IS IT MAY
ALREADY?..............
By now you will have
probably noticed that this “Blog”……... I hate that word, and why is it called
that? ............. Tends to find its way from my desk or laptop on a monthly
basis. I am always full of great intentions while on tour but never seem to
have the time, distractions aside, to write and update entries. Indeed, it a
struggle to find the time between
tours. And anyway do remember that this “Blog” is not a diary and that other
than this, the first section of a block entry, it is not all about Desert
Detours…….rather, and it’s all about Morocco.
The CCC tour is now
behind us and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable tours we have run
to-date. A little damp for the first two or three days, a touch hot towards the
end, but overall we enjoyed perfect weather.
Steve, my right-hand and
Tour Leader/Mechanic worked his magic a couple of times……via our carried
data/reader/computer diagnosing gadget and cured electronic faults on a couple
of client vehicles [nothing to do with Morocco….it just happens!]. The good
weather meant Tour Assistant A’Hammed excelled in both the number and quality
of group meals. We also managed to visit a few new locations, earmarking a
couple for our future and revamped “Classic Tour”.
By the time you receive
this “Blog” issue the May “Discovery Tour” will be well on its way……. While I
head into the mysterious and undiscovered eastern region of Morocco on a final
recce for our ALL NEW…….. “EASTERN MOROCCAN TOUR”………A more suitable and exciting
title will emerge in good time!
I am a little surprised
at the popularity and take-up/bookings for our “Footsteps of The Moors” tours.
Remember, these are a combination of both Morocco and Andalusia routes, running
back-too-back. It looks like we will have to add an extra date or two!
Both the early December
and our Christmas-New Year Moroccan dates are nearing shut-down [FULL], so
don’t wait if you are thinking in that direction.
Other Desert Detours
news? ........... The builders have done an excellent and speedy job in
re-building our office and part of the house after a freak “Tornado” back in
January took off the roof, one wall and oh so many windows [business as
usual…….nobody other than ourselves noticed]. Bonus is that we took advantage
and extended the working area, up-graded equipment and gave Pilar [Debbie’s
PA/Operations] room for her “executive” desk!
I feel a change coming
on………… I may……and I stress MAY retire
the last of our big trucks, my very own Unimog. Do I sell it or shall I just
let it withdraw gracefully in its own corner of the yard/workshop?
Mmmmmmm…….don’t know!
What I am looking for is
a late, low mileage, Left hand Drive, Long Wheel Base, High Roof Sprinter or
suchlike …….. Suitable for a conversation, also a twin-axil Box Trailer, big
and meaty enough to carry a large quad bike and equipment……..Anyone?
Regards
Ray.
JUST IN TIME……….SORT
OF…………..
I thought I had it
cracked……During our April tour we moved to a time that was two hours behind our
base/office in Spain and one hour behind the UK. It worked out perfectly for
both our arrival into and our departure from Morocco. But I had forgotten that there was another change due while we were away, but we were not alone! On the 28th Feb Morocco officially switched its clocks forward one hour. I say "officially", or as "official" as Morocco can be.
Unfortunately the change
was not well publicized and many businesses reported that workers turned up an
hour late, shops stayed closed, buses arrive late [so what’s new in that], vital
appointments failed….a degree of chaos was reported from both the major
airports at Marrakech and Casablanca while many official and government
departments opened late…. all it would seem unaware that the clocks had
changed.
The Minster of Public
Services, Mr Abdeladim El Guerrouj, said that the time change, “will take place
automatically and without any official statement”. So there you have it. But as a major building site supervisor said,
“It would have been nice if someone had told us”.
Once again this year Morocco and split daylight saving into two parts: before
Ramadan and after Ramadan. The clocks revert one hour during Ramadan. The
exclusion from daylight saving during Ramadan is a peculiar anomaly because
Ramadan times do not rely on clocks but on sightings of the moon.
