Abdelhadi
Still here. Still yes.
Abdelhadi. Marrakech born, one of nine. His father gone early. Raised by his mother, watched over by his siblings.
His smile. That is always the first thing.
Neat, considered. The right shirt, the right glasses. A man who notices details. Dreamy, slightly otherworldly. A true romantic. He knows every hole-in-the-wall in the medina worth eating at. A bessara, a tajine, the real thing. For him, even our excellent cook cannot compete.
Every morning, a list. Long. Very long. He never says no. Whatever lands on his plate becomes his mission. He sets off for one task, comes back having done three, forgotten one, invented another. Somehow it works.
August 1996. We have just landed in Marrakech. He is twenty-two, barely out of school. He joins Fatima and Najma, and the three of them become their own small universe. The women teach him. He watches, follows, figures it out. Shopping, plants, paperwork, odd jobs. Everywhere at once. Nobody can explain it. He just picks things up. Plumbing, driving, a bit of English. And the violin. Nobody asked for that one. On his first morning, I ask him to find an ironing board. He disappears. For quite some time. He returns holding a red board covered in white hearts: “Madame, all the others were horrible.” That was the moment. A job for life, right there.
He dreamed of Europe. We argued about it plenty. He wanted something else, something shinier. I told him what he already had. Visas, rejections, waiting. A wall you cannot see but cannot miss. Eventually we sent him over for a holiday. He went. He came back. The dream dissolved. The desert took even longer, twenty years before he saw what was actually there.
In 2003, Nicolas Tosi photographs him for the first time. Neutral backdrop. No fuss. Him. He has never been in front of a camera before. He holds a piece of linen, adjusts it, looks at the lens, looks away. His hands are not sure what to do. His smile comes in slightly too early. It was exactly right. Tania Panova takes over in 2016, and never stopped. Same ease, same honesty. Those photographs now live in the Marrakech boutique. People stop him in the street sometimes. He smiles. He is seriously considering a phone case with his own face on it.
He then moves on to video. Simple scenes, a touch of humour, him. At Dar Kawa these shoots become a ritual. Everyone joins in. Him most of all.
He is still here. Thirty years. Fixing things, driving, keeping everything moving. He knows the riad the way you know a place you have loved for a long time. We grew up together, in our own way. Two boys now, a father. A few grey hairs at the temples. The smile, unchanged. Every time I walk back through the door, he is there: “Welcome home Madame, I am so glad you are back.”
That voice. That smile. And Marrakech is home again.
He is wonderful 🌞
Congratulations for having share mutual respect and work during 30 years