Tangier, Morocco – 1980
In August of 1980, I took a break from my freelance English teaching gigs in Lisbon, Portugal, and traveled to Morocco with an old friend from Columbus, Ohio. After taking a boat from Algeciras, Spain, to Tangier, we stayed in the northwest African country for several weeks. Much of our journey was travelling from Tangier to Fez and back by train, which was an adventure on multiple levels, but it was in the bazaar of Tangier that I found this traditional Berber wedding carpet, known as a Handira.
The story of its acquisition goes like this: The first day we were back in Tangier, we wandered the labyrinthine alleys of the old medina, resisting the pull of tourist trinkets and mass-produced rugs. I wasn’t looking to buy anything—I hadn’t even brought money for serious purchases. But as travel often teaches, the most meaningful exchanges aren’t planned.
Looking for some reprieve from the day’s heat, we stumbled upon invitation into a carpet shop tucked behind the bazaar’s bustle. The youngish owner, sensing our thirst and curiosity, invited us upstairs to a second-floor gallery where, he claimed, some of his shop’s more precious hand-woven pieces were kept. We climbed the narrow stairs and emerged into a wide open room with a large veranda overlooking the public square—a quiet pocket above the chaos. Mint tea was served in small glasses, and the afternoon light filtered through the arches as he began to unfurl one textile after another.
Among them was this—a long, shimmering Berber wedding blanket, known as a Handira. Roughly 5’6” wide and 9’4” long, it was unlike anything I’d seen. Woven in wool with exquisite geometric bands of rectangles, diamonds and zigzags, it bore braided fringes and scattered silk strands, some punctuated with sequins that reflected light as if they were stars.
The owner explained the kilim had been made for a bride from an aristocratic family in the Middle Atlas Mountains. The silk tufts and metallic accents weren’t just decorative—they were blessings, woven into the fabric to protect and honor the bride as she journeyed to her new family and home.
I didn’t have the cash to buy such a piece, but I did have my Nikon F2 camera, a trusted companion on many travels. After some back-and-forth, we agreed: the camera and $200 USD in exchange for the Handira. It felt like a fair trade—not just of goods, but of stories. I left Morocco that trip with no camera, but I left with a piece of living history folded under my arm.
Now, 45 years later, after a life of travel and collecting, this Handira hangs in the master bedroom in Bohol. It’s more than a textile—it’s a memory of mint tea and sunlit arches, of a quiet moment above the bazaar, and of the serendipity that sometimes finds you when you’re not looking.
