19 September 2009
Today, I went with a young Berber woman, Dounia, part of the guesthouse staff, and the two Englishmen to visit her father’s village and several adjoining villages in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, north of Taroudannt. A few days ago we went to an oasis at the base of the Anti Atlas to the southwest…the two of the four mountain ranges in Morocco.
We left Taroudant through the gate (called baab in Arabic) called Oulad somebody I don't remember heading out to the mountains. It means the children of whoever. There are many villages in this area called Oulad so and so. The villages were started by a particular person, and as the number of descendents grew, it became known as the village of the Children of So and So.
We drove about ½ and hour to a large village…a county seat sort of place, with the weekly market, a newly built school, police station, etc. Then we walked across a deep, dry wadd, a dry wash with shrubs and grasses growing among the stones and boulders. Dounia said the deepest she had ever seen the water was about 3 feet. At one time there was a lot more water as the wadd is a ravine with water-carved sides that rise a hundred feet or more above the current bed.
Today, I went with a young Berber woman, Dounia, part of the guesthouse staff, and the two Englishmen to visit her father’s village and several adjoining villages in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, north of Taroudannt. A few days ago we went to an oasis at the base of the Anti Atlas to the southwest…the two of the four mountain ranges in Morocco.
We left Taroudant through the gate (called baab in Arabic) called Oulad somebody I don't remember heading out to the mountains. It means the children of whoever. There are many villages in this area called Oulad so and so. The villages were started by a particular person, and as the number of descendents grew, it became known as the village of the Children of So and So.
We drove about ½ and hour to a large village…a county seat sort of place, with the weekly market, a newly built school, police station, etc. Then we walked across a deep, dry wadd, a dry wash with shrubs and grasses growing among the stones and boulders. Dounia said the deepest she had ever seen the water was about 3 feet. At one time there was a lot more water as the wadd is a ravine with water-carved sides that rise a hundred feet or more above the current bed.
The path to the village led up through olive groves, with mostly empty fields beneath them. Summer vegetables and maize have already been harvested, and they will plant wheat and barley when the rains come in October or November…similar to our seasons in California. A few fields still had alfalfa, which they cut five or six times a year…by hand as needed.
The path followed a mostly cemented irrigation ditch for a long way. It brings water down from a spring or runoff when there is rain. Not so different that our ditches, but about half the width. The fields were on a small, fairly flat plateau, with the villages above it, at around 1200 feet. Each field is divided into plots by small (10-12 inch high) earthen walls - to hold water. They flood irrigate by making check dams to direct the water into one plot or another. Each farmer has a set day and time, usually for 24 hours, that he can irrigate. Depending on how many people are irrigating, they get water every 2-3 weeks.
Enormous old carob trees with trunks four or five feet in diameter marked where several paths came together. They provide quite dense shade, and must be pleasant in the heat of summer. Carob powder is exported, but locally people do not consume it. The pods are really high in protein, and are used for animal feed. There were also some argan trees (for oil and browse, see previous post), figs, and pomegranates, which are called roman in Arabic; do you suppose the Romans really brought them here? Prickly pears were everywhere. They still had fruit on them, but are overripe now…only suitable for goats and other livestock, according to Saïd (the source of all knowledge).
The village houses are adobe, with walls two to three feet thick to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter. It gets really hot here and quite cold as well. This summer, temperatures got up to 51° C – somewhere around 130°, I think…my conversion skills are a bit rusty. And winter temperatures hover in the upper 30’s F, although frost is not common.
The adobe of the houses is renewed each year, but the rains are rarely heavy enough anymore to wash them away as happens in more humid climates. Traditional village houses are one story high, although there were a couple of fancy cinderblock houses that were two stories high. There is an outer courtyard for animals, then the house is an open square with rooms around a large inner courtyard. The courtyards had little gardens in the center, with a faucet as the water source for the household. Women stay in the house for the most part, so the courtyard assures that they get sunshine and fresh air. The garden belongs to the women – men do the cultivation of fields outside. The gardens have herbs for cooking such as cilantro and parsley; a lot of basil , which they do not cook with, but use as part of the hammam (bath) process and just for its scent. There were also marigolds and in one, a huge winter squash plant – which produces orange flesh squashes the size of blue Hubbard, but they are oval, green or pale orange in color with longitudinal ridges and occasionally warts. I also saw some that were shaped like enormous gourds with a round end and a long neck, but clearly of the same ilk as the oval ones.
One of the villages we visited is famous for honey, and they make a special wall in the house where they keep the bees. The hive wall is away from where the family lives, but it is still in the house! Another village is famous for pottery. We watched a man make and decorate a tall jar, about 15” high with cutouts of stars, moons, tent flaps and squiggles. A local hotel had commissioned him to make a number of pottery lamps. Apparently each potter in the village has a specialty in terms of what they make. There were some beautiful, enormous water jars that I’d like…but I would never get them home in one piece!
The path followed a mostly cemented irrigation ditch for a long way. It brings water down from a spring or runoff when there is rain. Not so different that our ditches, but about half the width. The fields were on a small, fairly flat plateau, with the villages above it, at around 1200 feet. Each field is divided into plots by small (10-12 inch high) earthen walls - to hold water. They flood irrigate by making check dams to direct the water into one plot or another. Each farmer has a set day and time, usually for 24 hours, that he can irrigate. Depending on how many people are irrigating, they get water every 2-3 weeks.
Enormous old carob trees with trunks four or five feet in diameter marked where several paths came together. They provide quite dense shade, and must be pleasant in the heat of summer. Carob powder is exported, but locally people do not consume it. The pods are really high in protein, and are used for animal feed. There were also some argan trees (for oil and browse, see previous post), figs, and pomegranates, which are called roman in Arabic; do you suppose the Romans really brought them here? Prickly pears were everywhere. They still had fruit on them, but are overripe now…only suitable for goats and other livestock, according to Saïd (the source of all knowledge).
The village houses are adobe, with walls two to three feet thick to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter. It gets really hot here and quite cold as well. This summer, temperatures got up to 51° C – somewhere around 130°, I think…my conversion skills are a bit rusty. And winter temperatures hover in the upper 30’s F, although frost is not common.The adobe of the houses is renewed each year, but the rains are rarely heavy enough anymore to wash them away as happens in more humid climates. Traditional village houses are one story high, although there were a couple of fancy cinderblock houses that were two stories high. There is an outer courtyard for animals, then the house is an open square with rooms around a large inner courtyard. The courtyards had little gardens in the center, with a faucet as the water source for the household. Women stay in the house for the most part, so the courtyard assures that they get sunshine and fresh air. The garden belongs to the women – men do the cultivation of fields outside. The gardens have herbs for cooking such as cilantro and parsley; a lot of basil , which they do not cook with, but use as part of the hammam (bath) process and just for its scent. There were also marigolds and in one, a huge winter squash plant – which produces orange flesh squashes the size of blue Hubbard, but they are oval, green or pale orange in color with longitudinal ridges and occasionally warts. I also saw some that were shaped like enormous gourds with a round end and a long neck, but clearly of the same ilk as the oval ones.
One of the villages we visited is famous for honey, and they make a special wall in the house where they keep the bees. The hive wall is away from where the family lives, but it is still in the house! Another village is famous for pottery. We watched a man make and decorate a tall jar, about 15” high with cutouts of stars, moons, tent flaps and squiggles. A local hotel had commissioned him to make a number of pottery lamps. Apparently each potter in the village has a specialty in terms of what they make. There were some beautiful, enormous water jars that I’d like…but I would never get them home in one piece!
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