People Shots

It's difficult to get the extraordinary people shots that I want to take because most people don't want their photos taken and I don't have a long-range lens.  I have managed to collect a few.

Day 11 – Dades Valley

My mother always said she dreamed of living out of a suitcase for a couple weeks. Well, truly, I am living out her dream. We spent two nights in Tineghir and will now move on toward Marrakech (for our last three nights) with a one night stopover in Ouarzazate (pronounced wha' ziz zat). It's pretty intense doing it the OAT way, but everyday is an adventure, which is what we paid for. Today would be no different.

We started out our journey with a visit to the Dades Valley where the mountains look like claymation.

Our first stop was at a Berber home where we had pizza for a morning snack, and, of course, mint tea. 

The man who owns the hotel here invited us to his house first to see how pizza was made and then to eat it. We sat in his beautiful guest room with our shoes off and indulged ourselves. The pizza is made from wheat flour with salt, lamb fat, butter, cilantro, onion, saffron, and green pepper. It's then popped into a flaming oven to cook and served with either honey with thyme or olive oil. I found it to be better with the latter, although the freshly-made bread we had first tasted especially good with the honey/thyme.

Yemani, Brahim, and nephew

Our host, Haj Brahim, (the Haj part of his name indicates that he has been to Mecca) told us about his huge house. He is one of 14 children and his father started and expanded the hotel and the house. Brahim took over the hotel and expanded the business to include renting mini-vans to take people to the gorge up the mountain. Six families currently live in the house and when it is full once a year during the summer, there are 60 people there. He also trades sheep and honey and provides a local transport service for the local people who do not have cars.

The dining room and sitting room are used as guest rooms. They are decorated in modern industrial ceramic (all the designs are the same) with plaster walls with borders that are hand-painted. The long couches that line the wall space are all there, as is typical of Moroccan sitting rooms.

The government is trying to develop the tourist trade and Brahim is way ahead of the curve with his business. However, since the economic decline in Europe, Morocco has lost 50 percent of its tourist trade. Frenchmen used to come to Morocco three or four times a year. Now they only come once a year. Rich Moroccans travel around the country and like to go to beaches on the Mediterranean Sea or spend weekends in the mountains.

Caves are dark holes in upper part of picture

After our morning snack, we climbed into the mini-vans and went up the mountain to get a good look at the gorge below. We stopped in a couple places to see the view and it was spectacular. At one point we passed a herd of goats and later on a flock of sheep. They probably belonged to the people at the bottom of the gorge who live in caves. They are called troglodytes. They will climb the steep hill to pick up a ride to the market, however.

 Here is a view of the gorge with the river in the background and the road in the foreground as it winds around the mountain.

We were on the road in the bus most of today. We are traveling through the corridor between the High Atlas Mountains (on our right) and the Anti-Atlas Mountain (on our left).

Snow-capped High Atlas Mountain in background

Day 10 – A Day in the Life of Tineghir

Overview of Tineghir from my hotel room

Today we participated in OAT's special program of feeling a part of a place by going shopping for our dinner. That meant that we would go into the market with a list of food items we were to buy and they would be sent to the restaurant that would cook them. Yemani divided us into three teams: meat, vegetables, and fruits. I was on the vegetable team.

The thought of this exercise didn't appeal to me at first. I was having a culture shock type of day where I was tiring of all the differences around me—and my cold is lingering and/or coming back. I'm also finding the trip to be so intensive and so full of information that I was getting tired. It's been 10 days of travel and constant movement on and off the bus, up and down stairways, in and out of hotels. It is also a bit difficult relating to a group of people every day. Thank God we are only 14 in the group! I've been in travel groups of 50. The trick is to rotate hanging out with different people on different days. Although this is the kind of thing I like to do, it gets a little wearying about this point of the trip. We have had very little down time. Keeping up a journal doesn't make it any easier. But I would later take some time off in the afternoon by myself and that would revive me.

As it turned out, the shopping exercise was fun. Our vegetable group dove right into it and it wasn't too difficult communicating with the vendors. They spoke French and that helped. Pointing at items helped, too. The chef had made a list of items that included numbers like 1 kilo or 2 kilos, and we'd show them in order to buy what we needed. The vendors were also used to travel groups coming through and they were especially nice to us. I think they are curious about us or at least find us amusing as they try to figure out what we are saying. It also wasn't very busy. It was not like being in the Medina in Fez where there is so much going on all around you.

