Notes from a journey that has been years in the planning, beginning with an email pigeon from Michelle Fletcher that flew in sometime in 2018.
Travelling on a bus there is the constant struggle between wanting to keep the heart open to file memories and feeling the itch to reach for the camera in the vain hope of snapping what is likely to be a blurred image anyway and besides even if you keep your device on your lap you will be too late.
Too late to photograph the breathtaking sight of an apple orchard in full bloom carpeted by blinding lemon yellow woad blossoms or the white flowers of tiny cistus clinging to the rocky sides of cuttings pink like a freshly sliced haunch of raw pork. This might not be the best photo but at least there is evidence of roadside woad.
+
It is early evening the air milky with dust from a sandstorm somewhere further south in the Sahara (which reminds me of a joke that one of my German cousins used to trot out but is untranslatable, sorry. “Kennen sie die Wüste Sahara?“ „Nein, aber geben Sie mir doch Ihre Telefonnummer!“)
Stories are told about fat grasshoppers the size of your thumb being caught up in such winds and like Dorothy being carried far from home , sometimes even raining down on islands in the Caribbean. Watch your step, Toto. I tie my head up in a blue cloth, button up my coat and set forth in search of a few leaves we might use when we eventually arrive at our studio space in Ait Isfoul.
The village, dotted with eucalypts, nestles alongside a tributary of the Drâa, a once mighty river that here has been reduced to a thin stream creeping cautiously along the silted bed. There is evidence of bigger flows, silky flakes of dried pinkish silt that have me musing about the possibility of slipcast vessels. Or simply firing them in a found metal tin, as I have done from time to time in outback South Australia, but the trash I encounter is largely plastic where thirty years ago I suspect there might have been much more metal and glass. I resist the temptation to taste the thin salt shimmers on the surface of the stones (later I am told the river emanates from a salt mine) and wander onward toward the village where I pocket a few tile fragments and a dozen or so empty sardine cans. When flattened the latter will do nicely to protect small bundles of paper in the dye cauldron*.
I drift on through the village, discreetly nipping a leaf here and there, feeling slightly uncomfortable about pruning anything in such an arid place but secure in the knowledge that wherever I take a twig end, the tree will grow back two. I thank each tree after asking its forgiveness. Only once does anyone comment. An older gentleman mutters something under his breath. The tone is understandably unfriendly. Quite possibly something along the lines of “who do you think you are, helping yourself to our leaves?!?!” , a remark he would be fully justified in making. I place my hand on my heart and murmur “es tikai meklei lielveikals” (Latvian for “I am looking for the supermarket” if you must know, and really a ridiculous response to spring to mind). In situations where there is a likelihood of an uncomfortable conversation I find it best to slip into a language that is unlikely to be understood and preferably NOT English, hoping not to be caught out unlike someone I met in Ireland some years ago who told me how she had been travelling on a ferry between Greek islands and had made a comment about the desirable physical attributes of a well-built wayfarer standing nearby, assuming him to be a local and then become somewhat pink-cheeked when he responded in equally fluent Irish. If life were a novel they would have struck up a friendship, encountered one or two difficulties, a brief separation and then lived happily ever after, but life is not a novel and that never happened.
I gather up a few more windfalls and retrace my steps to the Kasbah.
I look for my phone charger and realise it has travelled ahead of me to Ait Isfoul with the rest of my kit. Remarkably the device is still almost fully charged as I have used it less than I would have on an average day at home. During our visit to Afoul Gafous** (a women’s weaving cooperative) I had it in my hand for a brief moment to ensure it was silent and then was so engaged by being present that I completely forgot to take any photographs at all…unlike our earlier lunch stop during which I tried very hard to capture an image of the brilliant blue eyes of the tiny cat slinking sinuously around my legs. It’s a good thing to be less ensnared by that small screen.
+
In the morning we make a visit to Ait Ben Haddou (a village with a name that is both Jewish (Ben) and Berber (Ait) where both cultures have lived harmoniously for hundreds of years) that has been very much exploited by the movie industry. The watchtower on the summit of its hill was rubbles by last year’s earthquake but most of the rest of the settlement was unscathed. After crossing the riverbed on a brutalist concrete bridge we pant up giant steps and haphazardly paved paths encrusted either side by displays of jewellery, silverish teapots and a rainbow of lurid textiles mostly imported from China. Tourists follow their guides blindly, groups weaving between each other like the flocks of sheep in India that meet, meld and diverge again at intersections, making sure to keep their own shepherds in sight only far less orderly and with more bleating. Sheep are almost never distracted by rugs or twinkling bracelets. One of the vendors is painting postcards using saffron and (synthetic) indigo on a surface prepared with heavily sugared tea and then bringing the image to life by heating over a flame so that the sugars caramelise. Not exactly an archival process but intriguing to watch.
+
We travel over another mountain range, encrusted with stern and forbidding piles of black stone that I am fairly sure is basalt. The contrast between the perfectly paved road (better than any in rural South Australia) and the weathered villages is extreme. The earth-based architecture of the houses, several compromised by the earthquake, others abandoned when their residents moved to the cities and some still lovingly maintained by their inhabitants is breathtaking. At Zagora we break for lunch. There is a pool into which several of us plunge our feet, freed from sweaty socks and boots. Bougainvillea in a riot of pink, apricot and magenta dances up the trunks of the surrounding palms. Sparrows (many of whom seem remarkably like canaries in mufti) chirp enthusiastically while on the other side of the pool a small boy who has for some time tempted fate by prancing enthusiastically on the slippery edge falls spectacularly into the drink. His mother rescues him and toga-wraps him in a tablecloth, whereupon he struts about importantly like a miniature Antony about to deliver Caesar’s funeral speech.
+
At one of our rest-stops for “P+C” (toilets and coffee) the car park is dotted with luminous red hibiscus. Beneath the bushes lies a veritable treasure trove of dried blooms. I gather up as many as I can tie into my handkerchief and am reminded of a very dear ink-making friend and a conversation we had about making ink from red pæonies.
+
We stop at a jewellery workshop where we are able to wander about and fondle ancient pieces worthy of museum collections. There is a feeding frenzy as we rummage for loose beads and tempted by trinkets. I come away with a small but exquisite metal bowl and a string of lusciously lumpy sea-coloured beads. I am assured that only two of the spheroids are “not real” whatever that means. They are real enough to hang about my neck and with three granddaughters there will be no shortage of takers for such things when I eventually go to meet my maker or dissolve back into stardust.
+
We visit the second oldest Koranic library in Morocco. There is an allegedly 1000 year old kalam (bamboo reed pen) that was found tucked into the spine of one of the manuscripts (for once, this appellation is absolutely spot on, as all of these works were carefully written by hand in ink derived from a mixture of charred wool and oil), incongruously stuck to a piece of card with cello tape. On another shelf, an equally ancient manuscript scribed in Cordoba on gazelle-skin parchment in a similar era is casually held open with a metal bulldog clip. Thank goodness the climate is so dry. Anywhere else and the pages would be indelibly stained with rust. Photography was not permitted.
+
By the end of the day my pockets are heavy with treasures. Sardine cans, pottery shards, the odd stone. Enough to share for bundling our papers in the workshop days to come at Ait Isfoul.
*Fiona Hall would doubtless make something exquisite of them.
**Michelle Fletcher (our fearless organiser) took a few though.
Save some trinkets for me India! I will be joining Michelle’s next group with Alex in May! Loving the descriptions!
Oh India! What an amazing trip!!