Exploring the Defenses of Tangier
This past Christmas vacation, my wife and I headed down to Tangier so I could write a travel series for Gadling.
While walking the labyrinthine alleyways of this Moroccan port, I took note of the defenses that had been built up over the years. Tangier has changed hands numerous times between the Moroccans, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Because of its strategic importance on the southern end of the Strait of Gibraltar, it’s always needed to protect itself. The old town is surrounded by high walls, emplacements for sea batteries can still be seen, and high up on the hill overlooking the city stands the Casbah, where the Sultan once lived with his family and entourage, and which has fortifications of its own.
[Click on any of the images in this article for larger versions.]
I’m secretly haunting an 8th grade English class at Hammarskjold Middle School. I tutor some students who are in the same class, so I get to see their teacher’s assignments, comments on student writing, and most recently, study guides for midterm exams. I glimpse the teacher through the fog of my physical absence from the classroom–I even forget from week to week whether the teacher is a man or a woman–but traces of my spectral influence may be detectable in my students’ work.
