CARAVANSERAI

What a beautiful word, caravanserai, inns for the traveling merchants of old...
We arrived at the caravanserai, a beautiful open aired building which was originally an inn. There were many rooms and compartments off the open air courtyard. The further into the recesses of the building we wandered, the more dark and cavernous it became. At the end of the building was a small square wooden stage, very intimate, surrounded on all four sides with bleacher seats from the floor ascending about 8 rows up. Our guide Ender had reserved the best seats for us on the front face of the stage, rows one through four. When we arrived at our section, we stopped because out seats were filled with a lot of big, hairy and kinda scary looking men, including a very vocal and extremely stubborn Greek sorta looking Patriarch dude. They glared at us and we looked back at them and we were all off to the races in a sort of international incident. They stubbornly refused to give up the seats, and we stood dumbly by because there really wasnt anywhere else to go. Toots and I were sent scrambling into the empty spots in the third row, where we sat watching the spittle fly from the increasingly agitated Greek clerics mouth. It went from bad to worse before it everr got any better.

Sorry folks, I am presented here at this luxury hotel with a completely brand new keyboard, so feel free to stick the proper punctuation in. because I am helpless to locate apostrophes, exclamations, question marks etc.

Anyway, all came to right and in the end, with much drama the Greeks removed themselves and the Cotton Tops moved into the conquered territory. Our guide Ender is a very gentle and well educated man, and it was very interesting to observe how he managed this impasse, with great and effective finesse. Quiety, firmly, and as he later said himself, with the right of principle on his side. Detente. Very impressive.

And then the lights went down, the room became very quiet and the sufi dancers and musicians strolled onto the stage enacting their very elaborate ritual of encountering and bowing to each other. The singer folded his arms in meditation, lowered his eyes and opened his mouth and the most beautiful intonations filled the room.