So our mission was to buy 2 kilos of potatoes and onions, 1 kilo of tomatoes and green beans. Yemani gave us 200 dh and we still had a lot left, so we bought eggplant and red peppers with the hope that the chefs would add garlic and make that special dish. (They did and it was delicious!) Then we found some peanuts, which we had enjoyed at the desert camp, and bought them. In all we spent 80 dh or $10.

Mawktar

Mawktar, a “blue man,” joined our group today as our local contact as we would go through the oasis and meet some of the people who farmed there. A “blue man” is a Berber who wears traditional blue clothing. They live mostly in south Morocco and are descendants of the Tware tribe that originally comes from Mali. They first interacted with the Moroccans in the 16^th century. One big difference in their clothing between them and the Arabs is that men wear veils and not the women. This is for the sand storm.

After our shopping expedition, Mawktar took us to the Jewish section of the old town. Some of them left in the early 20^th century and went to Casablanca. About 100 families were left and they emigrated to Israel, France, the U.S. in the 1960s along with the 600,000 other Jews. They were a real loss to Morocco because they had founded various industries and employed people in their factories. Now their old mud homes were “melting down.” We saw some poor kids were playing among the ruins while a couple of them sat around a charcoal fire on this fine, warm morning. It turned out that many of the Jews who went to Israel found life there difficult. They missed the warm temperatures and the friendliness of the people here. In fact, some of the Jewish families return here from time to time to visit their old friends and see their old homes.

Alfalfa grass is cut by hand. Nancy, dressed in traditional garb does the work.

The Berbers seem to be a very friendly and jovial people who love life. They have easy smiles and are willing to be especially helpful to others. Maybe because life is more leisurely here in an oasis town. They certainly do not live the harried lives of the larger cities we have visited. We would find this warmth especially in the oasis as we walked on a dusty path through date palms and small plots of wheat, barley, fava beans and alfalfa (for the livestock) that were separated by foot-high banks. Each family that owns a plot takes care of it. That includes owning a cow and spreading its dung on the plot. All the food here is grown organically. Men typically do the plowing while the women cut the alfalfa. However, many of the men are working job abroad in Europe, so the women do most of the agriculture here.

The oasis is huge measuring 50 km long and 200 meters wide. Our walk through it was refreshing and cool. The path was dusty and it got on my socks more than the sands of the Sahara. As we left it, I thought of the biblical advice that if you are not accepted in a town, to shake the dust off your feet and move on to the next one. While I like this town, the meaning of the quote makes me think that I really need to plan a trip to the Holy Land soon. Morocco has given me a taste of a desert culture and I think going to the Middle East would immerse me in it totally.

A donkey is used as a beast of burden and it can carry up to 100 kilos on its back.

Overlooking the oasis is the Glaoua Kasbah. The Glaoua (pronounced glowie) people owned salt mines and they exchanged it 1:1 for gold, skins, and other goods from Marrakech. Tineghir was a caravan town, so it provided caravan hotels with bedrooms upstairs for the merchant travelers and stalls downstairs for their goods and their dromedaries. Sultans ruled the day at the time. They were like kings with power because they collected taxes in goods from the different tribes that passed through town. There is a story about a sultan who lived at the end of the 19^th century who went on a tax collecting trip. He caught a cold and stayed with a family here. He left behind a cannon with the family who lived in the Glaoua Kasbah. This cannon gave the family a decided advantage and it became powerful. After the French conquered Algeria and then moved into Morocco in 1908, they used this family to subdue the people here. When Morocco gained independence in 1954, they expelled this family. Hassan II invited the family to return. A book was written by Gavin Maxwell about this family. It is called The Lords of the Atlas. Sounds like a fascinating book I'd like to read.

We stopped to see the ruins of a Koran School or madrasa, a Muslim boarding school that adjoins a mosque. Although it is “melting down,” especially after being affected by a small earthquake 15 years ago, a caretaker lives in one of the rooms. He has, in fact, restored the prayer area. The government is not interested in restoring a mud building because it is concentrating on building new buildings and mosques in concrete and steel that will last.

The niche (mihrab) faces the direction of Mecca as the Immam leads prayers to rows of prayerful people behind him. His chair (minbar) is where he stands when he gives his Friday sermon.

