beautiful people of Marrakech
date. 2022 september 17
city. Marrakech
on my brief encounters with some beautiful people of Marrakech in early september of 2022.
Latifa
Latifa is the manager of our Riad. Her hair is long and curly, glistens the shade of a rich dark chocolate. to be precise, this is how I imagined her hair to look like according to her own description, because it is always tightly bundled up in a scarf that is silky but not overly luxurious. She has a proportional but rather large forehead. She is a middle aged lady with a bright laughter and enough life behind her that gives her beaming joyfulnes quite some meaningful weight. She is quick in her head and clear in her words. A mother of two and one of nine siblings, she is the kind of hotel manager that will let you know if she is rebooting the wifi, who always greets you with a smile, always ready to disclose her favourite restaurants and garden, generous in disclosing the hidden gems of this maze-like city. She is a lady with wide hips and a much wider heart. The sort that pours out to you without flooding you. She is kind, but not in an unprincipled way. She is mothering, but not in a way makes you a child. The sort of tea pot that doesn’t have a weird kink hidden somewhere. The sort of tea pot that stops and pours according to one’s will. She pours generously, with one clean and continuous motion. No leaks, no drips. Cleanly, sharply, holding her own shape and place in the cupboard. She is a trusted woman who more than deserves that trust.
It was interesting to watch and hear Latifa describe her children. She described her first born as smart and her second as not. There was no hiding that she genuinely believed her second born to be quite unintelligent, but there is also no doubt that she loved them both deeply. Western culture have always frowned upon parents who make such comments. I have too. God forbid my parents say that about me or Ashley. Immediately their love would be called into question. Yet, there was no questioning of her love for them both. Watching the way her eyebrows raised and her cheeks lit up with the mere thought and mentioning of her boys, the stubborn bitter aftertaste of my childhood was resolved, quietly, without resistance, like sugar cubes dissolving under piping mint tea poured from a height so tall that on the first glance seems a tad too showy and gimmicky, but when given the prolonged gaze it deserves, echoes the dramatic tension that a respect for the theatrical nature of being demands. The bitter tea and burnt mint leaves was smoothed out balanced by the subtle sweetness introduced by generous portions of sugar. They needn’t see me as capable, as intelligent, as lovable even to love me the same. The fact that I thought it impossible perhaps says more about my lack: in the love I have for myself, the faith I have in them, and in my understanding of what love is: not an attitude that tracks any specific qualities, nor subjected to rationality. That’s why love is not subjected to comparison or competition. In my incessant quest to win recognition and my tedious struggles for affection, both of which I mistook for love, I grew wary and became small surrounded by the very love that I thought I tried and failed to earn.
Latifa's mother
Latifa is one of nine children, her mother had all nine of them before the age of thirty, giving birth to her first child at fourteen to a man more than three times her age. I have never met her. Everything I know about her comes from what Latifa had told me, mostly over a cup of hot mint tea and msemen dipped in honey and fig jam. I regret not asking Latifa how her mother looks, but because any mentioning of any woman is only complete accompanied by a description of her looks, but because it feels wrong to know so much about someone's story without the slightest clue about their appearance. To think that we might cross paths in the narrow alleys of the souks or that I might buy bread from her at a stall and not know that she is her feels like a great disrespect. I imagine her to be a small and feisty woman. To reconcile my unease, I let my imagination ran a little, but not very far. I think I imagined her so because that was how my grandmother (from my mother's side) looked: the sort of old lady that is undeniably small but not frail, an unyielding fighter with a gleam in her eyes that resembles the gleam of a small, sharp, shielded knife. Latifa's mother raised all nine children on her own. She didn't like being married to a man who is too old to be her father. She couldn’t get a divorce, but she was patient. She waited till he died. I wonder if she cried or laughed on that day. Perhaps both, in secret. I wonder whether she was glad or scared. Probably both. I wonder if it felt like her life has truly started or that it had finally ended. The weight of nine mouths to feed and the lightness of being free from a strange man who is old enough to be your granddad sat at the opposite ends of the balance. I wonder where it tipped. I wonder if it swayed from time to time, day to day. At the age of twenty-three, I am finally getting used to being an adult. Being a small asian woman who looks about two-thirds her actual age, I am finally being treated (most of the time) like an adult. I have also reached the age where I would treat and assert myslf as an adult even if I wasn't treated like one. After fives of adulting practice, I have finally realised that, beside being someone's daughter, another's sister, a few's friend, I am also something else, not quite so concretely defined but distinctively shaped, me. It had occurred to me that this women, who I have come to know without ever meeting, went from being a daughter straight into being a wife and a mother, then a widow. She was never just a woman, unattached. When was she an adult? When did she become one? Was she ever? Had she always been?
Hakim - The porter and night shifter at the Riad. Man with a lisp, the lover of books, dreamer of words.
Hakim, a porter/night shifter/helper at Riad del’Orientale, Man sometimes with a lisp and always with a book. The man who gave me his dinner when my stomach was feeling iffy, possibly from the seafood I had the night before on the square. I asked him to heat up leftover couscous for me. He frowned a little and suggested otherwise and asked if I wanted chicken. He offered me his dinner. In his offering, there was a lightness. There was no weight of sacrifice on him, no expectation of lavish thanksgiving.
He asked if I am a writer. If I write books. He said he loves reading. He showed me the book he has been reading recently, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Coleman. It was clear it was his love—books, words, the mystery they hold and the secrets they tell. They reveal just enough to keep you hooked, to keep you wanting to find out more without ever telling you everything.
I paused. I hesitated. I said no, not yet, I’d like to. I write a lot because I study philosophy. But i don’t have a book. I haven’t written anything. I hope to though, one day. He didn’t look disappointed. He smiled and said maybe in the future. He said I should let him know if i ever do. He will ready anything I write. He gave me his email and told me he will wait for me. If I ever write a book, he is getting a copy. He will make it onto my dedication page. The stranger who believed in me. The stranger whose words spurred me on, who comforted me, who saw me through our shared love for words.
The trader at Stall 71
The trader of sandy desserts, a tall man with a slim face. He is a tall man who stood tall and held a posture that was upright but not rigid. He stood tall but he didn't stand like a tower, but rather more like a lamp post. I am specifically thinking of the one in Narnia. He is immaculately but humbly dressed, there was no flashy colour on him just a respectful shade of white. He breathed no air of a stuck up narcism, just the exhales of a confident man comfortable in his own skin, not the sort of confidence that extends from a blown up image of one’s own worth, but one that stems from a recognition of one’s own value by seeing the same in others. He is kind. He is principled. He is a gentlemen. He values his craft. He loves his wife. He laughs with his children. He is someone who smiled more with his eyes than his mouth. He respects his customers, not in a godly way, but in a honouring way. He didn’t hurry to take our money. When we were clearly confused about the dessert being only 4 Drh, he didn’t take advantage of our confusion. He only took 4 not 40 though he could have. He served everyone first before taking money from anyone. He is someone who honours strangers with the steady work of his hands not flamboyant words that might roll off one's tongue. In fact, i don’t think he spoke at all. But without words, without sound, simply being himself, he has won my total respect, my admiration even. How can character, virtue, kindness, peacefulenss be so apparent, so salient, so undeniably seen over a small exchange of mere 4 minutes?