Today is Sunday and I’m backtracking to our workshop at Michelle’s home, Kasbah Aitisfoul, a few days ago.
On our arrival, we were greeted by a band of drummers. Individually, we walked through the musicians onto the grounds. What a wonderful beginning to our stay.
The kasbah is a lovely place, with terracotta walls and palm trees, sand surrounding the buildings. Beautiful cream colored pots filled with various cactus are displayed in a setting of contrasts.
The food here is exceptional. Fresh melon, eggs baked in a tagine with a light tomato sauce, thin slabs of a cornmeal type bread slathered with jams for breakfast, and lots of coffee and fresh orange juice.
Lunch and dinner could be a variety of delicious salads featuring beans or pulses, cucumber, tomatoes or rice with fresh mint and peas. Green beans were often used, as well as cubes of potato. I almost always added a spicy spoonful of harissa for heat.
Often skewers of chicken marinated in spices arrived on large platters, or covered pottery tagines of chicken with onions and lemon, the scents of mysterious flavorings perfuming the air. Bowls of olives and yogurt were always present, even at breakfast.
The Workshop
Alex Castro Ferreira was our teacher for a four day workshop on book making. Everyone had experience with the book making process. I had never made a book, and was I ever out of my comfort zone.
Alex is an inspiring teacher. Her work is layered, textured and gorgeous. Her process includes rusting both fabric and paper, transparent resin pages and collage patchwork. The patchworks are then torn and used as pages in our books. Stitching adds both texture and substance to thinner pages.
The group worked hard at creating beautiful works of book art. The results were complex and stunning. I often struggled with the process, seemingly always one step behind. Alex was patient and supportive, and helped me manage both my feelings and the book I was creating.
My work space was always a mess, and I was always losing ephemera that I had brought with me. I was frequently overwhelmed. But I made a book that is actually quite interesting and lovely. When I return home I’m going to add a few more elements and additional stitching.
After we finished our third day of the workshop, we all went to our rooms for some downtime. Suddenly we heard a terrible wailing. We all came out of our rooms and listened as the anguished sound intensified.
Alex’s dear husband, her rock, had died suddenly of a heart attack in Portugal. I was witnessing the most profound grief I had ever experienced.
We all gathered with Alex as she frantically reached out to friends and family. Her brother immediately left Portugal for Morocco to accompany Alex back home.
While we waited for him to arrive, we stayed with Alex through the night. As the sky darkened and the stars appeared, we talked and cried. Mary put on some music through Spotify and we began to dance. Each of us took turns dancing with and hugging Alex. When her brother arrived at 4:00am we were introduced and we went to bed. Not much sleep that night.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Alex. It was a hard parting. She is such a wonderful woman, generous, big hearted, funny and kind. A little of our collective soul went with her.
Love to you Alex.
I'm sitting here aghast and in tears over the news of Alex's husband. I was just with her in Portugal in March. Thank you for sharing this.
Reading this after you told me about this at our tete' a tete' I am struck by the intensity of it and how you all surrounded Alex in her grief and love. I imagine you all left pieces of yourselves in Morocco.