The boys In Koran schools, usually between 8-10 years old, learned the Koran by heart. Then they are able to work in mosques as immams or as teachers in Koran schools. There were 50 students at this school at one time.

This Berber shower was in the courtyard outside the madrasa. To use it, you crawl through the entry way and sit inside it. It was covered with mud on the outside while heated water was poured into it.

Today, people don't think that madrasas are a good idea for education. They prefer modern schools. Immams were not traditionally trained in a seminary as priests and ministers are. They would set up shop on their own and be accountable to no overseeing body. Today, would-be immams must have a degree and go to school. They get scholarships and “licenses” from the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

After we refreshed ourselves at our hotel, we went to Dar Et-Taleb Education Center to meet some high school students and have lunch with them. This center is actually a place where 120 boys were boarded while they go to school elsewhere. (There is another center for girls, but we didn't visit it.) The center is one of the Grand Circle Foundation's projects. (They are associated with OAT.) Grand Circle has provided funds for showers, restrooms, and a soccer field.

Three of us met with three boys at our table. They were selected because they spoke English. Only one boy spoke it well. Some of the boys here come from town while others come from a distance. They get help with their studies and they have a place to stay so that they are more likely to complete them. Education is key to developing a country!!

The boys were very polite and obviously prepared for our visit. They came up to us and invited us to their tables. They were quite open about their lives. Most of them we met wanted to be teachers or engineers. The center is giving them the chance to do so.

Before we had the afternoon off, we stopped at a Berber carpet cooperative. The head man there spoke excellent English and was very entertaining as he explained how carpets are made, what they are made of (camel hair), and what their designs and colors mean. Then he took us to a showroom, served us tea (with an explanation about how it was made), and then treated us to see all the different kinds of carpets they sell. This was all a warm up for us to buy. I wished I could get a wall hanging, but the expense was way too great, and the pressure to buy was way too high. They started at $1800. I baulked, as a good bargainer should, but I didn't come back with a counter offer because I was not in the least interested. He forced it out of me and I said $500. He asked me my name and told me his: Abdullah. As I tried to leave, he chased me around the two-story store to make me buy not one, but “three carpets for a good price.” He called after me: “Canada, Canada.” (I was wearing my red jacket that had Canada written on its back.) This was a little too much for me and I ran to Yemani to rescue me. He told me how to get to the bus. I had expected a more suave approach from the salesmen, like in the leather goods store in Fez. This was a good experience, nonetheless.

We met for dinner at 6:30 and drove to a hotel that had prepared our dinner from the groceries we purchased that morning. We had a delicious potato/tomato/??? soup, grilled lamb chops, eggplant/red pepper gnash, a tajine of potatoes, onions, green beans. For desert we had fruit, chocolate wafer cookies, chocolate sandwich cookies, and peanuts. I felt more full than I have been feeling at our meals during the whole trip. I think it was the cookies that did me in.

We also had some entertainment by a “blue man” band. Sylvia, who has been taking Middle Eastern dance, performed a dance for us. A couple other people joined in. She is really good at it!!

Day 9 – The Road toTineghir

We left the desert after two nights of glorious camp life where we had carpeted tents, a bed with plenty of blankets, a small light, a toilet, and a hot water bottle to keep us warm at night. Nice touch! We also had Hussain and his team of five to cook for us, provide tea/coffee and appetizers, and bring a bowl of hot water in the morning to wash with. The dining tent was heated and lit and a welcome refuge from the cold in the night or the early morning. We also had 4x4 drive us around to different places we visited or to meet and pick us up at a destination.

“I love camping,” I said at breakfast today. “Honey, this isn't camping,” a couple people responded.

“But it's Sahara Desert camping through OAT,” I replied, “and it's good enough for me.”

Yemni later told the group that the camp has made refinements. The toilets used to be outhouses and the carpets were of the plastic kind rather than wool.

My tent reminded me of a picture I cherish of the famous anthropologists, Margaret Mead and Geoffrey Bateson typing their notes after a day's work in the field. I pretended to be like them last night when I spent a couple hours writing for this blog. After all, we are “in the wild” gathering data about new and exotic things. I am writing about them. This kind of adventure travel is different from most tours where visitors don't usually have the opportunity to meet local people or obtain a broad view of the political, economic, social, and cultural contexts of a place as we are—as OAT provides for us. Leave me alone to my fantasies!!

