LITMIR.BIZ

      Remember that scientist who was the first ever outsider to visit our Moroccan family of farmers? That was Michèle Maurin Garcia, a tall, thin and handsome brunette who arrived armed with equal parts French reserve and French charm. For various personal reasons having nothing to do with follow-up on her henna studies, she jumped at the chance to let us pay her way to Morocco in return for facilitating an introduction to the family. As you may imagine, who you know in Morocco is twice as important as who you might know in Hollywood. Or, maybe it’s the same; only it feels more important and a lot less pretentious among the desert dunes and shimmering mirages of Morocco.

      As mentioned earlier, I did not join Pascal on that first trip to Morocco, but when he got back, I wished I had, but not because it sounded so glamorous. Sure, it was an adventure of grandiose proportions (just think of all that sand!), but it also involved laborious, sweaty situations in the blazing hot field as Pascal tried to take in the inner workings of a henna harvesting operation: pick the leaves off the bushes, lay them out to dry, pack them into bundles to be taken to a professional grinding mill, where they are turned into powder (where all kinds of switcheroos with other plant life can take place if you don’t watch them like hawks); then, teach the family about the sifting process needed for the fine instruments we use for henna painting here in the States (as opposed to a traditional henna cone). The sifting operation alone necessitated Pascal buying super fine wire mesh and himself building the equipment they would eventually use. After all this fun, still to be worked out were the mechanics of getting the henna from the remote desert region where they live (by donkey) to a merchant in Marrakech, who would serve as go-between for filling out customs paperwork, and then packaging the shipment for air delivery to us in Los Angeles. In addition was the issue of establishing a payment and a communication system with people who had no bank accounts, no telephone and who only spoke Arabic, except for their 15-year-old son, Mohammed, whose broken French has made for many years of extremely charming emails. Emails, you ask? That’s because Pascal paid a local cyber cafe owner to introduce Mohammed to computers. No, I didn’t mind missing out on that part.

      What I did envy was getting to meet and hang with the family, a proud, lovely, generous and sincere clan of Moroccan Berbers, and to share in the excitement: for them, over having a new, stable source of income; and for us, in having a trustworthy source for henna. When I finally got the chance to meet them a year later, I wished even more that I had been there on that first trip. That is because I would have known exactly what to bring them as gifts. As I said, Pascal is Indiana Jones’ real life twin, with all the pros and cons that come with the personality—no matter how much I probed and prodded, I couldn’t get much out of him in terms of what they might need, or what they might consider fun! So, off I went to various shops, and returned loaded down with hair ornaments, lip gloss, perfume and a camera; a watch for dad, a Swiss army knife for Mohammed, toys for the littlest boy and other assorted things that, for the most part, they appreciated because of the intention. Had I been made aware by my blind and mute husband of the extraordinary conditions in which they live, what I would have brought was lots of moisturizing hand and body lotion, facial moisturizers, moisturizing lip balms (are you getting the feeling it’s dry out there?), first aid supplies, American T-shirts for Mohammed, and clothing for the littlest one (in addition to the toys). Minus my gauche and mortifyingly clueless offerings, the trip to Morocco was spectacular and unforgettable.

      The rest, as they say, is history. It’s been about ten lightning-fast years since we’ve been back to Morocco because things have gone that smoothly. Against all odds, out of a photo exhibition on henna body art in our modest gallery sprang our flagship line of Earth Henna Body Painting Kits, which, more than a decade later, sit comfortably in the oft-revised and appended body adornment lexicon. The kits’ success among those who prefer their tattoos temporary keeps our family of henna farmers employed and happy. They harvest the plant, and send us the majority of their crop each year. And, we’ve become accustomed to receiving regular, hassle-free shipments of the finest quality henna powder. Our small business—we have a staff of two—affords us a pleasant lifestyle, which in an expensive city like Los Angeles, can be a little tricky to maintain; but overall, life is good. Pascal is a sculptor, mixed media photographer and functional artist when he’s not negotiating with Moroccans and indigenous people in the Amazon. We still have our home-gallery, which occasionally hosts special artist exhibitions, but it mostly serves as a community space for artist salons. If only we could find a way to increase sales by just a bit, we wouldn’t have to worry about all that month at the end of each money! For years, this has been the ongoing refrain at our house (like, I’m sure, at a lot of other people’s houses!).

      Enter the jagua fruit and a sense of possibility.

      Chapter Two: Jagua, the Movie