Paperback: 158 pages
Publisher: Eye Books; 2nd Revised edition edition (1 Sept. 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1903070680
Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 1.3 x 20.3 cm
‘A lively window on the traveller’s hard love affair with Morocco’
Lonely Planet
Musician Pamela Windo chronicles her love of Morocco and its people in this wondrous collection of true stories, peeling back layers of history, paint, and finely embroidered fabrics to find the truths in the mysterious and the exotic.
She describes the colors, flavors, songs, and textures of an almost dream-like nation. Her stories are of snatched affairs, unforeseen warmth, and subtle eroticism in shadowed courtyards.
The results are liberating and uplifting portraits of places and people, each told with an extraordinary delicacy. Behind the veils, she discovers kindness, beauty, and passion that afford her life a whole new dimension.
Speaking of Morocco immediately conjures thoughts of mystery and intrigue, of sunlight and sensuality, of exotic handicrafts to decorate our homes, and of a refined and aromatic cuisine. All these are true, in abundance.
Speaking of Morocco immediately conjures thoughts of mystery and intrigue, of sunlight and sensuality, of exotic handicrafts to decorate our homes, and of a refined and aromatic cuisine. All these are true, in abundance.
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‘Chokran,’ I answered. Communication between us amounted to very few words; hand signals and facial gestures were our vocabulary. Sometimes I thought I detected a spark of adventure in her eyes. Travel has a way of bringing things out in people you might not otherwise see, and I wondered if she found me as interesting to watch as I found her.
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Around four o'clock, the calm was shattered. A blustery chergui wind picked up; doors banged open and shut, letting in flurries of sand. Outside, the desert had been transformed into a beige ocean of billowing, whirling waves with no distinction between sky and land. The distant huts of the settlement had vanished. The only thing I could see was a small herd of camels resting on their shanks, slowly chewing fodder, their huge protective eyelids disdainfully closed to the familiar occurrence. By now, my nose, ears and fingernails were filled with grains of sand, and my hair felt like gritty straw. The hostel keeper took pity on me and brought me a tumbler of water from a barrel to rinse my face and teeth.
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4. After peering nervously behind the doors in all the rooms, upstairs and down, I went back to bed and told myself it must have been one of the neighbourhood cats looking for scraps. But my imagination got the better of me. All I could think of were the evil spirits the Moroccans calldjnoun that they believe possess people and cause all the evil and sad things that happen to them, and that only exorcism can rid them of. I was used to being alone, but now I was terrified. There was no telephone in the house to call for help, and the neighbours now seemed like enemies. I was trembling, convinced I was being threatened by a djin, and suddenly the thought was in my head that I was going to die. I had no idea how or why, but I was going to die before the morning.
‘A lively window on the traveller’s hard love affair with Morocco. Recommended’
Lonely Planet