Waaaaait for meeeeeeeeee!

Ten minutes before this adorable months-old elephant crossed our path, our Cessna Caravan touched down upon the hard-pack dirt landing strip in the Masai Mara.  Our guides, two traditionally-garbed Masai men, escorted us to their Land Rover, our safari vehicle for the week.  Hot-coloured beaded chains dangled from their necks and their stretched earlobes.  Wide, beaded bracelets adorned their arms and ankles.  Siololo’s spear rested on the floorboard, projecting between our rear seats.  A knife was strapped to his calf.

                                   Baby elephant, Masai Mara, Kenya (2010)

It was our third week in Kenya but we were desperate for a vacation.  The previous two weeks were consumed by our volunteer vacation at Mully Childrens’ Family.  The personal commitment by the founders, Charles and Esther Mulli, had inspired my husband and me to volunteer with 20 other Canadians at the MCF Medical Clinic in Ndalani.  My husband, Dr Jeff Allin, and four other physicians examined approximately 1300 patients during the two-week clinic.  Every morning I taught Life Skills to former street girls at Yatta, a second MCF establishment.  Every afternoon I photographed the patients: MCF children and employees, and rural villagers.

Poverty, political turmoil and HIV/AIDS have claimed lives and livelihoods, homes and hope from Kenyans.  Determined to make a difference, Charles Mulli and his wife Esther, began by inviting three disadvantaged children to live with them in their home.  Twenty-one years later MCF is recognized as a model for other organizations.  MCF has provided shelter, food, education, skills training and health care to nearly 6000 children with the goal to reintegrate productive young people into society.  Each of us in our group felt honoured to have helped, if only in a small way, guide them in the right direction. 

Serenity

Winston Churchill famously advocated that if travelers had but one day to experience Morocco, that one day should be in Marrakech.  This metropolis, used for one thousand years by southern tribes and Berbers socializing and trading, likely began as most desert meeting places, a higgledy-piggledy collection of blanket-tents situated around an oasis. 

Several unique architectural creations dominate the ancient stone-walled medina, a vibrant city-centre bounded on the north by sprawling souks offering a multi-coloured cornucopia of leather and sheepskin, wood, jewellery, copper, and textiles.  Just inside the city’s southern walls, the intricately carved white columns inside the once-forgotten crepuscular Saadian Tombs contrast with the soaring Koutoubia Minaret, dominating the incomparable Plaza Djemaa el Fna, the “assembly of the dead”. 

Without this plaza festooned until not-so-ancient-times with the severed head of traitors and criminals impaled upon stakes, Marrakech would have little to distinguish it.  From sunrise to midnight, children and adults, travelers and locals, Moroccans and foreigners meander the haphazard lanes of the Djemaa el Fna.  Snake charmers, scribes, soothsayers, herbalists, tooth-pullers (caution: they are not dentists), barbers, musicians, acrobats, and henna ladies anxiously await the next business opportunity.  Protect your valuables, don’t accept anything as a “gift,” and keep your hands in your pockets: seizing a wayward hand, the henna ladies immediately start “tattooing”.  And how can you walk away with an incomplete design?  “Only 50 dirhams.”

By night the centre of this square transforms into a moveable feast.  Overarched by wafting smoke curling from dozens of canvas awnings, chefs with white pillbox hats grill fresh vegetables, fish, lamb, beef, and goat.  Hundreds of people shop and saunter before choosing a bench table for supper where straw hats and barren heads mingle with baseball caps and hijabs.

                           (Serenity Pool, La Mamounia, Marrakech, Morocco, 2010)
When you are inevitably overwhelmed by the hullabaloo and the hucksters, stroll five minutes west to the legendary Hotel La Mamounia, barricaded from reality by 15-foot-tall stone walls and gates staffed with effective security guards to approve your attire and your daypack.  The outdoor pool is reserved for guests staying in the hotel but by prior arrangement you can luxuriate in their magnificent tranquility pool.  Pamper your body and soul with products created using ancient Moroccan recipes.  Explore the authentic hammam, a Moroccan steambath.  Let your pores be deep-cleansed by African black-soap, a puzzling but effective concoction of cocoa butter mixed with water filtered through the ashes of tree leaves and bark. Choose perhaps a ghassoul clay mud bath or an argan tree oil massage, chased by refreshing rose or orange water emollient. 

Extend the experience to enjoy La Mamounia’s luncheon on the patio.  Absorb the cool tranquility of the gardens, ponds, and pavilions of this exclusive hotel.  Before long, in spite of your intentions, you will wonder what might be happening outside this sheltered enclave amid the frenetic tumult of the Djemaa el Fna.

