Life in the desert (or living without a watch)

- In Morocco, at which time do you usually eat?

     - When we’re hungry.

This is what I liked the most from the life in the desert: living without a watch. The population of the driest part of the country gets up at sunrise, eats when they are hungry and goes to sleep when they are sleepy. I did the same: I removed my watch, hid it in a pocket, and let the rhythm of the trip lead me.

In the previous post I did a small introduction of the Sahara desert. In this second part, I will talk about its inhabitants that are, mainly, Berbers.

The nomads

Some of the people who live in the desert are nomads, which does not mean that they sleep every day in a different place. They live from livestock (they have goats), so they search a region where they can feed them and they stay there for a while, maybe several months. Each family shares one or several tents (haimas). When there are no more resources in the area, they move somewhere else, and so on.

solar panel to generate electricity, tents which is used as common space and bedroom, and kitchen-tent behind

in the desert there are wells where they can obtain water

One day of the trip we went with a nomad girl to graze the goats. We left very early in the morning, a bit after sunrise, when it was not so hot (yet). We walked slowly, stopping from time to time while the goats ate the bushes. The dog took care that no goat was left behind, and it was controlling us as well.  If we were a bit behind, it look intensely at us, without making any noise (were we part of the flock?).

goat having breakfast

the goat’s food (look at this spikes!)

It was all very silent. As I said before, the dog never barked, it went close to the goats and followed them to lead them. The nomad, to lead them, was throwing stones without hitting them. So calm. You could only listen to the flies and four travelers who discovered the region for the first time.

The grazing field – fortunately there were some shadows

The nomads’ language is Berber, and the ones we met did not speak any foreign language (which is normal, since they do not need them). So we could not talk a lot with the girl, even though we managed to communicate a little bit with drawings. We found a warren with some animal trail in front, and we wanted to know from which animal it was. We draw a mouse with a stick on the sand, and she moved her head from side to side. No, not a mouse. We tried to draw a small lizard, and this time she said ‘yes’ with her head. We managed to understand each other without words!

The region we visited suffers an extreme draught that started several years ago, which makes nomads’ life even more difficult. A lot of families have decided to abandon their lifestyle and settle down in a village, as Youssef and Said. We met them the night we slept between the dunes. They had been nomads, and nowadays they live from tourism, taking travelers to explore the desert.

This has been a river, but it is completely dry

The villages

We visited three villages at the South of Merzouga: Jdaid, Ouzina and Ramlia. They are very small, so small that they do not even appear in the maps. They are composed by a few houses, mainly from families who had been nomads. Along the streets there were children playing and people sitting down, talking or drinking tea. It was another rhythm of life, slower, quieter.

Ouzina

Our guide, Hassan, had also been a nomad when we was younger. When he was 8 years old his family moved to Ouzina, a village of 19 families where he went to school for two years. He learnt French at school, but he has learnt Spanish only by talking with tourists. He is aware of everything that is going on around the world, and he can discuss about any topic. Outside school, life has taught him everything he needs.

Jdaid

Hassan told us that, when he was a kid, the dakar was passing by his village. Every year, the kids were waiting for the pilots of the most famous rally on the word, who gave them sweets and pens. In addition to sweets for the children, the Dakar generated around 3 million dirham (300 000 euros) in Morocco. Nowadays, the only thing which is left from the Dakar are a few pilots who go there to train, and some adventurous travelers who discover the country by quad or motorcycle.

All the villages we visited had some common elements: a mosque, a school, an association and the gardens.

mosque of Ouzina

In Jdaid we visited the school, which has only one classroom, accommodation for the teacher, and a playground around. The teacher is from Meknes (800km far away), and was sent to Jdaid by the government. The lessons are given in Arabic, and they learn French as well (which means that they understand three languages, including their mother tongue, Berber). The teacher gives the lessons to three levels at the same time, and the school has six levels. Some kids go there in the morning and the others in the afternoon.

When we arrived they were learning French. The little boys and girls were reading, one by one, a sentence in French. Since one of my friends is French, and I can speak it as well, we also went to the front of the classroom to read the sentence (I wonder, which accent did they find the best? Maybe mine?).

school of Jdaid

The three villages, Jdaid, Ouzina and Ramlia, have an association who works with international funding to improve the inhabitants’ quality of life. The associations have workshops where women produce articles that sell to travelers. Some of them have spaces to do workshops with children when they are not in school. In Ouzina, thanks to the international organizations, they have installed solar panels which extract water and distribute it in the village (French funding), a well with a solar panel to provide water for the animals (funding from Andorra), and computers and solar panels for the school (funding from Madrid, Spain).

Workshopfor women in the association of Jdaid

Children’s drawing in the association of Ouzina

The gardens are growing areas which are watered thanks to the wells. They have palm trees that produce dates, vegetables and aromatic plants. 

gardens in Ramlia

In Jdaid we had dinner with a family from the village, whi are friends of Hassan. The house is a one-floor building made of soil, with a big entrance room, several rooms and a kitchen. They invited us to drink mint tea in the guest room, a beautiful room covered with carpets, some pictures, pillows, and a table in the middle. We were asked if we would like to have dinner in the traditional way, men and women apart, and my friend and me accepted. The two guys stayed in the guest room, while we went to a much smaller one, covered with blankets and a small round table in the center.

We had dinner with the women, the mother and her daughters, who did not speak French either Spanish. We ate almost in silence, hearing the laughs from the guest room, where the guys were. From time to time the Berber mother looked at us, made the gesture for eating and said something that we understood as ‘eat, eat’.

We ate couscous with vegetables, all from the same plate with a spoon. After that we ate the meat (which had been cooked with the vegetables and put apart before starting dinner), also from a common plate, but with our hands. As desert, fruit: mandarin and grenade. When we finished eating, the mother collected the fruit peels in a plate and started cutting them in small pieces. We looked at her with some curiosity, and she pointed outside. I thought she meant they were given to the goats, and to confirm my hypothesis, I asked ‘beeee?’. She said ‘yes’ with her head and we all laughed. There are some ways of communication that are international.

communitarian oven in Ramlia