heritage of their country.  They explain their genesis and goals:

Traditionally celebrated at the end of Passover, “Mimouna” is a unique Moroccan Jewish celebration of liberty and community. Moroccan Jews would often invite their Muslim neighbors to join in the festivities associated with returning to eating leavened food once Passover ended.

We are a group of Moroccan Muslim students striving to preserve and promote the history of Morocco’s ancient Jewish community. Founded in 2007 at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI), the MIMOUNA takes its name from the original “Mimouna,” a symbol of the heritage shared by all Moroccans. We seek to educate the Moroccan people about the Jewish culture that used to flourish in the country, and encourage harmony between Jews and Muslims.

Coming from all over Morocco to Saturday's event at the Legation, the members of Mimouna also arranged for Kimberly Mann of the UN Holocaust program to address the group.  One member of our audience, a Jewish woman who grew up in wartime Tangier, brought her own eyewitness testimony to bear.

Vanessa Paloma of Brandeis and the Sorbonne, who did her Fulbright research in Tangier, reported on her work on the archives of Tangier's dwindling Jewish community.  There were poignant passages from the community's proceedings, hopeful during the early part of the war before the fall of France in June 1940, and increasingly guarded after that.  "Pray, but not too loudly" the faithful were constantly admonished, as uncertainty reigned after Franco's occupation of Tangier, and Vichy took over in the nearby French Protectorate.

Paloma, who has begun an ambitious project to preserve the sound archives of Jewish Morocco (Khoya: Les Archives Sonores du Maroc Juif), even found a rare recording of Jewish children in Tangier singing a ditty on the death of Adolf Hitler (I could make out "hijo de puta" somewhere in the lines).  When the sound didn't carry through our conference room, Vanessa, equally at home in concert mode, treated us to a live impromtu rendition.

For many in the audience, we were able to introduce them to the story of the Legation's role in helping to save some 1,200 Hungarian Jews from the death camps, which we first covered in 2011 and then again this year in the Foreign Service Journal.  The story of Renée Reichmann, her relief packages for European Jews, the story of the Joint Distribution Committee's aid to Jewish refugees in Tangier (check the JDC's archival photos of wartime Tangier) were a prelude to the rescue effort in which the Legation Chargé d'Affaires took a major part.

Now this story has not only gotten wider coverage among young Moroccans, but it has also been brought to the attention of the UN Holocaust Remembrance office.  The Legation is on the Holocaust Remembrance map.

Gerald Loftus

American Pirate in the Consular Court

1952: The case of the U.S. vs. "Nylon Sid"

Consular Court?  Piracy?  By an American?  Yes, this was Tangier, International Zone.

We couldn't find the Tangier Gazette article (not even sure there was one) about Sydney Paley, the American pirate in Tangier.  But thanks to Margery King, one of the Legation's steadfast friends, who remembers her father being called to serve as a juror at the Legation, we have this item from Time Magazine of December 29, 1952, Nylon Sid & the Jolly Roger:

The location was the Barbary Coast, Technicolored to perfection in the midwinter sunshine; the set was a makeshift courtroom in the ancient Moorish palace that houses the U.S. consulate in torrid Tangier. On trial was Tangier's No. 1 manufacturer of nylons and lingerie: dapper Sidney Paley, 32, a spunky ex-G.I. from New Jersey known to his intimates as Nylon Sid. The charge: plotting piracy on the high seas.

From a procession of multilingual witnesses came the story of how an 80-ton privateer (the ex-British Admiralty launch Esme) rammed the Dutch ship Combinatie one night in October and hijacked its cargo of $100,000 worth of U.S. cigarettes. Masked and heavily armed, the pirates sailed their prize to a cove "somewhere in Corsica." There, they unloaded their booty, and abandoned the Combinatie a few miles offshore, leaving its crew locked below decks.

