I found myself in a Berber tagelmust

by Elena Spada (Italy)

Making a local connection Morocco

"It was a January day, it was early morning and I was late. I was wearing my blue shirt for the office, drinking my coffee with the other hand, when I received a text: it was my best traveller friend. <<Do you have passport?>> he asked me <<of course I have, why?>> I answered curious <<There are some so cheap tickets for Marrakech>>. It wasn't on my mind to do a trip in that moment, I was so focused on my new job as a trainee lawyer but I couldn't say him <<nope>> I didn't want to let him down. We reserved that tickets the same night, for the beginning of March. Coronavirus was scaring the world and we lived in the south of Italy. For long days before the departure, we weren't sure to be able to go and come back. In the end we decided to go and it was a therapeutic experience." "The desert camp was equipped with very nice tents but, given the 20 degrees, we wanted to sleep under the stars. Outside, the fire that a few hours earlier had been the center of the party, the dancing and the sound of the drums (from the Arabic songs to the raggaeton of the worst bars in Granada), was weak, just the intensity necessary to boil the mint tea that the night watchman was preparing. Suddenly we were two Sicilians, two Neapolitans and a Berber drinking tea around the fire and talking for hours. I could not say for sure which language we were speaking, I would say each one his own but, I had the impression, that nobody ever had understood each other so well. It seems the beginning of a joke and maybe it is,because I don't remember the last time I laughed as much, drinking a tea after another prepared by our new friend, who poured it in the dark at 50cm from the glass but without ever missing it. <<The phone torch is useless, there is the light of the moon>>, he told us <<and when it has gone down>>, he added <<the stars will be clearer>>. Afterwards he tried to explain us the constellations but many people failed in this, with me: I will never know how to recognize them. At a certain point, after having told us the story of the three Berber dynasties, having responded in tone to all our comments, including those in dialect and gotting carried away with contagious laughter, we decided that was time to rest: at dawn we should have woken up and for the first time, since I left for my holidays in elementary school, I was looking forward that the sun rose. He said that sleeping too much hurts, that an hour or two for night was enough. I smiled skeptically but who knows, maybe he was right, maybe the Western society rhythms make us feel perpetually tired, or maybe just a little sad. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was his tagelmust: he was already awake, of course. I felt grateful to my new friend, who had put an extra blanket on us, during the night." The story is about the journey in the bus across the Morocco and its landscapes but, more, in the mind of the protagonist, who is crossing the crisis of 25 years old at the time of performance society. During the night passed in the desert, knowing a Berber guy of her age and talking with him until the sunrise she has a sort of epiphany about her life, who she was and how she felt closer to a stranger in the desert more than the people in her office. Coming back from the trip, coronavirus situation in Italy was out of control and during the time constricted at home for the quarantene she wrote that diary of the travel, reflecting about the craziness of modern world, the stressed life of young people and how the virus, maybe, it was just the universe way to tell us to stop and dedicate sometime to the reflection.