Clocks are
expected to be turned back to standard time at 3 am [03.00] on Tuesday, July 9th
to mark the beginning of Ramadan. The
start of the second daylight saving period will coincide with the end of Ramadan on Thursday, August 8th. On this day, clocks will again be advanced by one hour at 2 am [02.00] local time to 3 am [03.00]. Daylight saving will end at 3 am [03.00] on Sunday, September 29th 2013, when clocks will be turned back one hour to standard time.
Travelers
would be well advised to check any departure times for transport as there have
been cases in the past when airlines have failed to notify passengers of the
change to daylight saving.
Of course
you now know and understand what’s happening………………….
ONLY A JOKE……….
70 year old Mustapha, an extremely wealthy Moroccan widower, shows up at
a friend’s wedding with his new wife, a stunning, absolutely gorgeous and
breathtakingly beautiful 25 year old.
His friends can’t believe how she hung onto his arm, listened intently
to his every word and catered for his every whim and need.
Baffled and amazed they cornered Mustapha and asked, “Brother Mustapha
how did you get this truly extraordinary woman to become your wife”?
“Quite simple, I lied about my age”, Mustapha replied.
How very clever Mustapha. What did
you tell her you were only 50”?
Mustapha smiled and shook his head, “No my friends, I simply told her I
was 95”.
COME UP SMELLING OF ROSES…………
Clients who join our popular "Classic Tour" will be aware of a very special pause between Todra and Ouarzazate................ Here we take a little time to visit a tiny shop owned by "Fatima" and her two daughters and where a powerful fragrance of Argon and Rose is complimented by walls covered in a dazzling display of texture and color............ Dozens, of silk scarves shawls and head-dresses.
Fatima's little shop, within the Oases of the Dade's Valley, is just past a Moroccan jewel known as the heavenly pink town of El-Kelaa M'Gouna or more affectionately referred to as the Valley of the Roses. The town is famous for its sea of pink Persian rose landscapes. El-Kelaa Des Mgouna has a vast distilling plant, Capp Et Florale that accounts for producing litres of rose water popular in the nation's cooking and perfumery. The rose capital also produces other goods made of eau de rose such as hand and body soaps, oil, creme perfume and dried flowers that are popular among Moroccans and tourists.
The Damask rose was brought to El Kella Des Mgouna in 1938 by the French. At that time El Kelaa Des Mgouna's first rose water distillery was opened. Shortly after the first Rose Festival begun and has been a tradition ever since.
In the Valley of Roses you will find miles of pink, small persian roses-cultivated as hedgerows dividing the plots of land. In spring, you can buy a garland of fragrant roses from one of the Berber children who line the route.
During the month of May, an annual three-day Rose Festival takes place in the Valley of the Roses. Morocco's Rose Festival occupies the souk area of El Kelaa Des Mgouna, the town responsible for the rosy festivities. During this time, travelers come from all over to attend the festivities where a Rose Queen is elected to reign over the year's scented crop. The factories in El Kelaa Des Mgouna produce 3000-4000 petals a year. With ten tons of petals required to produce a few litres of precious oil, the harvest is understandably a labour of love and the culminating festivities of the annual Rose Festival are all the livelier for it.
Surprisingly,
Rose water is expensive for Moroccans. The reason for its price tag is the fact
that the four thousand two hundred kilometres of rose hedges can only produce
one thousand four hundred litres of the product. The process uses approximately
three thousand kilograms of rose petals to extract a litre of rose oil (known as rose otto from the Arabic itr, meaning
perfume). Visitors who attend the Festival of Roses will
therefore see tons of rose petals being transported to the factories to extract
the precious oils, leaving a trail of rose scent throughout the town.
As
with all festivals in Morocco, the annual Rose Festival boasts delicious food
alongside traditional Berber local tribes singing, dancing, displaying sword
manoeuvres and playing traditional musical instruments; plus a parade of floats
with the nominees for Ms. Roses who sit upon them.
Unique to this festival are the rose perfumed streets, Moroccan women wearing traditional head scarves decorated with bright colored velvety flowers, and boys and girls wearing rose-garlands. Floral decorated floats, camel-rides, and an excursion organized by the festival co-ordinators to take a bus ride from Ouarzazate to the Valley of the Roses are a few of the highlights available to all.