 

The leader of the pirates, said the prosecution, was one Elliot Burt Forrest, 29, Bronx-born operator of a Tangier nightclub and now a fugitive from justice. But the brains behind the exploit was Nylon Sid, who was lurking in Marseille waiting to dispose of the loot when the Esme's crew was captured. Spanish cops nabbed Nylon Sid when he skipped to Madrid; last week he faced trial before a U.S. consular court in the internationalized port of Tangier.

Nylon Sid insisted that he and Forrest had chartered the Esme to do a "salvage job" off Malta; anything else that happened was all Forrest's doing because Nylon Sid wasn't there. Besides, said his lawyer, "this is the season of 'Peace on earth, good will to all men.'" U.S. Consular Judge Milton J. Helmick was unmoved; he found Nylon Sid guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison. Nylon Sid would be allowed out on appeal, said the judge, if he would put up as bail $10,000 and his cream-colored Cadillac.

I recently came across mention of Nylon Sid in an entertaining book from the Fifties, Turbulent Tangier by Aleko Lilius.  Lilius knew a thing or two about pirates.  His 1931 book I Sailed With Chinese Pirates was the inspiration for the long running comic strip Terry and the Pirates.

When he arrives in Tangier to cover the Nylon Sid trial, Lilius starts to get the feel of the place: a hotel clerk is wary of talking to him about the "important exporters" (a.k.a. smugglers) who stay at the hotel.  He plays cat-and-mouse with Sid to get a photo for Life Magazine, which, like Time, is following this story intently.  "The general talk in Tangier was that Lucky Luciano had had a hand in most of these operations" - with hints of the Mafia and "American gangsterism," no wonder people were nervous.  A note arrives in his hotel pigeon hole: "Lay off Sydney."

Consul Milton Helmik, "acting judicially" according to notices in the Tangier Gazette, presided over the Consular Court, with Vice Consul Miklos playing bailiff ("Hear ye, hear ye").  Writes Lilius:

We assembled in the Legation's big drawing room.  The presence of prison guards, a police van outside, and an armed Marine inside the courtroom created an ominous atmostphere.

In the end, after appeals, Paley was given a suspended sentence and his fine was reduced.  Later Nylon Sid tells Lilius that his pirate days are over, and that he would henceforth confine himself to smuggling.

In the 1950s, as Moroccan independence was looming, Tangier continued to have its unique set of institutions, with an American Consular Court at the Legation, but also with an American judge, Juan Sedillo, on the International Court.  The city's transition from International Zone to Moroccan city took several years, described here.

By the time I joined the US Foreign Service in 1979, vice consuls no longer got to play bailiff or consular court judge.  Lucky for me: my legal duties amounted to "adjudicating" visa applications, for which very skimpy familiarity with US regulations sufficed.

Gone were the days of Nylon Sid at the Consular Court.

Gerald Loftus

Tangier Seen Through Different Lenses

Is Tangier still the haven of The Aesthetes, as Andrew O'Hagen of the NY Times Magazine would like us to believe?

Much as many of the individuals depicted in "The Aesthetes" are talented and likeable people, and in many ways represent the concentration of culture and creativity that has typified Tangier for decades, there is nevertheless a ring of the recycled in Mr. O'Hagen's piece.

"It’s an old story — as old as sailing and sex..." so begins this umpteenth ode to Tangier's collection of expatriates.  At least we have O'Hagen's fine writing, and nice photography of what are quintessentially cozy interiors, rich in color and light.

But we've read this before, in fact, writers have been churning this out for decades, The Lost World of Naughty Tangier.  Get a new story line, please.

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Le Parisien's recent travel piece gives a plug to the Legation, and it is nicely illustrated with drawings by Reno Marca (though they depict a building other than ours).  This is straightforward travel writing.

TV5 Canada's "Ports d'Attache" episode on Tangier can be seen through 29 April.  Though aficionados will recognize scenes shot at the Legation, we don't get mentioned as such.  The program (in French) is nevertheless well done, and shows Tangier, warts and all, as it is today.

