MANCHÁN MAGAN'stales of a travel addict
THE PIED-PIPERS at Lyric FM are forever luring me away, yanking me out of my own world and dropping me unceremoniously somewhere else on the planet. Gerry Godley’s Reels to Raga will bring me to India by way of Greenland and before I’ve got my bearings Carl Corcoran’s Blue of the Night comes along and fetches me off to Mexico.
Aural kidnapping ought to be addressed in the broadcasting regulations. John Kelly’s JK Ensemble is particularly culpable. He’ll have you up in the wildest reaches of Ethiopia before you know it.
Driving home from Éigse’s fantastic Borris House Hay Festival in Carlow recently, I turned on Rachel Blech’s Magic Carpet show where a traditional Moroccan Gnawa tune was being played. Before I knew it I was reeling back through two decades to an evening in the hills above Chefchaouen where I had heard a similar sound filtering up through a juniper-scented valley. I recalled the music coming from a large tent at the base of the valley which was vibrating with rhythmic drumming and hand clapping accompanied by rough, wild singing in a high voice, repeated by others in a call-and-response fashion. The words were slurred and resonant, and pleasantly out of syncopation. Inside the tent I saw women in birthday-candle-pink djellabas and men in more sombre robes dancing furiously; the men’s hats were covered in beads and cowry shells with long tassels that spun out frantically as they danced, carving halos in the air.
The women flicked their wrists like radar searching for signal, and as their passion grew their heads swayed, sending their braided hair flying out around them. A man beckoned me to a rug near the musicians and fetched me a skewer of lamb. “Salaam!” he said with a joyous grin, lighting a long slender pipe of opium for himself. The music, though repetitive, sent currents of passion and exuberance sweeping through me like breath. “Welcome, welcome,” my host repeated.
An older woman broke through the crowd and marked out a space on the floor with an invisible line. She pulled out two knives and started slashing her forearms with them, appearing to feel no pain. A series of red welts rose upon her skin, but no blood – like bad jellyfish stings.
She danced until she collapsed and then a young girl with henna tattoos took my hand and encouraged me to come dance. In spite of her veil, I could tell she was beautiful by the way her eyes shimmered, like nymphs in a murky pool.
The collapsed woman was helped to a cushion and people reverently patted her wounds.
“She is in the hands of Allah,” my host said, “nothing can hurt her.” People were touching her wounds as if for blessing.
Next thing I knew there were blue lights arcing through my car and a squad car was sweeping up the M9 behind me. I pulled in, not knowing really where I was or even who I was, but the guards sped on by towards some other lost soul and I switched over to the more predictable world of Newstalk’s limited horizons.
I’m not sure if John Kelly or Gerry Godley invite listeners away on their holiday with them, but Rachel Blech, the presenter of Lyric FM’s Magic Carpet, does indeed run music tours a few times a year inside Morocco, including one to Marrakech, the Atlas Mountains and Sahara desert that highlights regional music traditions and arranges meetings with local musicians and instrument makers.
Blech set up Sheherazad Ventures with her Moroccan partners to offer cultural exchange and economic support to the nomadic Saharaoui desert people through tourism. Her aim is to encourage curious travellers, especially community groups, youth leaders, artists and musicians to holiday in rural Morocco and to share their skills and outlooks with the local people.