Morocco reading frenzy

A friend of mine asked me advices about what to read to prepare her trip to Morocco, and I thought to share my ideas with you. Specially in this time of the year when we already miss our holidays (and this summer was not that hot, wasn't it ?), a pile of books that irradiate sun and warmth, and smell the strong fragrances of Morocco could help facing back the grey routine...

Let's start with the book about Morocco in the past

These are maybe the ones that give the best understanding of Morocco nowadays. To find out what where the traditions and behaviours only a few years ago, half a century back in time, to realize that the people you meet in the streets where small children brought up in another "time-world" helps a lot to understand the strength of traditions, and their impact on Morocco politics and development.

Morocco that was

By Walter B. Harris.

Might be one of my preferred. Written by an english journalist, it has some exageration and buoyancy, but it also describes accurately the state of Morocco before colonization, at the time where French, German, Spanish and English battled over the control of this tiny kingdom. The struggles between the tribes, the unability of a sultan too young to be powerful, the bandits, the traditions, the powers of Chorfas and the small stories, all together build a colorful portrait of that disappeared Morocco.

The voices of Marrakesh

By Elias Canetti.

A record of Morocco before independance, by a world-wide known author. That Canetti is jewish has its importance, as the book provides special insight also on the life in the mellah (jewish part of the old city). It is all about a traditionnal Morocco already entering modern life, and the voices of Marrakesh still resonate in the medina.

Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua

By Gavin Maxwell.

The epic story of the Glawas, rulers of a small tribe in south Morocco who succeded in being as powerful, as important as the king himself, and could have replaced him, had the French stayed longer. But they did not, and the Glawas lost all their powers, their palaces, like Telouet and Taourirt were emptied. A story that looks like a novel, and which is true.

Morocco today

Voices like Chraibi, Ben Jelloun... or foreigners like Paul Bowles, le Clezio.

The Sand Child

By Tahar Ben Jelloun.

In traditionnal Morocco, women do not inherit, hence Hajji Mohammed, father to seven girls, decides that his next child will be a boy, whatever. Whatever means hiding the truth, and transforming a little girl into a boy, upbringing her with the priviledges of the male. But that cannot last for a whole life, and Zahra will conquer her true identity. A tale in Jemaa Fna, in Marrakesh.

The blinding absence of light

By Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Not really a novel, this story is based on the account of years spend in the deadly prison of Tazmamart, in the south of Morocco. Here where sent soldiers sentenced to life imprisonment after a missed coup d'etat against Hassan II. Their life was more than harsh, degrading, all was done to kill them, and most of them did not survive it. Based on memories of one of the survivors, this books also tells how can man find in himself the resources to survive anything. After 27 years of barbary, Tazmamart grounds have been destroyed

The simple past

By Driss Chraibi.

Driss Chraibi, who died recently, does not seem so well known in the english-speaking world, when his books are praised in french, and abudantly translated in german. If you need one book to understand the difficulties of Moroccan society, this is it. The story of a young Moroccan strongly fighting with his father before he leaves for France where he will study. The two cultures and their differences, the place pf women, the wieght of religion... all these aspects are shown in a book that was scandalous before being now studied in Moroccan universities

The Sheltering sky

By Paul Bowles.

The story of an american pair who wants to save their married life in the wilderness of Sahara. Will they loose themselves, or save themselves ? Bowles is a true lover of the desert, and of Morocco. This is one of his key novels, where the alienation of the empty place mirros the emptyness of the chararcters, already prisonners of their secretive nature.

Travel and photo books

Caliph's house

By Tahir Shah.

To be read when you want to set in Morocco. An hilarious and true story of all the small problems, delays, difficulties, misunderstandings you'll meet. You waid you wanted to relax from modern stress ? Maybe Morocco will also be stressful, but in a different way. Learn to be patient, learn to understand it, and you shall not leave it anymore !

Valley of the Casbahs: A Journey Across the Moroccan Sahara

By Jeffrey Taler.

Not very far from Mezgarne, the valley of the Casbahs was not so long ago... let's say "unpacified". The watch towers spread around are a testimonial of it, when the traveler had to pay a fee to each tribe to be protected on its teritorry (and we have a beautiful one in Tazzarine). Jeffrey Taler experiences a lot of adventures, pleasant and unpleasant, and his account is fascinating. It you intend to visit us, it is also a good guide for this part of the country.