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Perhaps Tangier is simply a good place to do research for budding US scholars, of the likes of Ayla Amon (George Washington University), Graham Cornwell (Georgetown U.), and Emily Albrecht (Dartmouth College), who have recently written about their experiences at the Legation.

So over to our young Americans.

Ayla Amon, former TALIM intern, has done double duty, first by writing a comprehensive piece on the Legation and its library and museum collections in the art and architecture blog Stambouline, and then with Graham Cornwell (who did research for his dissertation at TALIM), a podcast in "Tajine."

Amon and Cornwell discuss the challenges of maintaining the TALIM collection, and present the myriad opportunities for scholars which our holdings represent.  This is very helpful for people contemplating research in Morocco.

Finally, Emily Albrecht reports on her Dartmouth group's time at TALIM, where they were able to attend our anniversary lecture on Sultan Mohammed V's historic speech in Tangier in 1947.

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There's room for every kind of coverage of Tangier, and while we like exposure for this city and for our unique institution, it's gratifying that of the recent articles devoted to Tangier, those with the most depth come from our young scholars.

Gerald Loftus; photo of Legation door detail by Christiane Delongueville

Big Men & Women On Campus: Tangier's UNE

This week's dedication of the Tangier campus of the University of New England brought a number of dignitaries to Tangier, including Maine Governor Paul LePage and new US Ambassador to Morocco Dwight Bush (both men also visited the Legation).

We had reported back in January on the "soft opening" of UNE Tangier, where the pioneer group of students and faculty started using a facility that was still getting its finishing touches.  Well, the paint has dried, and what a beautiful campus it is.

Much of the credit goes to two people: Dr. Anouar Majid, born in Tangier, whose "crazy idea" was pitched to his boss, Dr. Danielle Ripich, President of UNE.  Getting a small, private university to break new ground and become the first American university to have its own campus in Morocco was no mean feat in normal times.

But Majid managed to convince President Ripich to take the gamble during the uncertainty surrounding the Arab Spring.  No wonder the amusing dedication ceremony video compared Majid to Zorba the Greek - "a man needs a little madness" - getting his boss fired up to bouzouki music.

Now comes a different kind of hard work.  The impressive building was put up in record time, but there's the long haul of populating the program with waves of students, developing courses to take advantage of their unique setting on the Strait of Gibraltar (UNE Maine has a Marine Science program), and building on partnerships with local and regional institutions.

This is where TALIM comes in.  We've already welcomed UNE volunteers to help our in our research center and women's literacy program, and UNE staff and students are regulars at our cultural presentations.  We'd like to see even more of this in future, and are thrilled that this center of American higher education is just up the road.

Not bad for a "crazy idea."  Congratulations to visionaries Dr. Majid and Dr. Ripich.

Gerald Loftus 

Ibn Battuta Returns to Tangier

Yesterday's screening of the film epic Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta was a first for Tangier, the city where "IB" was born and from which he set off in 1325 on the first of what would be three decades of world travel.

Ibn Battuta has the city's airport named after him, and intrepid urban explorers can seek out his tomb in the medina, but there is precious little else here devoted to this Arab Marco Polo.

So it was time to bring IB back to his birthplace.

Yesterday's crowd at our Cinémathèque show was appreciative, and the film showcases the kind of spectacular Moroccan scenery that can depict a medieval pilgrimage from Tangier to Mecca, with every type of setting in between.  The film's producers have put together a great Educator's Guide (Download JTM_Educators Guide), and we were pleased to see a good number of Moroccan students in the audience.

Four years after I originally saw the film and reviewed it for IMDb, we "repatriated" IB to Tangier.

Gerald Loftus

Blue Mountain, Old Mountain: Bowles by Herrmann

Photo courtesy Irene Herrmann

As I type this, I'm listening to one of Paul Bowles' compositions from Blue Mountain Ballads, his 1946 musical rendition of poetry by his friend Tennessee Williams, inspired by southern American music.  You can listen to selections on Song of America.

