Sarah-naja,
"Jurgen, my angry friend...?"

I ran when people I do not know call my "friend". I run faster when Americans - with a rather different understand of that word - call me so. Imagine what I do, when you call me friend....? Write - I right(!?).

Since we are among ourselves - in the intimacy of "page 2" - we can pretend to communicate in some kind of frankness.

I have been rather kind to you. More than being the opposite of kind! I didnīt say, for example, a single word about your "world on a Moroccan shoest(r)ing". No reason for you to duck, excluding further communications. There had been lots of things to say about the fragile balances in Moroccan mountain villages. And those, like you, disturbing this balance with best of intensions. Think about the shoemaker for one! What abut the guy, his wife and kids, makin' their living on shoe-selling. What about the pride of the kids and their parents? And you mention an ivory tower, insisting the box of pencils you brought was really a full one (to make sure all kids could get one)? How much does a box of pencils cost. 5 bucks? 10? Most likely it had some ads printed on it and had been for free. Itīs easy Sarah, easy and cheap (moneywise is meant), to play Jesus, making barefeet Moroccan kids walk on ice. You are not the first intending to do good causing something different, often opposite. I am sure you want the best, but I doubt you fully understand the impact of your aid.

This is a social affair, not (enemeled) beads, right? So bakc to the toppic. My question, if you had seen the Marrakech museum, was not testing your interest in art. It was nothing but a serious question. I even asked, I remember, if and how you liked it. You got me wrong!

"A final Happy Christmas?" In the sense of wishing me to die right after? Taking you by your own language, this is what one could understand.

You say it confirms a gentle approach and genuine respect for people, if you overpay an item. 5-8 instead of 3.5 DH the gramm? If you, one more time - now in the plains of a city - disturb the social balance of a market, finetuned over centuries? This is called "genuine respect"?Better admit you didnīt learn (or wasnīt taught) the lectures of a fine Arabian bargain. Still, and somehow contradicting myself, things in the Souk are not about bargaining. Tourist bargain! Foreigners bargain. Newcomers try to! Most things, definitely those Iīve seen of you here(or those from others you applaused)have a FIXED market-price. Not for the piece. What you need is a scale - better your own one, since most in the market are manipulated - and the ability to multiply gramms with 3.5. Itīs easy, isnīt it? All this bullsh**-talk of the kind, "Iīve been able to bargain him down" is plain nonsense.

While you call me arrogant and an insecure, lonely owner of an ivorytower flat, I gave you "hard facts" in return. On qualities, on pieces, on age and on prices of Moroccan jewelry. Donīt you think you "owe" me a little bit more of your kindness. Itīs so easy to follow in the footsteps of other peoples prejudices - isnīt it Sarah?

No, I have nothing to forgive you. I believe youīre a good-hearted woman - seriously! Possibly youīre one of the few survivors of the glorious Hippy times.

OK, this is long enough for page 2. If it werenīt for you, my insecure ego had required this to be the "head-article of the day". Smiling...!
Writing, Sarah, is my profession. I write all day and most of the night. For various people and different publications. The last I need to see, is my name chisseled in stone. This is not the "New York Times Magazine", Sarah!

VARA!
who ho-ho-hoīs you!