#SiwaMudcastle

So I've rented a 4 bedroom house ... made of mud. It's at the foot of a 13 century fortress made of said mud. Well more specifically kerchief, sometimes spelt with an 's' because translation results, frankly, in people spelling tings how dey want. A mix of sand, salt and rock, plastered with clay. Sounds fairytale like right? It is. I sit on my roof in the sun and watch the ant tourists crawling on the top of the fortress and well, feel pleased with myself. Not bad for a first house/home (rental). One I could not afford anywhere else I've been. So, when times were dangerous everyone lock up tight in de fortress. Den when tings chill dey start tuh spread out de fortress and build dey mud homes outside, spreading and spreading and start to build concrete house and ting. So everyone want modern house and ting so less mud and den a setta rain in 1926, I think, ... more mash up, more moving and well now gentrification Siwa-style hit! Foreigners hear land cheap and dey cud have posh mud house fuh cheap. And me I like mehself too! Even big project to nice up part of de ruins and dem with NGOs and multilaterals and government and ... everything sustainable and ting. It nice! Doh mind dey have de normal drama and ting we does have in T&T and some bodies ge' vex! Alladat t' say I living in a lovely mud house dat lookin' niiice. And it is.

Ah was just talking to meh friend Juanita bout ice bergs and how de tip really jes ... de tip! Tings look one way but really life more complicated and nuanced when yuh dig. And I's a person who - ask Gab - ah does dig- deep. Sometimes ah try not to and accept and surrender but at de backa meh mind is Gillian Goddard once say to meh cousin Robyn how ...'Cross' and surrender jes doh go in de same sentence. So de first night in meh nice home ah have hot hot water in meh nice blue tiled shower you know dem tiny tiny pretty pretty tiles de sizea fingertips ... den it went tepid and ah had a fight with de plumber all in Arabic (which I do not speak) and mime. He telling me he fix it and de water hot and to run it (another hour cuz ah done ahready run it plenty and me and de caretaker son on de same page looking at each other like 'dis not gonna get hotter and said plumber cyant make it hotter). I boiling pasta and telling him DAT is hot!!! He pack his bags and gone. So me now in my fairytale palace with no hot water. Now ah in a desert right so no probs right..? Cuz EVERYbody know deserts hot. Dey teach us dat in school quite in Trinidad. Now dey have some smart people- like me, ah feelin' nice now, who 'KNOOOW' deserts hot in de day and cold at night, right. Steups who doh know dat chupid right. So when I pack I pack summer/Trini clothes and fling in a long sleeve and a sweater yuh know duh de cold evenings and... if ah have t' do a night shoot ah have meh coat oh and a pair of wool tights! So I set off smart and feeling superior. So yuh know with that attitude tings gonna end badly right ...well, October started good. Wardrobe perfectly matched work/stylish too courtesy Geoffrey but den well it kept getting colder like it was not stabilising... like it was going into WINTER fuh true. 3 degrees Celsius one night. Dat was not anywhere on my radar and I so smart all ay had to do was google before I left home but noooo I 'knew'.

Meh point is meh mud house is really a ice house. And dey have dis ting how mud houses cool in summer and warm in winter. But ... not dis one. Ah have a theory though as any self-respecting Trini would... mud works like solar panels. On cloudy days they don't charge so well. Now with climate change guess what: it rained for the first time in 3, 5 or 50 years, depending who you talk to. Last full moon it rained Whooole day! This full moon - same thing. In de streets, Dust and sand turned to mud. Tuktuk, jeeps, motorbikes sliding all how. So last few days, since de rain, sun not hot hot, on top of the normally cold winter. The point is, my fairytale is not a warm one.

Now when I'm cold ... it's kinda like a weather version of 'hangry'... I am incapacitated. More than usual. I usually just work from bed to save myself the trauma of dealing with the cold. I'd bought a heater and settled in for dealing with, knowing I had scalding hot water so when tings changed and water was no longer hot but tepid.. well all I know is the distance between my bed and the hot sun on the roof was some version of the word interminable. Chasm. All that to say after a night in the desert last night ...all I could manage dis mornin' was to move to the 'breakfast' room armed with heavy sheepswool blanket. When the sun started to threaten to descend at 3ish I realised I HAD to do the firewood run NOW or get caught outside at night. After living in the Andes and UK I know being warm means follow the sun. Dark is for being home. I I made a quick dash.

Typical Siwa style the tuk tuk driver wouldn't accept any money for delivering the firewood, datefronds and myself, home. Perhaps, he took pity on this single foreign woman with obvs, no husband to do her shopping for her which is the local way. I think he was just doing a neighbourhoodly thing for a visitor. Yet another example of the hospitality of the Amazigh people of Siwa oasis. This is a fairytale, albeit a cold one.

Buying firewood- you call the number (in Arabic) and ask (in Arabic) for the guy to come sell u wood. Somehow it worked. Well, Sara did help.