But in Tangier last Friday, we had some of those same Bowles ballads live, or as close as we could get to "live" some 15 years after his death.  For the overflow audience at the Legation concert - featuring the inauguration of our new (used-but-tuned) piano - Bowles was almost with us again, thanks to his friend and musical heir Irene Herrmann.  And it wasn't just Irene on piano; we also had her daughter Kaethe Hostetter playing the violin and Latifa Azmy, soprano of Tangier.  What an evening.

Right to left: Irene Herrmann, Kaethe Hostetter, and Latifa Azmy

We have our partners the American Language Center in Tangier and the US Embassy Rabat Cultural Affairs Office to thank for their support.  Here's the ALC's abbreviated YouTube video (approx 20 minutes); other photos in this post courtesy Rachid El Mziryahi, ALC.

Natasha Pradhan of ALC - herself a student of Moroccan traditional music - recorded the concert and has made us a podcast - click here.

Irene Herrmann doesn't just apply herself to the keyboard when she evokes Paul Bowles.  Selections from his oeuvre (spanning seven decades) are interspersed with readings from his and Jane Bowles' letters and published works, and anecdotes - some never heard before in Tangier, where Bowles spent most of his long and productive life.  Her "Paul Bowles, Composer" is a very concise summary of this Renaissance man's musical side, which Bowles, writing in the shadow of Tangier's "Old Mountain," continued even after he became much better known as a writer.

Before Irene Herrmann first met Paul Bowles in Tangier, she had made a pilgrimage to the Henry Ransom Center archives at UT in Austin, finding a wealth of material by Bowles, including unpublished musical scores.  When she met Bowles later in Tangier and played some of these for him, he playfully made her repeat the recital until he admitted that he recognized his own work - but only when she played a false note on the third go.

It was this kind of "insider" relationship - without the slightest shade of name-dropping - that makes Irene such a pleasure, and a treasure.  Though she only knew Bowles in the last decade of his life, her commitment to music - his music - led Paul Bowles to name Irene Herrmann as his musical inheritor.  Irene takes her responsibility very seriously, and is the indispensible reference for work involving not only Bowles' numerous compositions, but also his work to record Morocco's traditional music, a project in which TALIM is very active.

Maybe it's because we have Bowles' music - his compositions, his Moroccan recordings, plus his narration of selected writings - playing at the Legation's Bowles Wing on our iPod continuous loop, but I can hear his melodies echoing in my ear.  Now relatively little known, his music is precise, like the man apparently was (it's evident in his writing, too).  Precise, but melodious, though sometimes the words can strike a jarring note - Irene Herrmann read us some of Jane Bowles' writing set to music, and the poignant frailty of Jane comes through with painful clarity.

Irene Herrmann last saw Bowles in 1999, "shrinking away in bed, yet still precise in his answers."  Herrmann modestly puts herself in the category of mere "performer," and says that Bowles "listened differently; he had a composer's ear."

Those of us who listened to Irene last weekend know that she too has an eye and an ear for detail, and her musical portrait of the man whom some of us never met was a precise as anything that Bowles might have written.  A Bowles evening, with Irene Herrmann.

Gerald Loftus

Down to the Sea in Tugboats

For a moment, clear your mental picture of tugboat toys for toddlers in bathtubs.

We are talking serious, strong, adult-strength vessels, those that can withstand Force 10 gales and deploy to sea in minutes to save supertankers in distress.  Moroccans were just reminded of the dangers at sea, with the loss of life following a collision between two fishing boats off the southern port of Dakhla two days ago.

That's the world of Christophe Bommelaer, who has sailed the rough seas from his native Dunkirk on the English Channel, via the Breton coast and its legendary "Abeille" series rescue tugs, to the port of Tangier Med, where he heads Boluda's fleet of intra-port tugs on the Strait of Gibraltar.

Thanks to Yves Gomez of Rotary Détroit for conceiving and presenting this informative session with M. Bommelaer.