Moroccan Interiors

By Lisa Lova Smith.

A "little" jewel by Taschen, a collection of beautiful images of Moroccan houses. Like in most of the muslim countries, wealth is usually not displayed outside. The richest palaces (riads) are hidden behind blind thick walls, which lack of openings preserve at the same time coolness and privacy. But also in the simplest houses, the doyars in the south, or even the nomads' tents, one finds beauty

Their heads are green

By Paul Bowles.

Mainly about Morocco and the desert, but not only, it is a wonderful companion to "Sheltering Sky". His "baptism of solitude" describe so well how and why we love the desert. To read and read again. Bowles is one of the major english-speaking authors about Morocco and the desert, and I love him as much as I love Monod and Le Clezio in french.

If you read french, you can also have a look on our french-spaking bookstore.

Desert by Tazzarine

A few minutes walk from Mezgarne, you can find the natural oasis of Serdrar, and its dunes spread with black stones (there is a marble quarry nearby)

Serdrar

Desert Flowers

This things, taht reminds daffodil, corn and a kind of cactus is a root of tamarisk, which grows through the sand in spring, and blooms.
After the rains, there was a lot of them around the Oasis.
Unfortunatly, the flower does not stay beautiful a very long time. In a few hours, a few days, it blackens, like if it was rooting, or had been burnt.

Seen from a little far away, these yellow flowers are brilliant lights in the desert

A djinn in the swimming pool

The first time I discovered the desert, it was a too long time ago, in Tunisia. A week of holydays, in low-season, I was with a teacher invited to give lessons, nice moments, Tunis, Sidi Bou Said, La Goulette, all that, and during the week-end we go down south to see the sand.

Nice.

Big.

Yellow.

That's all. Return to Paris on the Monday, nice memory, but I preferred the beach.

The second time was in the south of Africa. A long journey, a month, and within this month, three weeks of semi-desert and varied deserts, one after the other, Karou, Damaraland, Moonscape, Etosha… and, at some point of time, after ten days of desert, we arrived on the coast, in Swakopmund.
Of course, we had never been thirsty, our bus was somehow air-conditioned (but not dust-proof), and that was winter there, so easy conditions.
But I will never forget the marvel of being able to simply see the water, this huge quantity of water, to feel again humidity on our skins, the change of the light, and our pleasure of a simple walk on the beach.

Desert is dryness and lack of water. Without the desert, there is no oasis, just a simple normal garden.

What does that have to see with the jinn ? Just a second …

In south of Morocco, I see more and more hotels and inns with swimming pools, whether in Merzouga, in M'hamid, or even in Tazarine, one has to offer a large swimming pool to attract tourists. And that's the same in the riads of Marrakech that must have at least a small pool.

Let us leave Marrakech apart for now.

Swimming pools in the middle of the desert, or just nearby, are an ecological nonsense. They use a large amount of water which would be much more useful somewhere else. The water, still, in the sun, evaporates much quicker than the running water of a small river. Swimming pool is not adapted to the living conditions of the deep south.

Morocco suffers from drought. South receives its water mainly from melting snows, and the rains, even when they are heavy and catastrophic like in Merzouga last year, are just a small part of the reserves.

And why do you travel in the south ? Just to be warm ? Or to experience the desert, and discover another way of life ?

You cannot experience the desert while swimming in a pool every evening. Desert takes you step by step, it needs several days, it is a dry and hot air, sounds, winds, lights… swimming pools do not belong to this world.

All Moroccan, Arab-Andalusian and Berber civilisation, architecture, gardens, traditional cultures were prepared and built in order to spare water. Fountains in the larges patios of the riads, irrigation canals are small running waters, moving, protected by the shadows of the plants. Water movement as well as the shadows prevent evaporation.

There is not still water in Morocco. It is avoided as much as possible, also because of superstition. One says that jinni, these spirits who share the world of humans, and can be simply tricky, or very naughty, jinni hide in still waters (and therefore, one is specially cautious of hammam, and always takes a shower with running water to protect itself).

Jinn in the Hammam, by Joumana Medlej(c).