I got up for the sunrise at 6:30 again and this time only a couple others were there. Arthur, a Kosher Jew, watched the sunrise a dune or two away from me. I thought how lucky I was to share the moment with a man and his God. Later at breakfast he shared that seeing the glorious sunrise reminded him of a Jewish prayer: “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory. Hosanna in the highest.” This prayer was adopted as part of the Catholic Eucharistic prayer that is said before the bread and wine are consecrated to be the body and blood of Christ. So it has particular meaning for me especially now that I have been in the desert near the region where my religion was born. What a wonderful gift!

On the Road Again

After a nice breakfast we left camp for our next location, the oasis town of Tineghir. We crossed the J'bel Sahro Range (at about 5,000 feet) and passed through the High Atlas Mountains on our right and the AntiAtlas Mountains on our left. We were on an old caravan road and that added to the mysticism of our journey except that we were in a comfortable bus clipping along at 50-60 miles per hour rather than on a dusty trail sitting atop camels. Along the way we saw several “sand traps” made of cross-hatched palm leaves about 2 feet high. They catch the sand and keep it away from the agricultural plots in the region.

When we reached the region where the Khattara tribe lived, we stopped at an old irrigation project that is now being developed into a tourist attraction by our guide, Karim, and his family. There were a series of wells (hatar) dug every 20 to 30 yards that sat atop the ground; they looked like beehives. It was what there was below that was so astounding: a tunnel dug to connect all the wells. The tunnel represented a “pipeline” that at one time collected water (about knee deep) from the mountains that flowed downhill to the kasbah at the other end. Each well was 50-60 meters deep and the mud had to be continually scooped out to maintain the wells and the tunnel below.

Families that owned land had access to the water, but they also had to dig out and maintain the wells. They worked for as long as they used the water. For example, if they needed two hours of water every day, they worked on the well for two hours every day. A wooden bowl with a small hole in its center was the timekeeper. It measured out an hour when it was full. We went down a series of uneven steps into the seven-foot high tunnel. Karim's assistant had lighted the way for us with candles. The only light coming into the tunnel was from each well. 

 

This irrigation project had been operating for several centuries until the 1960s when the government built the dam lake in Errachidia, which we had seen a couple days earlier on our trip. This modern irrigation system collects water in the lake or reservoir until it is needed. Then water is moved down a channel and aqueduct to water the fields.

“Without irrigation, nothing in this region would grow,” said Yemni.

A couple times on this road we saw a well with some nomads and their camels and donkeys surrounding them. The nomads were drawing water from the well for drinking and washing clothes. In the small towns we passed through we'd see students walking or on bicycles going home from school for lunch from 12 to 2 p.m. They carried backpacks or school bags with a strap on one shoulder. We will meet some students tomorrow when we visit a school. They are in school for four hours a day either in the morning or the afternoon. They have Sundays off.

We, too, had lunch about 1 p.m. and stopped at a small roadside restaurant for a picnic lunch of cold chicken, olives, bread, and cheese. It was a little too cold to be outdoors, so the proprietor moved everything indoors. An abused dog hung around the restaurant, which was sad to see. Dogs are not well liked here. A cat, however, made his presence known throughout our lunch with a constant meowing. He was begging for food from our table.

We head out again and a couple hours later finally reached the busy market town of Tineghir. We will spend two nights here and have our first hammam experience (public bathhouse) after we check into our hotel. Tineghir is built around the mountains and it is a beautiful city. We took a couple picture stops to photograph both the old town, whose mud houses and buildings are “melting down” after a 100 years of use. A new town made of concrete blocks and steel rods is being built. These buildings will, of course, last a lot longer. Like in the desert, people abandon the old mud buildings because they are too expensive to restore. The empty buildings reminded me of Detroit. However, this is part of an expected “melt down” process here, while the City of Detroit is decaying because of neglect and terrible corruption. Nevertheless, cities change all the time.