As we've seen from anthropologist Janell Rothenberg's logistics presentation last year, and from our 2011 April Seminar on the socio-economic impact of Tangier's ports (two-part report: Day One, and Day Two), the topic of Tangier as an important Atlantic-Mediterranean port city continues to captivate our audience.  With considerable investments to foster both commercial shipping and tourism, Morocco has ambitions for Tangier as a major hub, connected to the world.

It always helps to show pictures, and the work of a tugboat captain, especially during dramatic rescues in mountainous waves, is very photogenic.  Christophe Bommelaer did not disappoint, and his spectacular footage, through YouTube, of the work that he and his colleagues do had the audience of Tangier students, Rotarians, and the interested public holding its breath.

The stats in this business are impressive: a $35 million tug (of the heavy duty Abeille class) to save a container ship worth $350 million; traffic in the Strait of Gibraltar: 300 ships per day (in the English Channel, it's twice that).  Bommelaer's pièce de résistance was a look at a real time website showing maritime movements, www.marinetraffic.com.

The glimpse we had, on a Thursday evening, circa 9:00 PM, revealed a snapshot of Tangier Med with roughly three ships versus rival Algeciras in Spain, where numerous vessels were lining up.

The above real time screen shot from Sunday morning illustrates either (a) that Algeciras appears to be (literally) eating Tangier Med's breakfast, or (b) that Tangier Med's super efficiency means ships roll in and roll right out again, after transshipments.  I'll leave it to the Tangier Med (TMSA, renamed TMPA) marketing department to clarify this, but, oops, their website appears to have disappeared.

Listening to Christophe Bommelaer, I get the impression that, like Horatio Clare's recent book on the container industry - "I thought I went to sea to find out about ships and oceans, but though I saw something of those, I saw much more of men" - there's a book on tugboat people and their dangerous and romantic profession that has yet to be written... perhaps "Down To The Sea In Tugboats."

But wait, they made a film:

Can't get more romantic than that.

Gerald Loftus

The Chickasaw Princess of Tangier

This is a story with, as they say in French films, a "Appy End."  It could have been otherwise.

But before we go any further, let us wish Laurie "Dougie" Harbach, who lived for a number of years as an American expatriate in Tangier, a very happy 100th birthday.  Today she's safely back home in Oklahoma, thanks to the help of two Swiss gentlemen who came to her aid.

"Dougie," as she is known to her friends in Tangier, was a "Powers Girl" model with the John Roberts Powers agency in the mid-Twentieth century.  She graced the covers of Vogue, Modern Photography, Modern Romances, and other magazines, many of which have disappeared from circulation.  Fashion photographer George Platt Lynes featured the beautiful model along with his male nudes, and Dougie was quoted as saying that their affair was complicated: "He didn't want his boyfriend making passes at his girlfriend."

Dougie, who later married TV producer William Harbach, traveled in privileged circles in her early life.  Her photo albums show Gatsby-like mansions on Long Island, skiing in the French Alps, and cover-girl spreads in exotic locations.  She modelled for legendary couturier Charles James.

On the back of a faded picture of then-US Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy, she writes "Florida, 1944, JFK, 27 yrs., I took picture."

But our point here is not to dwell on the glamorous young Dougie, who appears to have had a relatively sybaritic existence.  Later, when she settled in Tangier, the good life continued in the International Zone's expat community, with Dougie appearing at American School of Tangier theatre productions by Headmaster Joe McPhillips; longtime Tangier American resident Blanca Hamri remembers Dougie as "always elegant, never a snob, and never a negative word said about anyone."

In recent years Dougie, by then in her late nineties and beset with health and financial problems, got out less, and visitors were less frequent; her downtown Tangier apartment had scores of steps and no elevator.  Sometime last year, Swiss residents of Tangier, philanthropists Jean-Marc Maillard, Honorary Consul General of Morocco in Switzerland, and his partner Jean-Daniel Polier, took action.  They spent time with Dougie, got to know her story.  Looked for help in the obvious places - family members, US Embassy, even seeing if her previous marriage to someone who was Jewish might qualify her for admission to Tangier's retirement home (the answer was no).