Marrakech's swimming pools are another story.
There were no pools before in the riads. These quite large reserves of water are a call for mosquitoes and other insects. The few humid areas of Morocco, around Mohammedia and Agadir, suffer from malaria and mosquitoes. And in the same way, near the dam's lakes, like in Ouarzazate, there can be some "beasts of the swamps" whose bite will leave you a track for a few weeks. Programms to get rid of them have started. Without going so far, a riad with a swimming pool will attract mosquitoes. Prefer ones that have only fountains, small streaks of water running between the squares, and go swim in the sea, in Essaouira or Oualidia !

Joumana Medlej is a Lebanese artist whose site, Cedarseed will keep your attention for a long time. The Jinn in the Hammam is an illustration of one of her books, about olive oil. You can see all her publications on her site..

About salt caravans

In the reportage about Ousmane Dodo, I retraced in my last post, salt caravans are mentionned. They are one of the last ressources of nomads, after being one of their main wealth...

And it reminded me the impressive display of a Swiss artist, Not Vital, who spends a part of his life in Agadez. He built there many works, and developped a school and local artwork.

In an 2006 exhibition in Bielefeld Kunstahlle, I discovered "Salt", where he displayed 21 tons of salt, what a caravan brings back. And just beside, what the worth of these 21 tons in food, just a hundred kilo of spaghetti ! (Spaghetti which were sent to the country after the exhibition)

Photo found on artnet, ©2007 artnet - The art world online. All rights reserved. artnet is a registered trademark of artnet Worldwide Corporation, New York, NY.

Ousmane Dodo, doctor of the desert

Tonight on the international French TV (TV5) a reportage by Claudia and Günther Wallbrecht about a Tuareg doctor.

I was fascinated by the similarities and differences.

Many customers tols us Tazzarine and the desert around the Oasis (specially Serdrar) looks like Mauritania. I've never been there, but tonight I recognized it for true. The colors are very similar, the dark tones of the stones, that give a strange athmosphere to the landscape. Sand in yellow-ochre, but the light is somehow dimmed by the black reflection of all these stones. From place to place, a solitary tree, which is good enough to provide a small shadow shelter in the deep heat of the day.

Ousmane Dodo is a doctor who turns around this desert 10 months a year, spending very rare times with his own family. He can be up to three or four days alone, and needs to use his inherited knowledge of the desert to be able to direct himself. He went with caravans also when he was young, before being trapped in school (which is compulsory there, and nomad children are boarded in cities), and knows the real hardships and condition of life of the nomads, who trust him because he is one of them. A nomad of another kind, not looking for grazing fields for his cattle, looking for people to cure and help.

His patients don't know how to read, so he has to explain the drugs, and be simple. He often receives tablets from european people, and when he doesn't know what they are for, he looks at the latin names of the ingredients to understand the composition. He relies on drugs as well on traditionnal medecine, specially because most of the drugs, even the low priced one are too expensive. The average monthly earning in Agadez is of 30 euros per month...

Life is hard, the drought is important, and families have to move more and more to find places where they can stay a few days, maybe one week or two. Ousmane meets a clan where a young mother has lost her child, born too early, at seven month. No chance to survive for the baby, and the mother is worn out, because the family could not wait. No water anymore, and the day after they had to move again.

One child out of four, born in the desert, will die before reaching his fifth birthday...

But not everything is dark in this life.

Ousmane attends a traditionnal celebration, before the salt caravans leave for a 1200 kms over one month trip through Tenere. This is similar to moussems in Morocco, and I would love to see in Goulmine a camel beauty pageant as in Mauretania. The beasts are splendid, the men honour them, the place is out of time. Some Targui, in their best traditionnal clothes, protect themselves from the sun under modern coloured umbrellas, there is nothing but sand and rugs in the "center", nothing... but also micro, loud-speakers and an electric guitar to play the traditionnal sounds. I'm suddenly thrown back in Morocco, the orchestra of five young women singing traditionnal songs is so similar to Awach and other Berber rythms we here in the Draa valley... the rythm, the way they danse with the music, and even the voice, high and regular !

Words are different, Tamasheq is difficult to understand for a Amazight like Bilal, of a Chleuh (south of Morocco), and personnally I can't grab a word. Nevertheless, it sounds familiar. Names of places are familiar, Agadez, Aguelmane could be in Morocco.