The crowds at the festival are thick as a pink cloud, however, if you are a traveler you are in luck. Look for a spot reserved for tourists and dignitaries for the best views of the festival. Don't forget to look out for well dressed women in pink organizer and tulle and men dressed in white turbaned robes.
The
purpose of the festival is for rose farmers to celebrate the year’s crops and
to celebrate the beauty of nature. The Rose Festival is one of the prettiest
and most popular celebrations in Morocco. Visitors come to enjoy breathing
in the sweet scents of the petals as well as being surrounded by the natural
beauty of the Drâa valley and the High Atlas Mountains.
TAKE TIME
AND LOOK A LITTLE CLOSER……….
I was
reading the other day that when a group of school kids were questioned about
where they thought milk came from, most of them had no idea it came from a cow.
A fridge shelf in Tesco seemed to be the main suspect. While it may be easy to
snigger at the ignorance of modern children of some of the basics of life, it
occurred to me that there are plenty of things that we take for granted,
totally unaware of the story behind them.
Take the
beautiful babouches, the soft leather slippers we see in rows lining walls in
tiny shops in the souk. Perhaps you bought a pair, but did you ever think about
where they came from? Probably not, but they certainly did not just appear
thanks to the babouche fairy. Admittedly some are now being mass produced, but
others are still made by hand, and their story, and that of much of the
beautiful artistry we take home as gifts and souvenirs, is intricately woven
into the whole fabric of life in the Medina.
This point was brought to mind when I was taking a walk through the Medina with
my old friend Abdellatif Benhrima. Born and bred there, he knows the maze of
alleys like the back of his hand, and as we wandered through the streets behind
the Musee de Marrakech, he suddenly ducked into a vaguely disreputable-looking
foundouk, one of the antiquated courtyards that provided both accommodation and
sales space for travelling merchants for hundreds of years. Some of these foundouks
have been restored as Riads, but equally as many still maintain their original
function as small workshops and commercial premises. Unfortunately, while some
have been kept in reasonable condition, others suffer badly from years of
neglect. It was strange to compare the world I’d stepped into of freshly-dyed
skins drying in the sun, mopeds and beat up old handcarts with the décor of Le
Foundouk, the Chi-Chi restaurant of choice of the tantalizingly rich, almost
next door.
We went into a workshop tucked in a corner, no more than about three metres by
one-and-a-half, where a man in white skull cap and thick brown corduroy jacket
against the cold was carefully applying a soft white leather covering to the
thicker leather of a belt. This was where, between the ages of twelve and
fourteen, Abdellatif had worked, making slippers, belts and soft leather bags,
sharing the space with four others.
In the inevitable ceremony of welcoming a friend, Abdellatif and I were offered
tea. (And here I was introduced to one of the finer points of the Moroccan tea
ceremony; if you are offered a glass of tea you are welcome, if you are asked
to sit, chat and watch the tea being made, you are very welcome, as it’s an
opportunity to chat and while away a few minutes while the tea is brewing.)
While Abdellatif and his friend, Mustapha, caught up with their news I picked
up a soft, beautifully embroidered shoulder bag in warm, rose-pink lying on the
makeshift sofa beside me. I could see it draped across the shoulder of my daughter,
and her smile as she received it. The bag was not quite finished, it needed a
strap and fastenings, but I asked how much it was. “You are here to take tea”, said Mustapha,
“not to buy something”.
As the guest
I was offered the first sip from the single glass in Mustapha’s workshop, and
when we’d each had a drink and the pot was being topped up for a second round,
he climbed on his bike and rode off into the souk in search of a strap so my daughter’s
gift could be finished. A few minutes later, an elderly gentleman in a white
djellaba appeared at the doorway, enquiring about the belts Mustapha had been
working on. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Abdellatif, he took them
and went on his way. He was the buckle man, who would punch the holes in the
belt and fix the buckles.
