#Whatsoundlookslike

The Brasilian (see #Sundaydriving) and I spoke of our appreciation and enjoyment of Siwi music which is sometimes offered in packages for tourists - ‘at your hotel’, ‘in a desert camp’. Whether playing for tourists or for themselves, it’s obvious that the musicians love making music and we talked about our experience of the two types of events and keeping Siwi music alive.

It’s a stupid thing to say of live music but, it’s different every time and for me steeped in context. When I first arrived in Siwa a friend said, “Do you want to go to the desert and hear Siwi music?” As we say in Trinidad, “You asking answers.” i.e. Yes!

The jeep is racing.

All I can see is tyre tracks criss-crossing in the sand in the headlights.

Outside that there is only black.

We speed up slopes not knowing if there’s another side and then I feel relief - until the next.

Then, in the distance I see orange pin-points flickering in the shape of a sort of imperfect trapezoid-shape. As we near, the lights transform into a hill lit with flambeaux in a camp surrounded by a fence of vertical date-fronds. Our feet shifting in the sand, we walk through naked flames of lights set in the sand in the shape of a heart at the entrance of the camp. Inside, 2 bonfires burn at the foot of the hill where people warm themselves. Bedouin tents stand along 2 sides of the camp. Some are large with openings through which I can see people sitting on the ground eating dinners of meat and vegetables that have been slow cooked under the sand (Mardm I’m told) off low tables with an ingenious (if unsustainable) plastic film one side of which sticks to the table so when you’re done your bones etc. can all be wrapped up in the plastic and disposed of. The other tents are smaller with a fabric door on the short side that swings shut. We trudge to one of these, take our shoes off and enter.

Inside, floor cushions line the other three sides of the warm, smoked-filled space. The men sit crossed-legged and some have the sole of one foot on the ground. In Siwa men wear the characteristic galabeya – a long-sleeved, round-necked tunic with buttons from the neck to the sternum, that typically falls to their ankles, under which they wear matching trousers. The outfits are solid (sometimes fleck) colours like khaki, chocolate brown, white, maroon, army green, navy, pale blue and are often of linen, xxx. It’s winter and the men’s heads are wrapped with scarves and they wear jackets - from those safari jackets with pockets to leather to thick, long hoodies and occasionally there may be a man in a robe that sweeps the ground as he walks in (which actually looks more like gliding and makes me feel as though I’m in a fairytale).

First thing you’re told when you enter, whip out your camera or when someone remembers, is that you can’t film but that you can record audio. I’ve been a few times now and hang out with the boys so when I pulled out my camera, filmed the fabric ‘ceiling’ of the tent and then asked the musician drumming next to me if I could film him playing his instrument and showed him the resultant images no one batted an eyelid. I did get permission to use these pix here.

Keep in mind that what I write here is couched in the context of me being a guest in this community and ‘you can’t film but you can record audio’. I might describe the experience as a cross between a musical jam session and being in trance (as though those are mutually exclusive). The whole making-music business takes place over several hours. I remember early one evening before the music started there were 3 of us women (the other 2 spoke Arabic) from the film production, on one side of a tent, sitting bolt upright opposite 3 men dressed all in white who were much more … shall we say, casually reclining. They spoke Amazigh – no Arabic. One guy at the head of the ‘table’ spoke Arabic and Amazigh and he interpreted. I made a quip along the lines of, “I wish I was as relaxed as you guys” which came back at me later.

People gradually trickle in, everyone’s just hanging out, drinking, smoking, it’s really a lime but none of it in English. Some nights I’ve found someone with a few words of English when I’m really lucky one or two who are fluent. The first time I went I felt invisible. Remember, they know I have no clue what they are saying and phenotypically, people think I’m Egyptian and I think it’s like filmmaking… people forget you’re there and let their guard down. I was the only woman and it felt like no one was adapting his behavior because I was there. Yet, they made sure my cup was full and I had cigarettes whenever I needed. On a side note, I hadn’t had a cigarette for probably 2 years (I’m occasionally a social smoker but with covid there was no social so, no smoking for me) until I came to Egypt where everyone smokes and a film crew more so. It’s a slippery slope if you accept once and there’s no turning back. Once you’ve been seen smoking, it feels churlish to refuse just as you can’t refuse a cup of shay (tea) or to share a meal.

The musical instruments include a shallow drum about a foot in diameter, that looks more like a tambourine; a drum about a foot and a half tall that looks like an hour glass with an open end (I worked out that if I surreptitiously stick my arm in, the vibrations tickle my arm); and a smaller version of this drum. A musician plays a pipe, which seems to be two pipes, like two straws stuck side by side, into a microphone precariously tied to an amplifier/speaker thing which is sometimes on the floor and which on one night dangled from the tent ‘ceiling’ which of course meant at some point, someone stood up and got tangled up in it. There are of course several voices and pairs of hands. Amazigh men have noticeably large hands which interestingly enough when they clap the palms of their hands smack flat – palms to palms and fingertips to fingertips rather than the fingertips of one had in the palm of the other. One of the drums is called a tabla but I have no clue which.

I know nothing about music yet I am particularly susceptible to sound. I have drunk plant medicine with Peruvian shamans who use the Icaros songs to heighten or lower the drinker’s experience and I found on nights when I did not drink but sat in circle that the songs had a powerful affect on me (without the side effect of the vomiting induced by the plant). I think the vibrations created by sound waves sort of shake me up. The other day when I got off a tuktuk that brought me back to town from the desert my whole body reverberated, like alighting on land after days at sea. Then the feeling settles. The vibrating effect of chanting during Kundalini yoga practice does a similar thing. Shakes me up and then it settles and I feel … cleaner, less heavy, clearer? Not sure any of that makes sense but I’m still learning. I don’t listen to tassa drums I simply feel them and I am changed after feeling them. Siwan music has a similar effect on me. It changes me in a way I can’t articulate. It takes me out of myself. Like tassa and chanting it possesses me, I suppose, I am no longer in control (as if I ever was) and I like not feeling I have to be and that someone, something else is in charge.

The musical evening progresses. Someone starts singing. Then hands on a drum. One, two. A soft rhythm. Another voice, another instrument. Then everyone is in. Everyone is participating. We are one. Whole. Everyone (who knows the words) is belting out the song. There comes a point in the evening when my inhibitions go and as the flute gets faster and faster so does my clapping and inevitably I find myself leaning forwards, curls flopping, and then the next thing I know I catch a vaps and my tongue is ululating as I exhale until there’s no air in my lungs, I’m almost parallel to the ground my arms ache because I’m clapping so hard and then I just can’t take it anymore and I gasp for air as I lift my torso into sitting up again ready for the next round.

I expect these songs have been sung to or sung by these men all their lives. Arabic and Siwi words and some Bedouin too (Siwis/Amazigh are not Bedouins!). The familiarity. This community of 36,000 Amazigh. These friends who have grown into men together. Who hold the secrets of Siwa and there are many. Men who create music together. The memories of other times they’ve sung these songs in their cells, in the fabric of the tent. I believe that whether tourists are present or not, these men sing for themselves. For each other. And they share their songs with us in true Siwan hospitality. Firmly situated in the present as they carve out their future. In this tent. In this Sahara.

Alhamdulileh!