And then, the miraculous: paging through her star-studded photo albums, Jean-Marc Maillard marvelled, "you were a princess."  Dougie's rejoinder; "I am a Princess."  A Chickasaw princess, as it happens, granddaughter of Douglas Johnston, the first Governor of the Chickasaw Nation after Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma.  Among her books in Tangier: "A Chickasaw Dictionary," published by the Chickasaw Nation and compiled by her grandfather's friend.

Now, you can be an American citizen, living overseas, and get into medical and/or financial trouble, and good luck to you.  Without family resources back home, and with things like Medicare stopping at the border, there is not a lot that the US Government can do beyond ensuring that your Social Security check is paid.  Even if a destitute overseas American retiree were to return back to the States, then what?  Medicaid?  That would depend on their state, and many have been cutting that aid for the neediest.

But not the Chickasaw Nation, which

considers its elders “living treasures” and works hard to provide for them the best service and care possible. The tribe remains devoted to the health and well-being of its elders by offering programs and services which are focused on all aspects of their lives.

So, here's to a "living treasure," Laurie "Dougie" Harbach, back in the Chickasaw Nation on her 100th birthday.  We raise our glasses to you,  Dougie Harbach.

Pisa chukma - her Chickasaw dictionary says it means "beautiful."

Gerald Loftus
 

Tangier to Tinseltown: Sanaa Hamri

Tipped off by proud Mom (Blanca Hamri), I watched her daughter Sanaa on CNN, and then sent the following flash message ("Must-See: Tanjawia-American on CNN") last Sunday morning to the more than 400 people on the TALIM mailing list:

 

I'll be brief: Moroccan - American film director Sanaa Hamri, daughter of Blanca Hamri (formerly of the American School of Tangier) and artist Mohammed Hamri, has made a successful career in New York and Hollywood as a director of music videos, TV programs, and films.

She's profiled on CNN's weekly "African Voices," which is shown at the following times.  If you miss seeing it today Sunday or tomorrow Monday, you can probably watch the episode on the program's website.  The program is shown at the following times (deleted, as it's now online).

 

Check this out, no kidding.  It's a full 30 minutes of Tangier & a great Moroccan-American.  Sanaa is highly intelligent, successful-but-not-a-braggart, an example of what this rich multicultural city and a pair of spunky and talented parents can produce.

I then sent the announcement with this addendum to the members of the American School of Tangier (AST) board of trustees (of which I am a member):

 

"African Voices" appears to be only be broadcast on CNN International, therefore only outside the US.  But if you wait a couple of days, you will be able to see it on the CNN website at this link; look for "Watch Previous Shows."

 

Sanaa (and Blanca) provide some great lines, including "AST was the ticket... education was a great gift..."

What's most impressive is Hamri's evolution.  Starting out as a receptionist at a NY studio, she not only "answers the phones well," as she puts it, but also teaches herself how to use the editing equipment.  Music videos (her clients include the biggest names in pop) come next, which evolve into TV sitcom episodes, which then morph into film directing.

 

But not just any old MTV spot or film.  Sanaa Hamri says that she turns down proposals "if they lack meaning," or sometimes because of their lyrical content: "They're saying nothing."  This woman knows where she's heading.

 

Okay, "local girl does well in Hollywood" - the Tinseltown story has been told before in places like Peoria, and maybe in Tallahassee, but not in Tangier.  Sanaa is a Big Deal, and is obviously a young woman who thinks big, too.  With a map of Morocco and Tangier spotlighted on the TV screen, she tells us that she hopes to establish a film studio in her home town, to rival the majors in Hollywood.

 

With someone of her level of determination - mother Blanca recalls that Sanaa's favorite cartoon character as a little girl was "Mighty Mouse" - who can doubt that she'll give it a shot?

 

Photo: cover story of Urbain Magazine (Tangier, Morocco)

 

Gerald Loftus