It was the night after Ali and I had drunk a special Berber tea that was
supposed to make us hallucinate, but instead had sucked every last drop of water
from our mouths and throats until they felt like the desert sands that
surrounded us. This poison that we'd greedily swallowed in hopes of
getting high had ravaged our fragile bodies and left us tormented by humiliating
memories of hours of muscle spasms, double vision and a serious loss of
coordination that toppled us like babes taking their first steps. As our
bodies slowly, slowly struggled back to normal and our clouded minds emerged
from the rubble, our stupidity dawned on us. Now that we were safe, we
could admit our shared fear of an agonizing death and swear that this time, no
really, this time was enough. We would never, ever take a mysterious drug
again. But the moon, It had sparkled like a shard of glass in the liquid
sky, and I swear I could HEAR it as I hurtled to the earth like a sack of
stones...
We were somewhere in the desert in Morocco, a place that doesn't exist on a
map, a tiny encampment of Berbers living in a Kasbah on the rolling sands of the
Sahara. We spent the days shielded from the burning sun under a black tent
woven from goat hair and watched veils of sand float from the tops of dunes.
Iklehv took us to the Kasbah to see his mother, a huge old woman with one eye
who sat over a fire in the courtyard, cooking in the blistering afternoon sun.
He led us through narrow alleys, mazes of shadows and faces shyly laughing at us
from deep doorways. The echo of voices mixed with the shifting light and
the scent of tobacco, spice and the sun transfixed me in its thick mass. I
envied them this fluid life of camels and caravans to Senegal and black spots of
goats wandering through a world that was equal parts sand and sky. We made
our way out and as we began to walk back to our shady tent beyond the palm
trees, I noticed people gathering around a well at the bottom of the slope.
Their voices grew agitated and it was apparent that something was wrong. I
kept looking back at the dusty shapes huddled around the well as Iklehv told us
that there was no more water for the people. The well had run dry that
morning. Ali and I couldn't believe what we were hearing. No more
water? My god, what will they do? The sand swirled around our feet,
the hot sky laughed down on us. We fidgeted as we sat underneath our black
tent, staring at our water bottles and wondering if we should offer them to the
villagers even though we realized how foolish that really was.
My mind reeled and panicked for these people, bound to these dry, dry sands
and that burning sun. Life was so beautiful and peaceful out here, but
fragile, your existence could be snatched from you at any moment. I had no
idea what the people would do and imagined a massive state of panic quickly
spreading through the Kasbah, people hoarding water and turning on one another
as they fought for the last precious drops.
The scalding sun had finally burnt itself out when I first heard the drums.
It sounded like the distant beating of a heart and was soon joined by voices and
the twang of an oud. I asked Iklehv where it was coming from and he said
that the people were having a rain dance. They were giving thanks for the
water that had just run out and asking for more. The sounds as they
filtered through the dunes and the palm trees, sounded so happy, like a
celebration. I was amazed. All afternoon I had been distraught that
there was no more water and had conjured up images of greed and chaos, but
instead these people had come together to make music and dance. It made me
feel naïve. I obviously had no idea what it meant to really live, to
really be conscious of myself as a living creature who needed certain things,
both physically and spiritually in order to survive. I knew that if I were
left alone here in this beautiful desert that I loved so much, that I would die
in no time. But these people wouldn't. Their spirits would dominate
and they would somehow manage to survive. Just as they were doing, just as
they had always done. And I envied them once again.
A few of Iklehv's friends came over and soon we were all sitting at a low
round table that they had dragged out into the sand. We drank coffee and
smoked hash underneath the inky blue sky and the thick yellow moon. They
had brought drums and an oud and began to play music that hung in the soft dark
air. The panic that we had felt that day because of our poisoned bodies
and the empty well was chased away by the sounds that these men were casting
into the dense night. They played and played as the moon danced above us,
Iklehv beat out a rhythm on the table, and the clang of bouncing coffee cups
combined with the sound of his voice. His face was wrenched and his head
was thrown back with chopped off curls that shot our in patches above his
turban. The bluish glare of a gas lamp burned a path across the side of
his face and turned him into a surreal specter of sound and movement. The
music twisted itself from them and streamed into the forbidding desert air and
the unforgiving glare of the gas lamp, sequestered at a distance on a barren
metal table, its beam crashing across the sand, through the circle and over me
into the indigo darkness. That encroaching blue that stained the dunes
around us and struggled to seep into the edges of the fierce light to engulf us
in its soft folds. I could barely believe that any of this was real, and
thought that perhaps we had died from the poisonous Berber tea and this now was
heaven.
It was the night after Ali and I had drunk a special Berber tea that was
supposed to make us hallucinate, but instead had sucked every last drop of water
from our mouths and throats until they felt like the desert sands that
surrounded us. This poison that we'd greedily swallowed in hopes of
getting high had ravaged our fragile bodies and left us tormented by humiliating
memories of hours of muscle spasms, double vision and a serious loss of
coordination that toppled us like babes taking their first steps. As our
bodies slowly, slowly struggled back to normal and our clouded minds emerged
from the rubble, our stupidity dawned on us. Now that we were safe, we
could admit our shared fear of an agonizing death and swear that this time, no
really, this time was enough. We would never, ever take a mysterious drug
again. But the moon, It had sparkled like a shard of glass in the liquid
sky, and I swear I could HEAR it as I hurtled to the earth like a sack of
stones...
My mind reeled and panicked for these people, bound to these dry, dry sands
and that burning sun. Life was so beautiful and peaceful out here, but
fragile, your existence could be snatched from you at any moment. I had no
idea what the people would do and imagined a massive state of panic quickly
spreading through the Kasbah, people hoarding water and turning on one another
as they fought for the last precious drops.
A few of Iklehv's friends came over and soon we were all sitting at a low
round table that they had dragged out into the sand. We drank coffee and
smoked hash underneath the inky blue sky and the thick yellow moon. They
had brought drums and an oud and began to play music that hung in the soft dark
air. The panic that we had felt that day because of our poisoned bodies
and the empty well was chased away by the sounds that these men were casting
into the dense night. They played and played as the moon danced above us,
Iklehv beat out a rhythm on the table, and the clang of bouncing coffee cups
combined with the sound of his voice. His face was wrenched and his head
was thrown back with chopped off curls that shot our in patches above his
turban. The bluish glare of a gas lamp burned a path across the side of
his face and turned him into a surreal specter of sound and movement. The
music twisted itself from them and streamed into the forbidding desert air and
the unforgiving glare of the gas lamp, sequestered at a distance on a barren
metal table, its beam crashing across the sand, through the circle and over me
into the indigo darkness. That encroaching blue that stained the dunes
around us and struggled to seep into the edges of the fierce light to engulf us
in its soft folds. I could barely believe that any of this was real, and
thought that perhaps we had died from the poisonous Berber tea and this now was
heaven.