We passed through the town to get to the Todra Gorge, one of the few places where we saw water gushing along a river. Here the rock goes straight up 500 feet and except for its small spaces, it reminded me of Machu Picchu when I first witnessed the power of God in the strength of the mountains. Even though these are limestone mountains (sedimentary rock layed down by ancient oceans) and not igneous rock formed from the hot lava from volcanoes, there was no doubt of their enduring quality, which was what I experienced in the desert as well. We walked along the river and I found a spot where I could touch it. It was not cold as I had expected. Of course, there were people selling souvenirs—and a man and woman climbing up and down the rock. Then appeared what looked like a colorful, little doll house of a hotel. Perhaps the gigantic size of the rock made it look so small. We stopped there for refreshment, and I had a cafe au lait, which has become my favorite treat on this trip. We were served by a young man in a black turban and a leather jacket and jeans, part of the cross-cultural quality of the upcoming generation and Morocco itself. Our buses picked us up to take us to our hotel.

The Hammam

 

The Hammam goes back to the Romans who loved water and bathing. The Arabs—or in this region, the Berbers—adopted the sweat baths as part of their own culture. These public baths provide people with a chance not only to bathe but to make a ritual out of cleaning their bodies from the desert dust and sand. Six of us women and three of the men from our group participated. We were guided through the process by assistants who not only showed us what to do, but they did it for us, and that made the experience all the better.

We undressed down to our underpants, in compliance with Islamic laws of hygiene and purification. We walked into the steaming baths where we saw several other women, some of whom had small children. The stripping down was a bit embarrassing, but we all got over it after we got into the bath.

We sat on the floor on a plastic sheet that had been layed there, maybe for us, and maybe for others who received the treatment rather than do it themselves as most of the women there did. First, our aides poured hot water on us from plastic buckets they would constantly fill with water from the taps nearby. Then they gave us olive paste that we were to rub all over our bodies. This was rinsed and they scrubbed us down with another soap with a scratchy cloth that removed dead skin. This was rinsed and they used another soap. We lay on our backs and then our stomachs. They massaged our backs and one of our group who had a knee problem, had her knee done, too. On this last soap down, we had our hair washed and our heads massaged with a plastic brush. It all felt so good, and the steam of the place helped to clear our froggy throats and sinuses that many of us have been suffering with on this trip, including me.

This experience was unforgettable and one of the women later said that she felt a new closeness to those of us who participated. I guess when you strip down to nothing and bathe with each other, that happens. We dressed slowly, as we were still light-headed from the hot steam. But we felt good and revived, especially after our desert experience. What great timing!! (Yemni regularly makes the hammam part of his revival, too.) We marveled at how soft our skin was and so free of dead skin that it felt very different. Even my dry legs were clear of scaling and unusually soft to the touch. It wasn't perfumed with natural scents like lavender, as I expected, however, but the “makeover” our assistants performed was well worth the $12.50 we paid for such a wonderful treatment. Too bad we don't have the hammam in the States! 

Day 8 – Sahara Desert Visits

Sunrise on the Sahara

I found that the desert pulled something out of me, and the sunrise would make its message clearer.  A biblical quote came forth: “Be still and know that I am God” now made sense. Actually, the stillness was deafening. I even felt a little dizzy. Maybe my ears were still plugged up from the change in altitude we experienced yesterday as we climbed the mountains. But I felt I was on a different plane from usual. I couldn't hear or smell anything, and all I could see and feel was sand. It was like a void and then I realized that to fill this void, humanity has created the arts. People sing and play music, they dance, they paint, they draw, the sculpture to break the silence. And isn't this what God did? The universe was a void and God filled it with Creation. 

A couple of the women from our group joined me on the dune.  As the sun rose, a rooster in the nomad camp crowed and a donkey brayed. They, too, gave homage to the new day. It is a time to celebrate!! 

In the distance we could see a small figure crossing the dunes and coming toward us. We had all been quiet until it approached. It was a small girl in traditional clothing. As she neared us, she knelt down without a word. Then, she gingerly pulled something out of her bag. It was a colorful, homemade camel—for sale. She continued her silence and then waited. Soon a younger girl joined her in the same manner.

The desert brings out many things. Most of them are unexpected. Most of them are glorious. Some of them are unbelievable.

Nomad Camp

Hadijah cards camel hair in her nomad tent

After breakfast we walked east for 20-30 minutes to the nomad camp and met Hadijah, 46. She has become an “OAT Nomad” because she stays near our camp and doesn't move as nomads do. Actually, OAT pays her to serve as one of our visits, and she's glad to do it. She doesn't like moving and she doesn't miss it a bit. A big part of the problem is that she doesn't have the money to rent a truck to move.  That means she would have to walk and that is extremely tiring and difficult in the sand. When nomads raise sheep and goats, they need to move about because the animals need grazing land. Farming nomads, however, don't need to move.

