What Morocco Taught Me About Story and Power

I went to Morocco thinking I was there to learn about culture, community, and connection. What I did not expect was how clearly the place would teach me about story as power and about authorship as a form of dignity.

From the moment I arrived in Marrakech, everything spoke. Terracotta walls holding centuries of heat and history. Indigo and saffron woven into cloth like memory made visible. The call to prayer moving through the air, not as background sound but as a reminder that life itself is held by rhythm and reverence.

I began to understand that in many parts of the world, story is not something you tell after the work is done. Story is the work. It is how culture is preserved, how identity is protected, how value is transmitted across generations. It is infrastructure. Not metaphorically, but structurally.

Spending time with the Mohammed VI National Center for Disabled deepened that understanding. There was posture and dignity. People were not spoken about as limitations to be managed but as whole lives to be supported, seen, and believed in. The narrative was not charity. It was belonging. Not pity. Possibility.

Meeting Meryanne Loum-Martin in Marrakech, the founder and creative force behind Jnane Tamsna, a globally recognized cultural and design destination that blends hospitality with deep cultural intentionality, and the only Black woman hotelier in Morocco, made the connection between story, authorship, and leadership feel very real. Walking through the gardens and spaces she created, it was clear that nothing was accidental. African, European, and Moroccan influences existed side by side in a way that felt intentional and grounded, not performative. The environment itself reflected what it means to build something that holds culture, history, and identity with care, and to do so from a place of ownership and vision.

Seeing her in that role challenged many of the narrow ideas the world often holds about who gets to lead, who gets to own, and who gets to define excellence. It was a reminder that narrative is never neutral and that it shapes who is seen as credible, who is trusted with vision, and whose perspective is allowed to influence how a place is understood.

Morocco showed me that communities do not simply live inside stories, they are held by them. When communities lose authorship over their own narrative, they lose more than visibility. They lose the ability to define themselves on their own terms, to shape how they are perceived, and to influence the futures imagined for them.

We often talk about voice as expression, but voice is also power. It shapes perception, directs where resources flow, and influences whose lives and contributions are taken seriously. Being in Morocco made clear how deeply story is woven into land, architecture, institutions, and leadership, in how people are named, represented, and valued, and in who is granted authority and trusted as a legitimate source of knowledge. This is where narrative equity becomes responsibility, not just language, because it determines who is centered and who is allowed to speak for themselves rather than be spoken for.

It also clarified something about my own work. I am not only interested in helping organizations tell better stories. I care about protecting authorship and helping build narrative systems that honor community knowledge, treat voice with care, and recognize story as a form of power that shapes how people and places are understood.

We do not inherit the future only through policy or economics. We inherit it through narrative. And in Morocco, I was reminded that story is not decoration. It is part of the foundation on which dignity, identity, and belonging are built.