Women are free. Women are not veiled, they can talk with men, Ousmane even explains how he met his wife : "I saw her, and I asked her if whe would accept to marry me, and then we discussed the whole night. And I was coming back and we where discussing tthe entire night, and we were making love, and I married her". Even if Muslim, women and men can have relationship before the wedding, and Targis are usually monogamist.

Two things I would retain, more than anything, because they really show how different our worlds are. Ousmane discusses with one of his friend who went to Europe "Over there, you have to pay for everything, you take the bus, you pay, and even when you park you caar you have to pay."

And his joy, before the celebration, when he can bath in the pool made by the cascade in Aguelmane. Because that happens to him only once a year to find a place with so much water. His few minutes in the water are his yearly treat....

My dunes are not yours

A man died in the sand dunes yesterday evening. Dunes we walked through a few days ago, wondering about the vivacity of the small green sprouts surging everywhere after the rain.
The desert was green. A very relative idea of green, of course, nothing to see with the Wales or Yorkshire, more a simple shade, like a muslin veil thrown over the erg, hard to distinguish as soon as you come nearer, but undoubtedly there.

Plants are fixing the desert. Sand progresses, in Morocco like in Mauritania, like everywhere. In a few months it can passes over the wall of our Oasis, and after a sand storm, large roads like the one between Erfoud and Rissani looks like a Saharan track. Lines of reeds are planted, tightly, to fix the dunes and stop their progression.



One day is enough for the Dakar to destroy that.

Of course, the Dakar is also (a little bit) profitable for local people. For two or three days, a large number of tourists land in a city, support teams, journalists, real and false V.I.P., people offered a small trip by their company, people following the Dakar, people making photos, people feeling important, adventurous, etc. Ouarzazate was traffic-jammed yesterday, a very unusual view of Mohammed V avenue, once littered with cars. You even had to walk a few meters away to park your car ! Not a rental car available anymore, not a free hotel room anymore.
For hotel, for car renters, for some restaurants, Dakar is a good opportunity, bringing several hundreds of customers at a high price, and off-season. But for the others ? Dakar brings its own infrastructure, a large part of the support (food, mechanics, even fuel) is brought directly from Europe… Hotel managers in Ouarzazate are not the Aït Haddidou nomads whose grazing areas are partially destroyed by the race, neither the inhabitants of Tazarine who see, some years, a flock of a new kind of locusts fly in for a day, leaving the tracks damaged, if not utterly destroyed.

Dakar is a killer. Was there a year without a death ? Participant, organizer, or worse even, a child looking at the cars passing by and not jumping aside quick enough.
Is the game worth it ? Surely for those who take part in it. Any death is deeply unfair and sad, but to die instantly, in the middle of a race, at a time one realizes his dream, seems not so sad, not so unfair as the fate of a child being killed by a machine appearing out of a sand cloud, the modern humming mowing-machine, as hard to understand for these kids of the remote doyars as could be the first trains for the peasant of the last century (actually the next to last century, I have a tendency to forget we are now in the 21st century!).

Dakar has been a real adventure, it has been the opportunity for a beautiful race, opened to amateurs like professionals, it has been the immersion in splendid, difficult and awesome landscapes. It has also lost all of that, becoming a huge organisation, a machine to make money. But it has never ever been the discovery of the desert.

Desert is loneliness, endless repetition of the same empty landscape, to and over the horizon, time passing by without anything moving, anything else than the feet of the nomad walking along his camel. Desert is abrasion by time and nothing, sun burning, salt burning, cold at night, dried lips and eyes tired by reflections over the black stones. It is silence, when one starts to perceive the small moves of insects, the far away echo, feeble as the dream of music in the oasis, the sudden fall of some sand under a bird.

How can you discover the desert when you cover in one day the distance nomads made in more than a week ? How can you actually see the landscapes, amidst the sand clouds of cars and trucks ? How can you feel desert's heat when you're sweating in you protective clothes and helmet ? How can you hear the furtive gliding snake going to meet the Little Prince among the roaring motors ?

The most accurate about the Dakar is its name. Dakar is a raid, a quick incursion into one's territory to rob him and leave him poorer than before. The small news clip showing Elmer Symons laying dead along his bike, with pieces of it scattered around was shown and shown again. Dakar does not even respect those who are part of it.

Calligraphy in the desert

Written by the wind, gone with the sand

The quill

The feather

Alpha

The sign

The comma

The paper