He would
bring the rough leather belts to Mustapha for covering and either sell the
finished product himself or pass them onto someone else who had ordered
them. And that’s when the
inter-connectedness of the Medina struck me.
Mustapha would decide on the products he would make that week, whether to order
or for him to sell direct to a shop. He would buy the few skins sufficient for
his needs from the daily auction in the leather market and would then dye them
himself and dry them in the courtyard of the foundouk or hand them over to
someone to dye to his choice of color. When the skins were prepared he would
cut them to the pattern of the model he was making that week and then hand them
to a woman who did the painstaking embroidery at home, as a way to supplement
family income. When the pieces came back he would assemble them, then cycle to
a cupboard-size shop to buy the silken cord that would make the shoulder strap,
of exactly the right shade to match the dyed leather. He then covered the press stud fastenings in
leather and fixed them in place.
One day each week he would gather his bags, or belts, or slippers together, and
perhaps those his family made in other miniscule workshops, and take them to
his customers in the souks. If one shop didn’t buy them, another would. He
would buy his vegetables from the food market and bread from the bakery that
form part of the five ‘hearts’ of the quartier, his meat from the local butcher
with a whole lamb hanging from a hook, and his groceries from one of the dozens
of narrow cavernous shops almost within an arms-reach of his home. Everything
contained within the walls of the Medina, each having his role to play in the
highly organised chaos of life within the rose-pink walls.
I understand
how confusing and at times intimidating the souks and medina can feel…….but
perhaps next time take a closer look, for a while immerse yourself in the
activity……… feel what’s going on
around you ………. Trust me; it is a whole new and wonderful experience.
AND WHILE IN THE SOUK……..
“Oh no” I
hear you cry……..”Please, not another carpet shop”.
There are
two ways most people buy Moroccan carpets. The first is to carefully mull……..
Will the color clash with the furnishings in the living room? Will it get too
much wear in the hall? Is that orangey one better value than the brownie one? The second is to simply have the smiling
vendor throw half a dozen down on the floor, take off your shoes and squish
your toes in the pile to see which feels good.
I like the second way.
And don’t think the salesman is taking the mickey when he grins and says, ‘You
only pay for the front, the back is free,’ because in the High Atlas Mountains,
where some of the looser pile carpets come from, the shaggy side is for winter
warmth while the smoother reverse is for summer wear. And speaking of wear,
some rugs actually are worn as a winter wrap or used as bed covers.
In Morocco, every carpet tells a story – quite literally, although you may not
be able to decipher its meaning. Each tribe has its own repertoire of imagery
which differs by village and region, but there’s no such thing as a pattern or
design. Every weave and weft is learned at the feet of a mother and
grandmother - and a carpet weaver is always a woman.
The designs
tell of grand ceremonies and minor happenings in the village, but the essence
of a carpet is the story of the weaver, the rhythm of her daily life. Her
trials and tribulations, her small joys and larger happiness’s are woven into
her carpet, as a painter puts his emotions on canvas by the subtlety of his
brush.
Wander
Marrakech’s higgledy-piggledy souks and you will find carpets everywhere;
piled, rolled, unfolded and folded, spread on floors or cascading from hooks
and balconies, casually thrown or elegantly presented like a perfect pearl in a
Bond Street jewellers. Technicolor existed in the shades and subtleties of
color in Moroccan carpets long before the idea hit the silver screen. Subtle
or screamingly outrageous …….. They’re
all there.
But buying a
carpet is a serious business, a special moment to be savoured, accompanied by
mint tea sweetened with cardiac-arrest levels of sugar. ‘There is no need to
rush, madam.’ ‘No hurry, no worry.’ ‘This price is special only to you so
please don’t tell your friends.’ ‘If only I could give you a better price,
sir, but anything less and my children won’t eat today.’ ‘Do you have a credit
card?’
A VERY EASY DISH………..
Chicken was for so long the luxurious dish one served for special guests. That was before the spread of modern butchers who now provide people with all kinds of meat [except pork of course] any time of the day. People back then used to raise animals, especially poultry, to meet their needs for meat.
