Pearl with Stripes

The small mountain village of Chefchaouen in Morocco was founded in 1471 as a base for the Riffian Berber tribes to launch attacks on the Portuguese. The name translates into “the horn,” a reference to two mountain peaks overlooking the town. Every year, the homes and buildings are painted with new coats of vibrant, blue paint.

Here in this image, we see a woman swathed in red and white traditional Berber textile entering her home. To me, her garments at first glance look like a flag. Her movements I recall were fluid and the narrow alleyway’s blue lime-coated walls made her look like a fish swimming upstream. The saturated color is intense, but does not overwhelm the vigor of her clothing’s vertical stripes.

According to various storytellers, the village’s stunning blue walls were introduced by Jewish people in the 1930s and are understood to symbolize the village’s closeness to heaven. Other people adhere to a secular idea and believe the mesmerizing blue hues repel mosquitos. Either way, the bold color found on buildings, houses, fountains and other surfaces has earned the village a memorable moniker: “The Blue Pearl.”