Violetta skymningar: Au revoir, Sefrou!

My last week at Culture Vulture’s Spring Residence in Sefrou. Sharon and Irena had already left, there was a slightly restless feeling and every walk in the Medina or outside it started to feel like the very last one. I tried to take pictures of my favorite places, or things I liked to look at, like the minaret with the stork’s nest, dates and shiny teapots, aloe vera plants, the busy market streets or the whitewashed quiet streets in the Kasbah part of the Medina.

I took pictures of the green shop doors, usually closed and locked with big padlocks, but magically opened on Friday, revealing the glittering, gleaming goods inside the small shops: jewellery, gold and silver, diamonds and precious stones, but mostly gold, bracelets and rings… For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to go too close when I took my picture.

We had our last Friday couscous at the Culture Vulture Hub, after which we made paper birds, Origami, a project that started earlier this year. The colorful birds, hundreds of them, are hung inside the local children’s hospital, as part of the residence’s Community Art project.

This was the first Origami work I’ve ever done, hopefully not the last... Folding the paper and turning it into a crane was far more complicated than I had imagined: lifting the flaps, creasing the sides, flipping over, pulling apart, and so on.. . Twenty-two different steps, according to the instructions on a website! Without Jamie’s firm supervision, my purple/violet piece of paper would never have turned into a crane. In my picture, you can see Jamie’s slender black bird, and my slightly crumpled violet one (violet for the violet twilights).

Our final project presentations took place in a small tea room in the medina. I had walked past this tea room numerous times, but never realized how cosy it was inside, so simple with small wooden tables, the walls covered with pastel colored tiles. Over a glass of steaming mint tea, we presented our finished or unfinished projects, some of them more concrete, others more abstract. Metalwork, shawls, a choreography, fabrics dyed in indigo, rubbings from the synagogue’s door, many of them already transferred to the computer for further development…

I read my column, Drömmen om Marocko (The Dream of Morocco), which I had written for Hufvudstadsbladet, in an improvised English translation. I still don’t know if I will include a passage about Morocco in the novel I am currently working on, but I think so… Morocco will, however, be an important part of a future project, inshallah, inspired by fusion jazz group Weather Report’s album Mysterious Traveller from 1974.

Hsuan’s Egg Carton Tower was completed the following day when we carried the carton piles to the place she had chosen in the old Kasbah (fortress) part of the Medina, where the constant sound of the river Aggaï creates a slightly mysterious atmosphere. The Carton Tower itself was not long lived, as it was up to the children to decide what they wanted to do with it. How quickly they took it apart, “destroying it” and finding new functions, turning it into chairs to sit on, a toy to bring home. Community Art at its best!

Jess invited us to her nice home for a farewell dinner. The steady sound of the river fused with soul music and Bob Marley. A Moroccan woman did henna tattoos, mostly on our arms and hands. Becky wanted the tattoo on her leg, Billie on her chest, Hsuan on her neck… Even if we were not brides, it did feel like some kind of a rite of passage. I know almost nothing about henna tattoos and thought the original thick dark brown paste would stay for two weeks on my skin. After a few hours, we rubbed off the dry henna paste, which revealed reddish brown patterns on our skin.

A dialogue with my kids on our WhatsApp chat:

Me: Guess what - I just got a henna tattoo on my arm.

David: A tattoo?

Michael (who seldom participates in our chat): Henna tattoo = temporary. Don’t worry.

David: I was almost ready to accept a real tattoo.

Cindy: Oh, like one of those “thug life” tattoos?

On Sunday morning, my last morning in Sefrou, I didn’t sleep much after the day’s first call to prayer, which I heard in the semi-dark room under my heavy woollen blanket. To me, prayers of all different faiths, blessings and invocations, sutra recitation, quiet meditation and daimoku chanting connect us with the universe. The birds started their monotonous chirping, I got up at six in order to catch an early grand taxi to Fez and from there the morning train to Tangier. I drank a cup of tea, left the keys on the table and said goodbye to my beautiful green room. Quietly I closed the blue door of Dar Attami, once the home of a Rabbi.

The Medina was quiet in the early morning, all the shop doors were closed. A young man stood smoking in the narrow lane, I said bon jour, though I wanted to say au revoir…No women were washing clothes in the basin with the worn out tiles. Once I saw a boy looking out from the small window above the basin, he looked so sweet and dreamy, the way Moroccan children so often do. Au revoir!

The morning air felt cool, but I was wearing far too many clothes (in order to get more room in my suitcase) and started to sweat as the sun shone more and more brightly. The steady sound of the river vanished as I reached the place from where the grand taxis to Fez were leaving. I turned my head one more time and saw the walls of the Medina, almost like a mirage. Au revoir, Sefrou!