Hadijah served us hot mint tea

Another reason she stays here is that her husband died from something, she doesn't know what. He was healthy one day and then suddenly got sick. He was somewhere between 40 and 50 years old.  She has eight children, and like the woman from the poor family, she wants the best for them and hopes they have a better life than she does. Two live with her and work in the Sahara; two are nomads and tend sheep; the others are married and living far away.

Her parents and grandparents were nomads and that's the only life she's known. It is difficult to trace her heritage any further back than that. She was very matter of fact in her approach to life and didn't see the need to be philosophical or romantic about the nomadic life.

water and olive oil supplies outside Hadijah's tent

bags of camel dung for fuel

Her daily life is fairly simple. She gets up between 5 and 6 a.m. and prepares tea and breakfast for her children. Then she goes to the river nearby to collect wood for the fire and water from the well. (There are plenty of “nomad wells” because the government provides them. The are on two the six meters deep, so they are quite accessible. Tomorrow we would see some nomads taking some water from one of these wells. They pull up a bucket of water with a rope and then use the water for drinking and washing clothes.) She bakes the day's bread and prepares lunch. When she has free time she cards camel hair or embroiders. In the afternoon she doesn't work. Go goes to bed early. (The sun sets about 7 p.m. at this time of year.)

She was carding some camel hair as she talked with us and pulling it out to make thread. She rents a loom to weave it. It takes one year to make one strip, which is about 12 feet long. Camels are sheared every two years and sheep and goats every year.

Once a month she goes to the market to buy goods like tea and sugar. (Mercedes trucks come to pick up the nomads for these shopping trips. Before they used donkeys, camels, and mules. Nomads typically take sheep and goats—or their butter—to market to make money.) Hadijah has three camels and six goats.

She has a copper ring on her finger not for any particular reason or symbol but because she likes it. She wears henna on the tips of her fingers for the same reason. She wears kohl under her eyes to protect them from the sun.  (According to Wikipedia, kohl is an ancient eye cosmetic, traditionally made by grinding galena (lead sulfide) and other ingredients. It is widely used in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of West Africa to darken the eyelids and as mascara for the eyelashes. It is worn mostly by women, but also by some men and children.)

Her tent is made out of camel and goat hair.  We sat on rugs under the camel hair tent and it was warm and comfortable. It runs north and south and has flaps on the east and west sides of the tent so that either can be opened or closed depending on the weather. She opens the flaps to let the sun in and closes them when the wind is bad. This morning the eastern flap was open.

inside Hadijah's tent

In her answer to the question about what makes her happy, she said there was nothing to be happy about. Yemni explained that the nomads spend most of their time coping with life and living for their children. They don't think about their own lives, but rather they have hope that their children will have better lives than they do. Hadijah had a bright and smiling face. Perhaps this is because she assumes a paradoxical outlook on life that involves acceptance and resignation. She doesn't seem to take life too seriously. Although she doesn't know anything about entertainment as we city people understand, says Yemni, she does like to watch the dancing that goes on at a wedding in the village.

Hadijah's neighbors

She has some interaction with other tent families that are nearby. They all know each other and they help each other out when they need it, like borrowing sugar for cooking. She is a Muslim and like most old people, she prays five times a day at home because she doesn't have access to a mosque.

I asked her what she thought of the OAT visitors and she answered that she wondered why they come to the Sahara. In fact, she thinks we're crazy to come to a place that is hard to live in, especially one that only offers heat and sand storms. I guess a lot of the locals can't see the beauty of the place as we do. They take it for granted—just as so many of us take our homes for granted. When we live in them, they just aren't that special or unique as when we visit other places.

After our visit with Hadijah, there were some vendors anxious to sell us some goods.  Hadijah showed Kari how to wear a head piece.  Then she posed with her for this precious photo below.

 We were hard pressed to find much life among the sand dunes, but we did find a bug at the nomad camp. Later in the day we saw sparrows flitting and swooping among the dunes. I'm sure that if we had stayed longer, we would have found more signs of life.

