Tales from a Marrakesh Fever Dream
A weekend of creative workshops for women in collaboration with Hey Sister!
Salaam dear readers, and a belated Ramadan Mubarak!
It’s been just over a week since we returned from leading three whole days of creativity-kindling workshops in Marrakesh, and we’re still pinching ourselves. Did we really do that? Write in community with amazing women in the terracotta-pink African city kissing the desert? Was it a fever dream?
Alhamdulillah for photos to remind us that yes, this really did happen – and we couldn’t have had a more brilliant, thoughtful, and ridiculously chilled team at Hey Sister! to facilitate it all for us, or a more big-hearted, brave, wise bunch of participants to do it with.
February is excellent weather in Morocco, so it was high season for tourism, and the Medina and Jma‘ al-Fna were buzzing, yet there was a real sense of tranquility at our sessions.
Each morning we’d watch a drift of hot air balloons rise up from the violet smudge horizon, heralding another day of discovery. Then we’d head over to Dar Saïda, a literary café with vintage tiles and a proper coffee (as Nafisah’s Cuban genes were glad to find out) to do most of our workshops.
But on the last day we held our workshops at Amal Targa, a stunning site with a non-profit restaurant and training centre where disadvantaged Moroccan women can gain a livelihood as chefs, as well as a garden full of herbs and fruit trees – the perfect place to write from the senses.
For me (Medina, the MWS cofounder not the place), Marrakesh felt like a second home, even though I hadn’t been back to Morocco in 18 years.
It could have been the names of Andalusi thinkers cropping up as landmarks: L’Hôpital universitaire Ibn Tofail, Rue Ibn Khaldoun, and the Qadi Iyyad University, named after the theologian who is also buried within the city’s walls.
But there’s another reason the I’m only realising now: around 10,000 Muslims from my home town Órgiva in Andalusia were exiled during the so-called Reconquista to Marrakesh. It really feels like an unofficially twinned town.
For food, we have to recommend the Guéliz branch of Amal, whose chefs gave us an impromptu concert from the kitchen, with loud singing and clapping. Apparently something they do when they’re very busy to destress! (Noted.)
We also loved the fabulously retro and deliciously healthy Mandala Society in the medina, introduced to us by the proprietor who was happily one of our retreat participants!
Speaking of, let’s try to compile a list of the nationalities represented: Moroccan, Icelandic, Sudanese, Polish, French, Czech, Canadian, American, Saudi Arabian, Montenegran, Indonesian, Australian, Mauritian, Cuban, Pakistani, Egyptian, Scottish, British… *inhales and nearly falls over*
As if all this wasn’t wonderful enough, we also had an art workshop with Hajar Mohib, painting hand-made pieces of ceramics. Art workshops are a fixture in our writing retreats as they are so relaxing while rounding out the creative experience – and often provide inspiration for writing too.
Most of our writers wanted to explore life writing, or stories drawn from personal experience, which we worked on developing and enhancing with the storyteller’s toolkit (time and place, character, allegory, sensorial details…)
One of the most inspiring revelations they had was the “zoom in, zoom out” shift in perspective that really takes creative non-fiction to the next level. We’ll write about this technique in the next post inshallah.
On our last afternoon together, we held an Open Mic to give participants the chance to read some of their writing, mostly to a little guitar plinking from moi. (If you’ve never tried reading your poetry set to music, you’ll never look back! Just add a black beret for Beatnik poet effect.) We couldn’t resist a bit of singing too, and not a kumbaya in earshot.
DID YOU KNOW that we’re hosting an all-inclusive MWS writing retreat in Andalusia this May, 8th-12th? Invest in your writing, rejuvenate your creativity and forge lasting connections with fellow writers – all with amazing halal food and even a tour of the Alhambra palace in Granada!
We have a few spots left but don’t let the grass grow under your feet! Apply here or book a discovery call with us to find out more!
Alhamdulillah, we can’t rave enough about how revitalising it is to get together and write…we’ll let one of our Marrakesh retreat participants’ words speak for themselves:
“[M]y heart is full after a full day outside under a palm canopy spent as part of a circle of women. I have discovered a whole new world…where I can sit down with a simple pen and paper, looking at a mint leaf, feeling a breeze or touching a tree branch can elicit a story to sustain me until the next time. A world where I can use the most beautiful words, crafted together to make something lasting.
“I will cherish this weekend for a long time to come and I will roll over words and stories and perspectives and thoughts that have been shared for many more days…Remarkable. Reflective. Such strength that comes from softness...”
Until next time friends,
Medina & Nafisah, MWS co-founders
I really really really really need to experience this one day!!
Sounds amazing. I hope you all will do it again, I’d love to attend. (And Orgíva again 🥹) And I spy the sister who runs Maroc Mama, a Moroccan food blog, in one of the photos! I love her recipes and have made many tasty dishes from them.