Two short tales

Lahcen missed his flight last night ('If we don't arrive today, we'll arrive tomorrow' is ringing in my ears) though he managed to get an early flight this morning. But frustratingly to Marrkech, so we will have to stay another day and night and Casa, while he catches the train here. I have been making thank you cards for the various people who help and host us along the way so with this extra time I decide to make cards for Tahir's children too and in the spirit of the trip inside each card I write a story. Inspired by the Moroccan stories I Have read and heard so far I give each one a moral and then agonise over whether one is too sad for a 9 year old and the other too simple for a 12 year old. Lahcen arrives for a fleeting visit - but time enough to charm Tahir and his children. Then after a quick glass of wine he's off to spend the evening with his parents.

The Caliph's House

The book that inspired both this trip and the show that we are developing is the wonderful 'In Arabian Nights' by Tahir Shah, which was quoted in one of our ARAB NIGHTS plays last year. Essentially it is a story-telling odyssey through Morocco, not entirely unlike our own, with Tahir searching for 'the story in his heart'. When we were rehearsing ARAB NIGHTS I contacted Tahir, who is based in Morocco, and we have kept up an email correspondence ever since. So I have been really keen to meet him during our trip. Our timing is perfect because he flies to London on the 10th and agrees to meet us in Casablanca before he leaves. Lahcen was also hugely inspired by the book, and by the theme running through it of a bridge between East and West - which Tahir feels keenly as someone raised in England but with an Afghan heritage. Lahcen shares that bridge feeling with an upbringing half in France, half in Morocco, and is equally keen to meet Tahir. He flies into Casa this evening and will meet us tomorrow, after a night with his parents who live in Casa.

After a breakfast of the round and slightly sweet loaves of bread that you get everywhere in Morocco, fresh from the bakers we discover down a tiny backstreet, we set off. After the relative calm of El Jadida the aggression of Casa and the constant gridlock of beeping traffic comes as a bit of a shock. After several wrong turns and missed exits we eventually meet Tahir who drives with us in convoy through the shanty town in which his renovated mansion - Dar al Kalipha (The Caliph's House - also another of his books which documents its renovation) sits. The house is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and over a glass of wine, sat by the swimming pool we discuss story-telling with Tahir and his family. As well as the pool and other luxuries they also have two old pet dogs so Noah is in heaven. And they have a playroom!

That evening we are joined for dinner by his twin sister Safia and her friend Catherine, coincidentally also a twin, as am I and (although he's not at dinner) so is Lahcen. Tahir is thrilled by the strange coincidence and much of the conversation revolves around the magic of twins and twin behaviour. After the other guests have left we stay up late telling stories and talking about the challenges and pitfalls of international and inter-cultural collaboration.

a day off

Exhausted by the intensity of Marrakech we allow ourselves a day off from the story-telling odyssey and while Lahcen is in London we drive north to the seaside town of El Jadida - breaking our journey on to Casablanca tomorrow. It's still a good 4 hour drive though so time to crack out the James Blunt. I don't know how we missed it before but the first line of the second track is 'One day your story will be told', the discovery of which we must share with Lahcen when he's back.

For an afternoon we are tourists sharing pizza on the beach before a walk round the Portugese Cistern, and the ramparts of the tiny Portugese medina. We dine in a lovely fish restaurant and miraculously Noah sleeps through the whole of dinner so it really does feel like a day off.

Finding a teapot

We know that mint tea will form a part of the eventual show HALQA, whatever the show itself becomes, and we know that it will even form a part of the 10 minute scratch performance of it that we're giving at the BAC Freshly Scratched Festival in a few weeks time. So today we set off to get lost in the souks of Marrakech and find ourselves a teapot. Hopefully without getting too ripped off, though now that we are without Lahcen who knows...

After some aimless wandering we find ourselves outside a little shop that seems to be filled entirely with teapots, and not simply the new obviously factory-made kind but some more unique (and perhaps antique) looking ones. Also Noah has started to kick up a fuss. There is only so long we can keep him strapped in a buggy when there are so many exciting things to play with (and break) in the souk. So we stop and after some mint tea (which Noah has also taken a liking to) and a bit of haggling we settle on a pot. Eventually we find our way out again (after 6 hours) and eat dinner in a terrace restaurant overlooking the Jemaa. Noah is a huge hit with every Moroccan he encounters, as he's very happy to be picked up an cuddled and kissed. So the waiters adopt him while we look out over the square savouring our last night in Marrakech. And savouring the delights of a pastilla (my new favourite food - chicken, filo pastry, cinnamon and icing sugar - what's not to love). Suddenly the musicians in the square fall silent as the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, rings out. It's not something you would notice in the square itself as the hubbub of voices continues unbated but high up on the terrace, with a minaret immediately to our right, the silence is unmistakably in response to the sound of the muezzin.

