Gloss Roots

“I can’t do this”, I groaned, cramming my tender, swollen feet in to heavy, unyielding boots; “What have I done?”
Only the night before I had been teetering around a Dublin hotspot, sipping glitter cocktails and winding to dirty electro. What was a nice girl like me, doin’ in a tent in a remote Moroccoan village like this?

The previous day, I had been driven six hours from Marrakech in to the depths of North Africa, along tortuous roads that most would have deemed impassable. Ismael, my stout-hearted chauffeur hurled a heavily laden Land Rover over and around boulders, abrupt ravines and clusters of villagers at break-neck speed while I subtly enquired how long it usually took emergency services to reach those in need this far from the city. A long time, I was assured.

We were dumped, irather unceremoniously, at the edge of the Imlil Valley. It was here that Omar, my guide, introduced me to the four-strong team of Amazigh men who would be accompanying us: three muleteers and a cook, all High Atlas dwellers who would serve, it soon transpired, to completely demoralise me as they bounded over terrain that left me wheezing for breath.
For fourteen days, I, a duck-down, white bread, creature of comfort, tramped through arid desert valleys, lush, poplar-lined hamlets and precarious mountain tracks. I explored nomadic caves and biblical mud-thatched towns, battling searing heat and bitter nights. I crossed swollen rivers up to my neck and weathered wild wind storms at altitude. I showered, as the Berbers did, using a pail of sun-warmed water; my toilet was a shallow hole in the ground. I slept under quince and fig trees, and beneath vast, star-filled skies on the plateau under Ighil M’Goun at 3500m, and I loved it. All of it.

Ahmed (our cook) proposed in a shepherd’s hut after dinner on the sixth night. Here was a man who knew his way around a ball of couscous, and the only male ever to have seen me without make-up - it was the easiest yes of my life. The betrothal itself was a simple, classy affair with only a handful of our closest friends present. All language and cultural barriers were tossed asunder and the wedding went off without a hitch (pun intended), complete with recitals from the Koran and a silver ring (the pull from a tuna can). Not quite the mock wedding of my dreams, but one of the most special evenings of my young life nonetheless.