MUSICAL MEDICINE, MOROCCAN MARVELS

For whatever ails the soul

By Saharan Susurrus

October 31^st, 2016

Doorway to the sahara

For when you live in one of the desert countries of the Sahara, and yet you cannot get to the desert, you take to the sky. Morocco, M'Hamid El Ghizlane, aka the doorway to the Sahara.

Camels camouflaging with the tents, or vice versa

music save us

And for when you cannot hear | see | touch | the very essence of why you uproot yourself and replant your feet in the dust of Mali, you fly like the "saw saw" bird and set up camp wherever you find the essence.

Tinariwen = essence.

Most members of Tinariwen and I live in Mali, and yet, I was able to see them more often when I lived in the U.S. It took me flying to Morocco to finally see them on the African continent, and in the Sahara

Abdallah spots a fellow festival-goer's guitar and tries a twangy tune

The main finale. After so many shows, I can tearfully say I'm still as touched when I see them on stage...

Iyadou, we can't see your eyes! Enjoying other festival talent with Tinariwen as audience

Tinariwen bivouac

It's the quiet moments off stage, the in-betweens -- the laughter, the ad-lib riffs, cutting apples, far-away assouf glances, thé versions 1-2-3, dominos games -- that endure in the end.

Abdallah, adding his flair to Hassan's tagelmoust

Ibrahim, aka Abaraybone, helping to load up our brother for the next Tinariwen video clip

Trying to get Hassan, aka Abin Abin, to my left, to smile without his "tagelmoust": "This will be a good souvenir for you!" Indeed!

My "amghar" took a series of such photos, with either my or my and the dromedary's head cut off. I quite treasure them...

And a gem of a shot at the end. This was my first time on a camel. It is an awe-inspiring experience, full of discomfort, respect, hope

Catching up, and catching shade with Sadam, of Imarhan

local life

Morocco is the best place I'd never live.

Sweetness abound, rich in culture, phenomenal crafts, out-of-this-world architecture, stupendous landscapes only nature can serve up, the food alone could keep you around for decades, it's clean and for the most part environmental. The one thing it may be short on is grit, something I've come to use as daily teacher in my Sahelian life.

At a bus stop on the way to M'Hamid, these men would not let me buy a sandwich and instead offered me to share their local Berber couscous

These boys snuck into the dining tent. They stole my meatballs as I took their veggies

beautiful catastrophe

My Tinariwen story, and hence tectonic shift in life, started when I first heard Abdallah's song Chet Boghassa. I've never heard them play it in concert, but Abdallah plays it for me, along with various unique renditions of Bob Dylan tunes, in the in-between moments.

Within the harmonious whole that makes up Tinariwen, each has their own style. Abdallah, aka Catastrophe, is more the singer-songwriter acoustic, and that VOICE. It is as if the desert itself is singing, granular and undulating, breathtaking and soft all at once, like dunes untouched, known only by silence and sky.

Medicinal in its melody, it ails the soul of all ills.

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