Rolf Potts

By Nesreen | May 21st, 2008 | No Comments

Encounters is much more than a travel writing book, and was always intended to be. That’s one reason why the collection has such an eclectic mix of writers who come from backgrounds outside of the normal travel writing circuit.

Travel writers are of course, well represented too. Rolf Potts is one of them. His Encounters story “Dancing at the Blood Festival,” recounts his journey to understand Islam in a Post 9-11 world.

Rolf has been a travel writer for nearly a decade now, something I did not realize until I learned that Solas House/Travelers’ Tales this fall will be publishing Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Lessons from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer. Rolf strikes me as someone who revels in strange, edgy, and seamy places. He always takes us there with him, but what I love about his writing is he takes us into his own edgy and witty mind, where he processes the madness that sometimes happens around him. I’m sure Marco Polo will not disappoint in that regard.

“Dancing at the Blood Festival” is much in that spirit. In it, he uses Eid al Adha, a Muslim holiday to observe the Old Testament story of Abraham’s near murder of his son Ishmael, done to prove his devotion to God, as his point of inquiry. Rolf goes from the chaotic streets of Cairo to the laconic ones in coastal Aqaba in Jordan to discover that when Muslims holiday, they do so in much of the same way we do. Before that conclusion though, readers are treated to a hilarious romp through Rolf’s awkward journey through Cairo on the morning of the Eid, when sacrificial goat blood is splattered all over the city, causing little girls to wretch and hapless animals to meet a premature fate falling from rooftops before their sacrifice.

When he reaches Aqaba, the awkwardness of two teenage boys curious about an American traveler is what becomes funny, as does Rolf’s boredom as he hangs out with these kids as they dance to a tune played on an old cassette player. It ends well, I promise, but I won’t give it away.

Congratulations to Rolf on his new book!