Before leaving the area we took a walk through the Todra Gorge where barefoot locals scurried up the sheer rock face like goats leading some well kitted out young tourists willing to have a go at rock climbing. We passed the sellers of jewelry and other souvenirs ubiquitous throughout Morocco and the Middle East and I bought a colorful stone necklace for one of my nieces as I like to leave something for the local economy. On a first visit to Tunisia with her parents’ one of my young nieces asked me if she would find some of the sequenced scarfs she has often dressed up in in my house. I assured her that she would and reminded her to bargain and not just give what was asked for. True to form she did exactly that when in the souk having chosen some scarves and jewelry. “But I’ve come up more than you’ve come down” she protested to the trader who eventually offered her a ring to seal the deal, telling her parents to “leave her at the pool next time, she gives me a headache”.
Leaving the gorge we began the ascent back into the Atlas Mountains stopping for orange juice and coffee along the way at a site where locally produced rugs were on display tempting Alice and Rose to choose one for each of their bedrooms. The Moroccan Flag with its red background and green five pointed star representing the Seal of Solomon decorated the front of the building. Reminiscent of the six pointed Star of David which is also sometimes referred to as the Seal of Solomon, I wondered initially if the occupants of the dwelling were Jewish not having previously paid much attention to the Moroccan flag. Having made that initial mistake the Moroccan flag is now imprinted in my memory for life. It was good to be on the road again and as took in the spectacular mountain scenery I wondered what delights were in store for us at Imilchil our next port of call.
Passing through the village of Ait Hani we noticed a woman dressed all in white. which Abdulkhader explained that this signified that the woman was widowed. I thought about the former practice in Ireland where people who were bereaved wore a black band around the sleeve of their coat. Having experienced the loss of a number of family members I can see how this sign may have been very useful in suggesting to the outer world that a person may not be in form. I recalled taking the dogs to my local park in the aftermath of my mother’s death and feeling overwhelmed by a group of dogs whose owner didn’t appear to have much control over them. When I asked her to remove them she was highly annoyed and asserted that they were rescue dogs as if I should just put up with it. My own dogs are both rescue dogs and I was in no mood to have to keep an eye on my own dogs and hers. I though perhaps a black band might have warned her to just go away and leave me and my dogs alone.
Abdulkhader told us about the nomads who came to live in the Atlas Mountains from the Sarah each year to escape the scorching summer heat and when we saw a small group of people and camels off in the distance he stopped the jeep so that we could get to see them close up. We walked off the mountain road into the great expanse of open countryside and eventually got close enough to take some photographs and even to communicate with the women carrying young children on their backs. One of the children had some form of eye disease but the mother was reluctant to use the cleansers offered by one of the nurses in our group thinking fearful no doubt of the situation being made worse and for all we knew she may have been using some other treatment. It was fascinating to see this small group who were part of a larger annual migration. Their lives were no doubt full of hardships and I was getting some insight into just how difficult it was for people to survive in these harsh conditions reading as we travelled through the High Atlas the story of a man whose childhood was spent in similar harsh conditions in the Middle Atlas region further north. Mountains Forgotten by God Is the story of Brick Oussaid born into an impoverished Berber family who recounts what he describes as the daily hell of his and his family’s struggle to survive. Although harrowing his book is not mournful as it describes his mother’s determination to support him in achieving an education worthy of his intelligence and ability where against all the odds he made it to University in France where he trained as a Hydraulics Engineer and obtained a doctorate in lock mechanics. A book so full of human feeling and heroic resilience in face of hardship and loss, written in the language of a poet, there is not one dull sentence in the book and as we passed through those majestic mountains full of natural rugged beauty it was as if he was guiding me to appreciate all of the natural and human life I saw around me without judgement or prejudice. Having grown up in a large family in the impoverished 1950 in Ireland I am not a stranger to want and could identify to some extent but these were the wants that could and did crush the most resilient of spirits and yet here was a young man who not only survived against the odds but went on to achieve more than most of us whose circumstance were far more cushioned.
In the small village of Imilchil we stayed in a guest house. Judith was aware that the proprietor had fought the local Caid to get the required permission to open his house to guests and admired his persistence in making a better life for himself and his growing family. We checked in and were assigned rooms, met some of his little daughters who were curious about the visitors and decided to take a walk down to the village center to check it out. Rose was feeling a little unwell and decided she would stay where she was but we were hardly on our way when I noticed she had joined us after all. “Are you feeling better I asked” wondering what had changed her mind. “Oh, I just didn’t want to miss anything” she responded excitedly.
We walked by the edge of a vegetable plot which judging from the enormous heap of fresh vegetables piles up on our dish of couscous later that evening must have belonged to the guest house. It was not long before we were in the village center and found a table outside a café where we had coffee and biscuits while we watched some local youth loading sacks of grain and other household needs onto the back of a dilapidated pick -up truck, while they in turn stole sideways glances at the strangers in town, two young girls chaperoned by four minders. Dilapidated is a word that can be attributed to many such mountain villages, unfinished, older streets and buildings decaying and the new breezeblock impersonal structures giving architecture a bad name. But the buzz of people going about their everyday tasks with energy and good humor was fascinating to watch and is for me far more interesting an experience than to sit outside some fancy café where contact with locals is minimal if it happens at all. On our return we stopped off at one of the small booths where Alice and Rose bought some pencils for the children, Alice practicing her French in making the purchase.
We dined well that night and as usual our host had no problem with us bringing our own supply of wine to the table. He could not do enough to make us welcome and from his wife’s kitchen came a delicious meal made with local meat and vegetables followed by a large platter of fruit. We were regaled by a local group of musicians after our meal and Abdulkhader joined us for a time and socialized with his fellow countrymen, acting as interpreter when needed. It was not an area where people would venture out after dark and as we planned to visit the lakes the following day we retired to out rooms for a good night’s sleep. A few hours into the night and I realized I was never going to get off to sleep with Judith snoring contentedly in her bed, so I ventured out into the hallway feeling my way towards a light switch when the owner who had been sleeping on the couch near the door work up to see what I need. I explained that I could not sleep and why and enquiring about an alternative I was shown to a vacant room where I slept peacefully for the rest of the night.
Joining the other for breakfast next morning I told them about my adventure in the night. Why was he sleeping there enquired Mary in a somewhat offended fashion. “He was looking out for us”, I explained, somewhat annoyed at her unspoken insinuation. We were guests in his home and he would have considered it his utmost responsibility to ensure our safety. Everything about his as a person suggested good character and caring. He liked the fact that his young daughters were meeting people from different countries and wanted them to have opportunities he and his wife had not had but I think Mary found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that in all the time we were there we did not see his wife who was no doubt working away in the kitchen providing meals for her family and for the guests. I have lived long enough to understand that no culture is perfect including our own and that cultures also change at their own pace and in their own way. Ours is by no means the ideal and some of our so called values are questionable, including that of greed and inequality. We have nothing to boast about when it comes to the undermining of and objectification of women that is rife within our own culture. As Nawal Al Saadawi an Egyptian Psychiatrists and Minister in Sadat’s government wrote in The Hidden Faces of Eve, “the restrictions on women in the Arabic Culture tend to be of a more psychical nature where those imposed on women in so called Western Societies tend to be more of a psychological nature and therefore more insidious because they are hidden”. This is an interesting comment and is in keeping with modern trends in Torture Practices where Psychological tortures are more frequently used as they leave no obvious traces but they are specifically designed to break down the personality of the victim. Maybe we need to pay more attention to the effects of the objectification of women and the proliferation of pornography and how they affect women and girls self of sense in our own cultures before we go pointing the finger at others.