Three aunties and Harun Al Rashid

After breakfast of a kind of porridge-y soup which Will loathes, and luckily Noah loves, we go to a larger village nearby to shop for lunch. We choose a live chicken and return ten minutes later to take it back to the village with us (no longer alive).

After lunch (chicken) we meet three of Lahcen's aunts who between them tell us about his grandfather; by all accounts an amazing man. He lived to 120 and when his teeth fell out new teeth started growing. So the story goes. Before the advent of TV, nights were long in the desert and those nights were spent telling stories.

Between them they recounted a story that Lahcen's grandfather used to tell - a tale of Harun Al Rashid. Until this point, and as with all our other interactions, Lahcen would translate from Moroccan Arabic/Darija into English, but the aunties dialect is so thick that even Lahcen is struggling so we have a three way translation where his uncle translates their older language into a mix of French and Darija and Lahcen then translates that into English! At the end of the story they say something together in unison. I ask for a translation - 'The story went with the current of the river, but I'm still staying with my people'.

After the stories we follow Lahcen out of the (new) village and wander through the desert to the old village which stood on a hill, and is now an uninhabited ruins. Perhaps a slightly perilous climb when you're carrying a baby on your back, as Will is, but it's worth it. The view stunning and the silence (after so many words) feels like a huge relief. The desert invites silence, but after a while that silence invites stories. Or so it feels to me, as much to Lahcen's surprise I love the desert. I'll be sad to leave tomorrow. And not only because I can't face another 8 hours with Noah in the car.

The desert

Today we spent 8 hours (8 hours!!!) driving into the desert to stay with Lahcen's extended family and talk to them about his late grandfather who had been a story-teller in their village. Lahcen says the drive will take 3 hours. Around the 5 hour mark he tells us a story about driving with his father a long distance and his father telling him 'If we don't arrive today, we'll arrive tomorrow'. I think this might become a motto.

The reason it takes so long is partly because we have to go over the mountains - the perilous Tchika - which used to terrify Lahcen as a young boy. Noah doesn't seem fazed but he is mostly clamped to my breast to try and keep him asleep (having promised to provide us with a car seat our friendly car hire man never re-appeared so Noah is on my lap for the duration). When even the breast won't pacify him we resort to James Blunt - which we discovered has a strangely soporific effect on him and brought with us (a CD not the real person) expressly for that purpose. Now whenever I hear James Blunt I will picture the winding passes and stunning views over the Atlas mountains.

Finally we arrive and the welcome is all the more sweet for the long journey preceding it. Couscous, tea, a beautiful room in which Will, Noah and I are staying and a much needed shower! We arrive empty-handed (a huge faux-pas in Arab culture) but it is so late we can barely stagger from the car to the house as it is. So tomorrow we will make good and buy food for lunch.

The storytellers

We meet the storytellers in the Jemaa, only a few hours later than we'd scheduled. Over mint tea (of course) they talk about having lost a way of life, and a way of living with the decline of story-telling. Lahcen notices a huge bird in the sky. It feels like an omen of some sort. For these story-tellers they form a halqa for three reasons - to make an audience laugh, to take care of them and to take some money. Last night we had a long conversation about why we tell stories - for an audience, for ourselves - it was wide-ranging and philosophical. We put the question to one of the storytellers. His answer is simple 'I tell stories to eat'. One of the storytellers has been telling stories since 1955, you can see it in his expressively wrinkled face, and according to him the 'people who have the words to do the halqa are dying'. He stops mid thought and runs across the square to retrieve a balloon for a boy who has lost it. Returning he talks about forming the halqa 'when you have the circle then the story comes' and the art of story-telling - 'You must tell a story until you own it, until it's your property, until you become the king of that story'. And then he tells us a short story about a dying man with three sons - I won't retell it here because it's going into the show and I don't want to spoil it, but like all the Moroccan stories that I've read so far there is a very clear moral. And as he says the storyteller has to give a message with his story.

We return to our hotel excited - we are definitely onto something. Then in the evening we watch a brilliant documentary called 'Al Halqa, In The Storyteller's Circle' by German film-maker Thomas Ladenburger. It follows a storyteller called Abderahim attempting to pass on his stories to his son Zoheir. It's a beautiful film, touching and funny, and an insight into these elusive creatures - the last story-tellers. I think Abderahim might also have been one of the story-tellers who contributed to Richard Hamilton's book 'The Last Storytellers' which we read before we flew out. It's a small world.