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Walls Cry for Light: Interior Decoration of Berber Homes
| Article
# : |
11047 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1993 |
2,487 Words |
| Author
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Rabah Seffal
After graduating in 1982 from Tulane University in New
Orleans, Rabah Seffal returned to Algeria, where he worked as
an engineer at an oil-pumping station at Hassi-Messoud in the
Sahara Desert and as a free-lance photographer until 1990. At
present he lives in New Orleans with his wife and daughter and
is working toward a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Tulane. |
One image among my childhood memories is of my mother patiently restoring the painted walls of our home. Unfortunately, the image is associated with another recollection, a vile greenish liquid, extracted from afqqus n' weghyul (a squirting cucumber), that she would administer to my brother Blaid, my sister Wiza, and myself. It is a most sickening purgative. Her strategy was to confine us to bed so she could concentrate on the weeklong task of redecoration.
Her work consisted of cleaning the walls, scraping chipped paint, and repainting. Wrapped in a wet cloth, her expert hand followed the different shapes and forms of clay on the wall. Gently applying pressure and cleaning away accumulated dirt, she caressed them as though to wake them from a profound sleep. From time to time she would step back and analyze the wall, noting missed places or spots that needed more cleaning.
When all was cleaned, she prepared a homemade paint out of tumlilt (a bluish white clay) and whitewashed the walls and ceiling using a bundle of flexible, broomlike twigs. Once the walls dried, she patiently repainted the fine geometric shapes and lines that covered the walls. When the redecoration was over, so was our daily intake of the bitter medicine. The walls shone as if my mother had impregnated them with light. The geometric shapes and lines now were clearly discerned.
"My life is written on these walls," she later told me. "Ammi, my son, for you these ornaments probably remind you of the designs in your schoolbooks, but for me, they remind me of all my life, my struggle, and my hopes.
"At the age of twenty when I first decorated this house, not only did I lay the clay but I embedded in the motifs both my memories and hopes. During a redecoration, each line, segment, and painted area reminds me of them. I rewrite the memories, adding any event, thought, and hope I have had since the last redecoration.
"I respect and cherish these walls, for they have listened to me and witnessed my life. They respond when I clean them. We are part of each other. I feel closer to them than to your father, for he was an emigrant working in France for some years.
"If only they could talk," she said, tears filling her eyes. "The act of decoration is a woman's duty, for giving beauty to a house is like giving life to children."
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