Nowadays, as chicken becomes widespread and cheaper it has become an essential element in the Moroccan cuisine. Moroccan families use it to prepare different kinds of food. Since tagine is the most famous daily dish for nearly all Moroccans, they usually, for the sake of diversity, switch to chicken when preparing their most cherished dish, Tagine.
However, most families tend to make the chicken tagine very light; they use only a few vegetables. Unlike the normal well known Moroccan Tagine, made with several vegetables, the chicken tagine is more often made only with onions, raisins, pickled lemon and with some olives for decoration and extra exotic flavor.
This recipe will take you through very simple steps to prepare easily your own tagine quickly.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken cut into 8 pieces cleaned and soaked in salty water with
some vinegar.
2 chopped onions.
Some raisins.
½ cup of olive oil.
Salt.
1 tsp. ginger.
1 tsp. paprika.
½ tsp. turmeric.
½ tsp. ground black pepper.
½ tsp. saffron.
3 cloves of minced garlic.
1 pickled lemon.
2 tbsp minced parsley and cilantro.
100gs red or green olives.
Preparation:
In a bowl mix some water,
ginger, turmeric, garlic, pickled lemon pulp, saffron, black pepper, 2 tbsp.
oil, parsley and cilantro. Clean the chicken pieces and marinate them in the
mixture, letting them stand for an hour or so.
Place the tagine on
the stove and set to a low heat. Add olive oil, the seasoned chicken and
onions.
When it starts to boil
simmer for half an hour and then add olives, raisins and the rind of pickled
lemon (cut into strips). Add some water and salt if necessary.
Cook again for another half
an hour or until the chicken is well cooked.
PUBLIC LETTER-WRITERS……a long lasting trade!
Registering complaints, drawing up judicial documents or letting
leases, drafting administrative letters or writing love letters and proffering
advice, public letter-writers are still in great demand by numerous Moroccan citizens;
so they survive in spite of the sometimes prevailing electronic mail. But like
many others they often find it hard to make ends meet in our fast moving world
where they have little or no real command of the translation into foreign
languages…….. but, at least, they exist!
Of course, because of their experience they are not simply
letter-writers: most are also able to offer all kinds of advice and guidance. Proficient
in the “old ways” and knowledgeable in the “new” they know who is worth
knowing, who’s strings to pull and what doors lead to where……they are the true
masters of personal skills and intrigue.
The necessary attributes require knowing how to listen to
people and how to transcribe their often complicated request in black and white……and
how to express coherently in the appropriate administrative, judicial or amorous
words, what they are saying.
There is no administrative control over them: the authorisations
to this trade are passed from father to son! Though they often have a school
leaving certificate, they do not all master either French, English or another
language or are expert in a particular field. In which case they will often refer
customers to one writer or another………
Of course it’s not always the case that only “locals” may require
the services or knowledge of the Letter-Writer.
Indeed, over the many years that I have been living, operating and
visiting Morocco I have used numerous writers, generally after being passed
aimlessly and seemingly without point, from one confusing and inefficient
public office of authority to another ………
It was many years ago, at the end of one such mind-numbing
day, that I first met Abou Faris. Even then he was clearly of advanced years
but with awareness in the eye matched only by his hoarded knowledge. Today he still sits in his tiny office on
Massira Street, near the northern exit of Essaouira …… The office that has seen
better days but should not change. There is an unmistakable ambiance of mystery
and intrigue of secrets and riddles. Few places would have heard as many a
tale.
The old Hermes Typewriter still sits atop a battered steel
filling cabinet, retired…..one day he will accept my offer…… A mechanical
writing gem, replaced long ago by the current Underwood Five. The sole ashtray still continues to offload its
contents across a desk that doubles as a depository for any number of mint-tea glasses.
Most of the time it is quite…..then they seem to appear
waves, the clients, one after the other. Patently they wait, chatting in a low
voice and exchanging news while Abou, the letter-writer, is takes notes, listening
attentively to what problem his male or female customer is exposing for all to
hear, sometimes showing some papers then putting them back into a little
plastic bag while deep in muffled conversation.