 








Desert Farm

young date palms planted near irrigation ditch

You wouldn't think there would be any farming going on in the Sahara Desert, but there is. About twenty or thirty years ago, one successful hotel owner decided to build a farm to help grow crops for his hotel restaurant. He started with date palms and used drip irrigation, a technique developed by Israelis. He also uses flood irrigation, as evidenced by the foot-high mud walls that section off his various crops. These sections are about 20 to 30 feet squares and they include such things as eggplants, carrots, parsnips, garlic, cabbage, fava beans, apricots, red chili peppers, cumin, almonds, lemons, pommagranites, henna (for hair dye and make-up), alfalfa and barley for the sheep. He also grows bamboo and sells it to people for their roofs and fences.

The henna, alfalfa, and date palms make money but the vegetables are for the hotel. The soil is good here and crops are raised organically and fertilized with dung. The farm is now 7 acres but it is expanding. He has experimented with cotton, but that was a failure.

irrigation trenches

One of the first things we saw as we approached the farm was a solar-powered water pump, the tool that is so essential for growing crops in the desert. The pump also works on diesel and electricity. The farmer has two pumps: one inside his place and the other outside it so that other people may use it. It seemed an anomaly that there would be water here in this dry desert land, but when grass and trees grow in an area, that means there is water.

The Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture encourages drip irrigation by reimbursing farmers' expenses for the equipment. They buy what they need and provide receipts and 100% is repaid. This is part of the government's

a solar-powered well made available to nomads

overall program to support agriculture. Already it has irrigated 1.4 million hectares, but it plans to irrigate 8 million hectares of good land. The government recognizes the dangers of global warming, especially in a country that only gets three or four months of rain. However, it focuses on capturing as much water as it can through various methods. The southern part of the country, divided by the High Atlas Mountains, is especially problematic since it is arid, while the north side of the mountains is green. 

a pretty lush, pretty diverse desert farm that provides local food at its best

Berber Cemetery

After 100 years or so, the mud houses of the Sahara begin to “melt” beyond any restoration. Then people abandon them and move on to build other houses and neighborhoods. Near one abandoned settlement, we visited a Berber Cemetery. As non-Muslims, we were not allowed to walk among the stones because that is considered a desecration. Yemani explained Muslim burial customs at this cemetery because we could get close to it.

The body, which has been washed, perfumed then wrapped in white cloth, is buried in the ground without a coffin. There is a stone marker at the head and the feet of the body. Men's stones are parallel to each other lengthwise, while women's stones are placed with the foot on the width end with the length of the stone at the head. So that the body may face Mecca, the Muslim holy city, the body is placed on its side and not on its back.

Bodies are buried within 24 hours after the death. Before it is buried, the body is taken to the mosque for good-bye prayers. Women are not allowed to visit the grave site until three days after burial, and only men are allowed to bury bodies.

Until the 1970s, people placed two bowls at the grave site where they put water in one bowl and grain in the other for the birds. Now they put flowers on the graves, which is a French influence. People typically visit the dead on Fridays, the Muslim holy day. None of the markers has a name on it. This is a typical countryside practice while people in cities DO put names and sometimes birth and death dates on the grave stones. There they must also pay for a plot. Some urban graves also are in marble.

Evening Meal and Sky Phenomenon

Before our evening meal, Yemni led us in a discussion about the Islamic religion. He told the story about how the Prophet Mohammed founded the new religion and how it spread. Then, just as we did last night, we had some appetizers of almonds, peanuts, and biscuits with tea or wine before we settled down to soup, bread, and a tagine of lamb, potatoes, carrots, and onions.

In the middle of the evening activity, someone noticed a special sky manifestation. The almost full moon had a halo around it. Jupiter and another bright star were near the ring, while Venus shone brightly in the west. No one had ever seen such a phenomenon, nor did they know what it was. I am sure that it was a sign of some kind, only I've not come up with a story about it. 

I did not get a photo of the moon halo, but found one like it photographed at Pearl River, LA just after the passage of a cold front. The halo is attributed to refraction in high altitude ice crystal.  Source:  Georgia State Univ Department of of Physics and Astronomy 

 About 8:30 we all went to bed in the pitch-black night with our hot water bottles in hand (to help keep us warm under the covers).  Although we have a light in our tent, we are without electricity and Internet power. This is our version of “roughing it” out in the desert.