My older brother once bought an oriental rug and put in his kitchen in Stockholm. I laughed and said that was a stupid idea. It’ll get so dirty. “Nope”, he said, “it won't. Because the wool is so dense and oily nothing can penetrate it. It’s perfect for the kitchen.”  It did look great. Sometimes big brothers just know it all.

But the carpets from down here, from the warm climate of Northern Africa, are more lightweight and flat-woven. And, in general, not very dense or oily at all. I still want them in my kitchen. I want them in my hallways, my bedrooms, my studio, everywhere. I can’t even make myself roll them up and hide in a chest in the summer. This would of course be one thing in countries like Sweden, where the custom is to take your shoes off when you enter a house. But here no one never ever does - and here we have polvo, dust. Mucho polvo. And here vacuum cleaners are rare. What does one do?

This:

• Turn them upside down for a couple of weeks. Walk over them. A lot. All the dust and sand will end up on the floor underneath.
• Take them outside. Hose them off with water.
• Let them dry in the warm sun.
• Sometimes little sisters know just as much as big brothers. If not more.

PS.
Types of (Moroccan) rugs:
There are knotted, flat-woven, and pile carpets. There are rugs from Afghanistan, from China, from India, Iran, Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan, Caucasus, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and more. The ones from around our strait, the ´Moroccan´ ones, often have geometric designs, and are colored with natural dyes; henna, indigo and saffron. In Morocco in general most major cities have a unique style or design, characteristic that distinguishes their carpets. The coastal capital, Rabat, is famous for carpets woven with floral and diamond-shaped elements, and a fairly bare field. Fes reached its golden age during the thirteenth century, when the city was home to over one hundred dye workers and thousands of artisan embroidery studios located in the city’s medina. From the High Atlas region comes kilims, characterized by lattice work, bands of thick pile, and reversibility - traditional and ancient designs, passed down from weaver to weaver. Many Berber carpets, are woven by the Beni Ourain peoples from the Rif Mountains near Taza. Their colors vary from neutral shades to popping hues, with designs ranging from ordered geometric shapes to a more free-form, expressive pattern.

When I lived in Stockholm I had a nice neighbor, a somewhat elderly man. He liked to go dancing, and to chat when we met. He wasn’t born in Sweden. One day while we were waiting for the elevator, he told me about his love for garlic, and how he ate it every day. Then he continued to let me in on his trick to avoid the potential odor, which he suspected possible could be a bit too much for some Swedish dance partners. After eating his garlic he would always drink a shot of cooking oil. Plain. He assured me it would work as an interior lid, and no garlic smell could escape. “And, if somehow it did anyway”, he finished, “I think women would prefer the smell of garlic to the stench of snus coming from Swedish guys, after all”. (‘Snus’ is a moist powder tobacco product consumed by placing it under the upper lip for extended periods of time. It is very common in Sweden. Sometimes it’s called Copenhagen in English, for some strange reason).

I could only agree.

Garlic has many other benefits. I don’t think I need to tell anyone about them. We all know it’s good for your blood pressure, for your cholesterol level, that it works as a natural antibiotic, and all that. Natural and harmless.

In one of the largest Spanish newspapers one could also read the other day that garlic is a most important remedy in the treatment of sexual impotence, and that it is excellent against the loss of energy and exhaustion.  My dancing neighbor probably knew that as well.

Actually, what I had intended to write about was how to grow your own garlic, because ours is coming up and looking really good.  But it made me think of my former neighbor. I know he moved to Södertälje outside of Stockholm later on. Anyhow, some of the long green stalks called scapes that emerge from the garlic can be pulled off and eaten too, if you wish.

We skipped Easter this year, and took the ferry to Morocco instead. 40 minutes across the Mediterranean sea. Andalucía and Morocco may share much of their history, but Morocco is inundated with blue. The blue of the ocean and the sky have overflowed,  the doors, the windows, the tiles, the boats… It is not just any blue – the shades of Moroccan blue are rich and warm, they pull towards turquoise, rather than red or violet. I buy a blue gandora and stride the streets of Safi, Marrakesh, Tangier, Essaouira with calm and with confidence. I dream about painting everything in sight in blue, blue, blue when I get back home to my house.
 
So what is this blue all about?  I do some research and find it’s a bit puzzling. Stories interlace and contradict.
 
Scholars write that at certain times in Moorish Spain, and other parts of the Islamic world, blue was the color for Christians and Jews, because only Muslims were allowed to wear white and green. In the Islamic world blue really was of secondary importance to green, but dark blue and turquoise decorative tiles were commonly used to decorate the facades and interiors of mosques and palaces, from Spain to Central Asia.
 
I read that dark blue is the traditional color for good karma, positive energies and protection against the ‘Evil Eye’, and that this goes for light blue as well, with the difference light blue is also the color of the sky, so it symbolizes truth. Hence, the blue doors prevalent in a lot of places around the world, especially in the Mediterranean regions, are likely there because they are believed to repel evil. Some say it also serves as a mosquito repellant because “mosquitoes only like yellow”, and that light blue is used to mark Andalucíans homes.
 
Blue are also the turbans worn by the men of the Tuareg people in North Africa, in protection against the sun and wind-blown sand of the Sahara desert. Instead of using dye, which uses precious water, the turbans are colored by pounding the fabric with powdered indigo. The blue color transfers to the skin, where it is seen as a sign of nobility and affluence. Early visitors called them the "Blue Men" of the Sahara.
 
On the other hand, in the western hemisphere blue is associated with labor and the working class. It is the common color of overalls, blue jeans and other working costumes.

Then again, someone with ‘blue blood’ can also be a member of the nobility. I find out the term comes from the Spanish sangre azul, and is said to refer to the pale skin and prominent blue veins of Spanish nobles.
 
And, of course, blue is commonly used in Spain, as in several other cultures, to symbolize boys, in contrast to pink, which used for girls. It’s just that in the early 1900s, blue was the color for girls, since it had traditionally been the color of the Virgin Mary, while pink was for boys as it was akin to the color red considered a masculine color.

I could go on. Ultramarine, cerulean, cobalt blue, Prussian blue… In ancient days blue thread was actually made from a dye extracted from a Mediterranean snail, hilazon, but the garment had to be exposed to the sun, the ultraviolet light, which transformed the more purple colorant to unadulterated blue. Most blue pigments were made from minerals though, especially lapis lazuli and azurite. It was crushed, grounded into powder and mixed with egg yolk and other binders - and made into striking rich blues of all shades and nuances.

History can be gorgeous, subjected to the sun, the time, layer after layer, and eventually blended with contemporariness’. I acquire another blue gandora and stride the streets one more time, before taking the ferry back, across the blue Mediterranean Sea..