Bor Paniagua

During my visits to Naha’, I settle with Kin Sol, his wife, in their family home.  This created community of nearly 300 people is comprised entirely of Northern Lacandon Maya, whose ancestors lived in isolated woodland pockets rather than structured neighbourhoods.  Several other similar villages, all created by government decree, are scattered near the ancient Maya cities of Palenque, Yaxchilan, and Tonina, Mexico.  

Cement-block homes with tin roofs flank the dusty dirt trail that meanders through the settlement.  Traditional wooden homes with thatch roofs occupied by the community elders are set back from the road, obscured by dense rainforest foliage.

For many days, Kin Sol caressed my vibrant blue-and-green cotton hammock, its’ softness a stark contrast to their coarsely woven single-width hammocks, the only kind available in San Cristobal de Las Casas, the largest market town.  (Although I had never put it to the test, I knew that 2 adults and several children could sleep comfortably in my extra-large family-size hammock.)

I recounted that it was a gift to my husband from his first wife, then as now, a good friend of mine.  Kin’s natural enthusiasm erupted, reflecting camaraderie with my husband.  And more than a little jealousy! (How was it that a white person would have more than one wife?)  In the past century before the missionaries, Lacandon society embraced polygynous, often sororal unions, an accomplishment correlated with wealth and religious power.  

Learning that my husband did not have two wives at the same time, Kin’s trust in my honesty increased -but his exuberance instantly dissolved. 

Each morning after breakfast, Kin Sol and two of his boys led rigorous treks into their highland forest.  After one particularly demanding two-hour hike – a short jaunt for a Lacandon - over rugged topography through dense forest along a constricted corridor chopped by Kin Sol’s machete, we emerged above one of the diminutive lakes deposited between the undulating hills.   Sunlight mirrored by placid water blinded me.  Miraculously (in my mind), we had arrived precisely at their dugout canoe.  Paddling leisurely, we glided upon the glassy plane of Lake Yaxha, the “lake of blue-green water,” reverentially commemorating the inseparable union of Father Blue Sky and Mother Green Earth.*

Kin Sol and his son, Bor Paniagua, picked a bouquet of pastel rose-pink water lilies for me, revealing the Maya penchant for puns: a bouquet of Lol-ha for Lola.   Enchanted, I captured this image of young Bor, seated serenely in his father’s handhewn cayuca. 

*Father Tomas Garcia in Contemporary Maya Spirituality Molesky-Poz 2006:162    

Algeria, beyond the dunes

 

Leaving my B&B Riad Dar Kamar concealed within the tangled lanes of Kasbah Taourirt in the village of Ouarzazate, I boarded the local bus, filled with Moroccans.   Drawn irresistibly to the vast panoramic potential of the desert, I began my second foray on dromedary into the Moroccan countryside, the Western Sahara.

Without prior arrangements, I planned simply to arrive at Rissani, an implausibly conservative village.   Meandering tortuous sandy lanes, dodging horse-and mule-drawn carts and black ghosts - women cloaked in the abaya, with only hands, feet, and the occasional face visible, a statement underlining their modesty not their religion -  I would be  sought and hailed by hawkers bidding desert safaris.

A lanky black-leather-jacket-clad traveler wearily slouched upon the seat opposite me, gazing outward.  A stark white Moroccan turban accentuated his lined, espresso-bean-coloured skin and scruffy beard stubble.  We said nothing until hours later, having passed all points of disembarkation, we realized our destinations must be similar.  Khalid suggested Auberge Kasbah Lahmada, The Black Desert.  Nestled against the dunes of Erg Chebbi, this auberge boasted sandcastle sleeping quarters, Berber-blanket tent camps, camels, chefs, and guides.  Of course, he just happened to work there, as a guide.  

Mildly apprehensive, I agreed to his plan, soon squished with 6 others in a Moroccan Grand Taxi.  As we sped along the pavement to Rissani, I decided that the appearance of the driver, contacted by Khalid’s mobile phone, and the condition of this transport to Kasbah Lahmada would determine my decision to accompany him - or find accommodation somewhere in Rissani.

Long shrouded by darkness, finally we arrived at Rissani.  Khalid gestured to his driver, handsome and well-groomed, seated in an immaculate late-model 4X4, two antennae spiking from the roof.  Moments later, still pondering my decision, we bounced along the dirt-and-rock roads, scarcely illuminated by weak streetlights. Hastily we exited the civilization of Rissani’s earthen structures.  Almost immediately only the starlit sky guided me as we abandoned all roads.