The first public letter-writers were the “talbas”, the men
who knew the Koran by heart and who then sometimes went on studying. Abou Faris
is from that era.
All documents don’t cost the same: the public
letter-writer has a rate scale going from 25 to 150DH, sometimes to
200DH. It all depends on the length of the letter, therefore on
the quantity of paper and of ink used but also on the time it takes to write the
letter and especially on the intellectual effort invested into it.
While there will be letters to write, public letter-writers
will go on existing, here like elsewhere in the world!
BEHIND
CLOSED DOORS………..
There is a type of building in the Kasbah of Essaouira that is even
more noticeable than others, as many have been turned into luxury homes, classy
establishments or trendy galleries. One such striking examples of this type of
conversion is the hotel/restaurant “Riad al Madina”…….. Many readers will be aware
of this location as it is the stunning venue for our final/farewell group meal
at the end of the Desert Detours “Classic” Tour.
It was the Jewish or Berber traders coming from Sous, or the famous toujar sultan [the King’s merchants,] settling
in the Kasbah and in the derb Ahl Agadir,
who first built the two or three storey houses with a roof terrace often with a
panoramic view overlooking the sea. They became known as the Menzeh or
“panoramic view” in French.
Generally they offered huge spaces with high ceilings, multiple
freestone arches, architecturally simple and beautiful with arcades,
whitewashed walls and a very high ceiling made in tassiout. The menzeh was
built like an urban house with front walls fitted with openings. Typically this
type of house had two entrances as trade and private life did not mix.
The
first door gave access to the workplace that was the storage place for goods
intended for exportation via the harbour with sacks piled on top of one another
as high as the ceiling containing shelled almonds, wheat, skins, carob and
especially gum (lagracha) hence the name ahraya
dyal lagracha (gum warehouse) .
In this particular warehouse, following on from its long and diverse
history, women used to filter and clean the gum during the Great Famine at the
end of 1920 and at the beginning of 1930: the gum was brought back from the
huge Berber thuja forests in the south of Essaouira. The additional second door
opened onto the floors: the ground floor was intended for the storage and the trading
of goods, while above was for living with the first floor for the family and
the second one for the guests.
At the time there were no hotels and all passing trade was welcomed
either at the merchants’ menzeh or in the douiriya, a small house adjoining the
house proper or dar. In fact, everywhere else in the old medina, each home had two
adjoining houses: the dar (or house) for the family and the douiriya for guests
and single people. As mentioned the ground floor of the house … the warehouse….
was distinguished by huge freestone arches (manjour), a material used for the
foundations of the old Kasbah and for the harbour fortifications.
[In the Essaouira hinterland, one can still find excellent
stone cutters of this sandy rock, in Had Dra, Akermoud and Tamanar in particular.]
When passing through the medina, one can see that very often the Muslim
houses have little or no opening out: the light comes down from above. But in
Essaouira Jewish houses have windows and doors that have wide openings, particular
above the level of the ramparts and give out to the sea: these people did not
have to hide their women.
In some main streets like Alouj Street (alouj referring
to old converts caught at sea by Barbarian pirates and who used to work as
gunners at the Scala of the Harbour) the street leading to the sea, one can even
see large ornate balconies. It is the typical house of the Jewish traders and
of the Christian Consuls who settled in Essaouira as early as its foundation in
1794.
By contrast Muslim houses are distinguished by blind front walls, with a
small side entrance door opening onto a garden or alley, with a light shaft
coming from above……. an architecture that expresses the sense of modesty
according to which the woman should not take off her veil.
TAKE TIME AND LOOK………………………
The story goes…………..“One day, following a family picnic on the
grass and taking advantage of a general siesta, a farmer had the idea, out of
curiosity, to look at how a “doum leaf” was made, a palm leaf of the dwarf palm
tree that was at hand reach. With the help of a hairpin that he removed from
his sleeping wife, he plucked this leaf and realized that it was made of long
fibres linked one to the other by chlorophyll………… The idea of an organic fibre
was born.”
