40. Don't worry, bead happy!

Taroundout:  place of ochre turrets, quiet, cool souks, new palm trees, horse drawn carriages and indignant, exhausted donkeys.  

Three days of relative rest in a citrus oasis where a daily delight was to pick an orange or lemon off a tree near my cottage door and drink it's internal honey until the sticky juice ran down my fingers. This is certainly lotus land.  The hotel is so divine; so luxurious, so peaceful in the desert.  I've been swimming and lounging about, and had multiple showers and keep running my hands over the rosemary bush because it smells Gooooooooooooorgeous.  We've had a ridiculous amount of fun with the good natured waiters - which is why I have a hangover, read on. 

Not the hotel!  The bead co-op!

But today I'm going to post a lot of photos instead of words as it's early morning and I'm horribly hung over because I had a Moroccan strength margarita with extra vodka or whatever they put in it;  after my first few sips thinking I was drinking aeroplane fuel I felt as if I'd been slugged with Pethidine, and all night I listened to my heart rocking the bed and truly believing a host of camels were making whoopee in my mouth.  The two litre bottle of Sidi Ali (Water) next to my bed has been a very good friend all night, thankyou very much please. Dreaming of grouchy camels, palm trees and marrying a bead dealer in  dusty souk is not good for the waking moments. Goodbye alcohol you poisonous vermin murderer of good natures.

Tarandout architecture

Talk about shop till you drop!  Tarandout did that, between short sorties to plastic chairs and quick plates of Frites with coke for energy boosters.  I'm almost fibulae-d out.  But I have bought some beauties.  We're all kilo laden and happy. Here in the deeper part of the desert, visions of Sarah, Luda and Myself send women scurrying, muttering curses and spitting three times into the ground, when they see us. They're visions in their billowing tie died fabrics but I can't get close to  photograph them.

Bad tempered Blue Man

The other beauties are the blue robed Tuaregs, but the closest I managed to get to one was a highly aggressive dealer who wouldn't take NO! for an answer when I wouldn't trade at his ridiculous price and ended the transaction with me by shaking my chosen booty in my face and yelling ... HOW MUCH YOU PAY??  Niks, nada, nothing, nooit, fergittit you rude Berber Bugger.  Then he sat there twirling his worried beads wondering how he was going to persuade me so that he could get his commission.  Niks nada nooit nothing you bugger.  I love the interaction with a transaction ... it has to be a fun experience and I've had plenty. But fundamentally I object to having an argument about a piece I'd sort of like to have, but it doesn't matter either way and if you argue with me I will hate it even before I buy it.   All sorts of bad energy will attached to me and the piece, forever. So adios bad tempered blue bugger.  Do not Date this nasty man!!

Horn "amber" dyed with henna

I bought more fibulas and silver beads. I bought a 16century 7 layer chevron. I bought a silver perfume bottle which would make a great pendant.  At the co- op I bought some "amber" made from sheeps horn, which has been dyed with henna.  At the moment it stinks like sheeps' horn dyed with henna but I had some men rub it with stinky cloths to get some of the stink off. Don't worry by the time it gets to Australia it will smell sweet and look like real amber but it won't break your bank!

16th century Chevron

Luda is doing a magnificent job cataloging hers in a leather book, with great illustrations, but try as I do to copy her magnificence, there is no way that you'd be able to reconcile my drawing with the item if push came to shove (I'm still angry with the angry blue man) and my book had to be used as evidence.  Luda's however will have a place in a collector's history museum sometime, somewhere.  

Weaving through the cool dark and relatively uninhabited souks where we were more stared at than hassled, we spent time in a dusty shop selling beautiful henna dyed and hand woven cloths called Merhaff, where again I worked my MAJIK to get several metres of pure sunset hued vibrancy for less than a warbled song in a desert.

But the most interesting part of Tarandout was visiting a co-op where beads are made.  We loaded up with kilos of old beads, old fabrics, were treated to a home made tajine and salad and breads, were embraced by the owner who called me Cherie - oh, that old musk oil again - and sat in a dark room to watch the process of beating metal to a dome shape in a beaker, then watched how it was soldered and the designs applied.   The enamels are made from crushed seed beads in various colours, and these beads tell their own history by their colours. Small children sat around the process, watching their fathers intently, in between staring goggle eyed and fascinated by blonde Luda, auburn me, and curly topped Sarah. 

Earlier beads were enamelled with Czech beads and muted colours, the newer ones are made with crushed Indian and Chinese seed beads. It's a slow, painstaking process, and seeing how it's done I'm embarrassed to have even thought that I could have bargained one dirham for them.  A group of men can only make about 30 a day.  And I bought bags of them.

Next door, in a boiling white couryard cooled by two orange trees, a woman made plastic beads by melting old plastic and cassette cases in a noxious glob of smoking goop which she then rolled and cooled and perforated to make her beads.

Have a read while I shower, pack and count my booty, pack sidi ali and oranges for the long trip deeper into the desert today, and try hard to hold my head on my shoulders without biting someone else's off. Luda, you do not love me if you let me drink that stuff, even though you were laughing at my face when I was trying to look sophisticated drinking aeroplane fuel in a dar in Tarandout.  No, you certainly don't love me!  Even the waiter was cracking up;  I had a bunch of bougainvillea in my hair, and getting more and more inebriated as I tried to eat pigeon pie ...

Melting old plastic