As I sat at the eastern gate of Chefchaouen, sketching some buildings, a Moroccan man and his wife approached me. In French, they complimented my poor drawing abilities. I switched the conversation to Arabic so I could understand.
"Please, will you do a portrait of my wife?," he asked.
[In addition to not really being able to draw, drawing also takes me an excruciatingly long time, which is kind of why I like it. It also makes live portraiture not really an option.]
"Oh," I replied, "I wish I could, but I only draw buildings."
"You are a believer, a good Muslim, so you won't draw people," he answered.
[In Islam, allegedly, on Yom al-Deen, the Day of Judgement, God will ask anyone who drew or otherwise "created" a human being to bring it to life. Not being able to make the drawing live, you get condemned for your false creation. The point of the story is that only God creates things.]
"No, I'm not a Muslim. I'm just a bad artist."
"But she is beautiful, yes? It is easy to draw a beautiful woman."
"Oh, my friend, she is too beautiful for me to draw."
And with that, I escaped without having to hastily do a portrait of this man's wife.
------
Later a group of Frenchmen approached. They looked at my drawing with condescension.
One of them noticed I wasn't wearing shoes. Chefchaouen is a bit of a hippie hotspot in Morocco, so he assumed I fell into that crowd.
"You are bitnick?" he said, then walked away.
"Bitnick?" I was puzzled. Oh, I realized. BEATNIK. I'm not that either.
------
Having moved to a more secluded street to draw a few doors, a group of girls, aged 5-25 approached. After asking the usual giggly questions of where I'm from, whether I'm married, and whether I'm a Muslim who's looking for a nice Muslima to settle down with, the conversation moved to a much more fun direction.
"Do you know Shakira?" They asked. Being part Arab, Shakira is a big deal in North Africa and the Middle East.
"Do you know Beyonce?"
"Do you know Lady GaGa?"
And with that, Dear Readers, I joined a ten year old Moroccan child in doing the Thriller-meets-Twist dance from "Bad Romance."
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First of all, happy birthday, I hope you enjoyed your staying in Andalucia.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I wanted to ask whether the guy who said: "bitnick" is Arab or knew a little bit Arabic because it is actually a bad word which I am pretty sure that Hamza have told you about it.
By the way the other night we were in a coffee with a Madagascan man, five minutes after he met him he started teaching him bad words.
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