Real-life magicians

🇲🇦 - written during our travels in Morocco (21/09/2025)

With barely any time to explore Marrakech, we venture into the Atlas Mountains. The surrounding landscape seems barren, but small pockets of green make it look uniquely beautiful. The sinuous roads give a sense of being transported into another time, in the past, away from technology and daily routines. There is tradition and locals dedicated to their craft.

Seeing movie sets was a reminder of how little I am into cinema or even remember movies and scenes in them... I was glad to feel my ignorance today more than before, and it amazes me that so much work can go into something, only to shoot for an incredibly short amount of time. Atlas Studios was probably the highlight for most; after all, they have their own “Ouarzawood” where the most impressive thing for me was a quote to remind us to constantly be present, a real oasis amongst the fake movie sets.

The Moroccan’s ability to learn and speak languages keeps surprising me and is likely linked to the difficult phonetics of the Darija and Amazigh languages. Yet, something has yet to beat the magic of the village of Ksar Ait Ben Haddou (the castle of the sons of Haddou). The magic could have been in the houses, built out of clay, mud, bamboo and plastic, in the fact that they need renovation following the rain or even in the countless scenes that were filmed there.

But the magic was elsewhere... Sat in his corner, their locally named “Picasso” showed us the trick to invisible ink and the old way of passing secret messages, a technique unique to this place. The Berbers have mastered the art of colors and this man the art of drawing in a cocktail of flavours turned into ink... The mix of indigo with water, orange and saffron and heavily sweetened green tea gives all the essentials to this magic potion. What at first seems like a translucent drawing reveals its intricate detail through the burning flame as Picasso carefully waves the paper back and forth, just enough so it does not burn. In the end, a piece of work, unique in its way of creation and with a smell of caramelized sugar that follows us during our journey back to Marrakech. That particular moment gave me goosebumps as I stood there, in awe, trying to take it all in. I do not believe in magic, but that certainly felt like something close to it.

In this fascinating journey, I have learnt countless new things. The agadir, decadent yet still well guarded by its 5 faithful (and fallen) watchtowers; the kasbahs, home to the few that still live in the village and are kind enough to open their homes for things to be filmed there. It quite literally felt straight out of the movies that were shot there.

The Amazigh people, which incidentally means “free man”, refer to their language as Tamazight and their alphabet as Tamazɣa (ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵖⴰ) (Temazgha) meaning the land of the free people. It has characters that are completely different from anything I had ever seen, and it shines in its simplicity when written. Yet it is seemingly impossible for other locals to understand. With eleven dialects, three of them in Morocco, it is refreshing to see this culture preserved despite my opinions on the idea of identity.

I am grateful for being able to learn, study and mainly, to have it all in my life so I can have the luxury of time to think and write.

As I consolidate the little bits of knowledge that I have accumulated, I keep meeting everything anew and am now dead to this whole trip. The memory is there, but it is just that. Now there is just this bus and the phone in which I write this.

Berber “Picasso”’s work and the Temazgha script