Going through the countryside, one’s attention is frequently drawn to
long and abandoned buildings: now in ruins most of them are old manufactures
dating from the Colonial era which still worked until the seventies.
Towards El Hanchane, a few hundred metres further on the Meskala road,
lay a house with grand pillar entrance in major disrepair. It is easily missed
and you need to look closely as it is all but hidden by eucalyptus trees and tangled
undergrowth. Beyond one can just see
numerous other buildings, also in ruin.
It is one of the organic horsehair manufactures sites from the North
African Company which owned around ten in Morocco, split up between the north
and the south of the country; three of them being in the area in Imintlit,
towards Talmest and at Douar Arbalou in the town of El Hanchane. The latter was
operational as early as 1920 and collapsed in 1970 as organic horsehair was
abandoned for synthetic fibres and foam.
Until the middle of the 19th century, seats and armchairs were padded
with animal horsehair coming from the mane and the tail of horses and
mattresses were stuffed with wool, which made these extremely costly. With the
birth of the car industry in the 19th century, it became necessary to find a
Substitute to animal horsehair and wool: the “doum” or dwarf palm
tree, (chamaerops humilis), being plentiful in the Maghreb, was found to full fill this role. This plant grows naturally all around the Mediterranean Basin; it is
a kind of a branched bush whose roots are sometimes centuries old in North
Africa and which grows into low close packed thickets.
Essential for the spinning pulleys both house and the factory were
fitted with electricity very early on with a supplementary hydraulic engine. In
all about 50 men worked and lived here, with the wives taking their place
during the war, when fuel and charcoal coming from France replaced the
electricity.
Various steps were necessary to condition the doum before it became horsehair, string or rope. Here, it was
mainly destined for stuffing: gathering, plucking and combing were the first
steps in the production of the fibre; then a carder cleaned the fibre of any
waste that would damage the quality of the horsehair. The women then stretched
the filaments onto a paved area, shaking them into the air between sun-drying, before
bringing them back to the weaving workshop.
The obtained product was very harsh. As a safety measure, the workshop
was separated from the one where the fibre was prepared in order to avoid any
risk of fire as the filaments were extremely dry. Still standing the workshop
section is about 20m wide and 60m long, where spinning machines and pulleys
interlocked in an intricate technical pattern releasing, after various
operations, ropes, strings and fibre lengths. During the Second World War much
of the product, in the form of ropes and camouflage netting, went to the French
Army.
Once the factory was abandoned, one family stayed to live there: Grand
Father A’Hammed has since passed but old father M’Bark and his son Omar also used
to work there and both are now the guardians of memory.
The Omar family now occupy the only now habitual building, which used
to be the factory manager’s house. It adjoins the still usable workshops that
are now full of heaps of bags of argon tree nuts or other produce, depending on
the season. A garden has partially survived; it is filled with orange,
tangerine and lemon trees and with a gigantic fig tree. The big tank, which
used to provide water for the garden or which was used as a swimming pool for
children in very hot days, is a witness to this place past wealth.
Ancient stables and animal pens, also in ruins, are on one side of the
garden and, at the other end, the factory stretches out with its huge paved
workshops: scattered ruins occupied in part by the family goats. All the
machinery has vanished but Omar and M’Bark love telling the story of the
factory, making it come alive: here was a 50 HP English engine, here was the
spinning workshop and there was the packaging workshop from which bundles left
by boat from Essaouira or Casablanca to foreign parts, mainly Europe. Here I
sat and there worked my father…….One can feel a great nostalgia but also some
pride when they mention the tubs where sometimes the horsehair was dyed
following a special order from the Royal Palace.
Omar tells me that here, in front of the big building; the first flour
mill in the area was erected. This mill was in use day and night and the women
working there used to encourage one another by singing, making up a chorus
around the boss’s name. Omar sings the chorus while laughing like a child!