We crossed the desert another hour before passing between massive gates, square pillars of sand, intricately carved with symbols.  Inside the walls, awaited a delicious vegetable tajin accompanied with Moroccan whisky (tea!).  The owner & I charted a plan for my camel safari to begin the next morning at 08hours00.  Exhausted, I clambered behind the heavy blanket curtains of the four-poster bed in my room.

A few camel-hours beyond the flat, hard-packed Lahmada strewn liberally with black rock, early afternoon brought bountiful wilderness vistas.  The sun embraced the sensuous ridges and ravines creating a sumptuous palate of golden hues.  The wind danced with Erg Chebbi, swirling and tossing her grains of sand, recreating curves.  In the distance beckoned the blue hills of Algeria, forbidden to enter from Morocco, the ridge containing us like protective Kasbah walls.

Queen for a day

This cobbled road winds upward into Jaisalmer Fort, its sand-yellow ramparts of Jurassic sandstone thrusting skyward, the desert sands transformed.  Residents, itinerant merchants, and travelers pack into the constricted meandering laneways of India’s “Golden City”.  Against towering bastions, these two youngsters amused themselves.  Likely unaware of tragic historic events, they played between the second gate, where traitors and criminals were thrown into the “death well”, and the main square, where royal women chose death at the hands of their husbands who faced imminent defeat on the battlefield, rather than dishonourable rape by conquering troops. Seated nearby upon brilliantly coloured blankets strewn with sparkling silver jewellery, their mothers eked out a living.  Throughout Rajasthan we witnessed similar scenes: adults working, children creating their own reality with available objects.  In spite of the differences of time and place, this girl reminded me of my own childhood, fascinated more by forts made of couches and cushions, and helmets and swords fashioned from household objects, than any toy purchased by my parents.

                              Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India (December 2008)

Chefchaouen, Morocco (2006)

                                  SOLITARY CAT, CHEFCHAOUEN, MOROCCO

Admiring this surreal image, viewers first think that the extensive blue has been achieved with a computer-generated program, realizing quickly that the cat’s fur, although not as white as it could be, certainly is not blue.

Chefchaoen, the name itself extraordinary, is unlike anywhere else in the world.  Although the blue is not restricted to Chefchauoen (also called Chaouen, Xauoen), nowhere else in North Africa is this dreamlike colour used as extensively.  The entire residential area of the medina, a walled city section featuring constricted labyrinthine lanes, displays spectacular hues of blue, a shadowy dark shade nearest the earth, fading in phases, with the upper walls a powdery blue-white.

Sheltered by steep hills, Djebala tribespeople settled in this remote, isolated area in 1471 A.D. welcoming only Muslim and Jewish refugees.  The nearby tomb of an important Muslim saint with supernatural powers further protected the townspeople from invaders.  When Spanish troops arrived in 1920, the Spanish Jews were conversing in a medieval form of Castilian Spanish vanished from Spain for four centuries.  Until 1920, only three “Christian dog” visitors had intruded: the first in 1883, a Frenchman disguised as a rabbi, spent one hour inside; the second, a British author, narrowly escaped death in 1889; and the third, an American, poisoned in 1892. 

The village market, originally in the central plaza Outa el Hammam, reflecting the Djebala tribes’ tradition of homosexuality, held ‘boy markets’ until the Spanish administration officially banned them in 1937.

Travelers today are not discouraged.

Sadhu, Varanasi (December 2008)

The ancient city of Varanasi, called Kashi -The Luminous, The City of Light - was founded seven millennium ago by the Great Hindu God Shiva, the Divine Creator.  Never incarnate, he is often depicted with four or five faces, holding a trident, draped with serpents, and bearing a third eye in his forehead.

Regarded as ‘The Creator of the Universe,’ he is identified with the lingam, a phallic symbol.  He is often accompanied by a consort, a ‘Great Divine Mother,’ who assumes various forms including Parvati and Shakti, the vital primordial feminine energy that empowers Shiva.

In their quest for divine communion, devotees must demonstrate selfless love.  Some ascetics choose to enter the Tantric realm, confronting life’s impurities of alcohol, sex, and death, merging the profane with the sacred to achieve the profound realization that Shiva is omnipresent.  Others, like this Shaivite sadhu, a Hindu holy man, dedicate their lives to Shiva.  They renounce family and caste ties, spending their lives performing extreme meditative and yogic practices. 

I encountered this sadhu seated in the heart of the Old City, Vishwanatha Khanda, somewhere along the maze of meandering alleys overarched by ramshackle buildings, so decrepit that an earthquake will annihilate the inhabitants.  For this photograph, he requested only a few rupees and was elated when shown his image.