The Desert Bride

The Bride

Morocco 2004: A Berber wedding in the desert near the Algerian border. And Rosemary has a bad day.

This is the bride I wrote of yesterday. I am sitting on the ground with her in her little tent, my legs twisted beneath me. Behind her are her friends. They, like all the women at the wedding, had their faces hidden behind veils.  It didn’t take me long to realize that sitting here was a dead end as far as photos were concerned. But, when I tried to get some shots outside, a horrid little boy kept jumping in front of my camera. Nothing, not even the candy I had brought could induce him to stop. The day was turning out to be a total loss. The men were in the tent, out of the wind, drinking tea, chatting away while I wandered about the desolate campsite, trying to elude the beastly little boy who followed me everywhere.

Although we had barely arrived, I decided it was time to leave. This caused some consternation because here I was a woman and I had the power to ruin the day by taking my car and leaving (the men who had come with me had to leave also; they had no transportation otherwise). All the men came out of the tent to try to talk me into staying. Up to now I’d been ignored. I hadn’t even been offered a glass of tea.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. My guide could see that I was not happy and he and his friends began to make excuses for me, trying to lessen the rudeness of the abrupt departure. The nomads couldn’t quite grasp it. I’m sure that they had never seen a woman tell a man what to do before.

To see the Touareg dressed in their finest for a wedding click on the link :

http://www.rosemarysheel.com/archives/touareg-tradition