The emergence of an inspiring feminine dynamic

“Tawasna” means craftsmanship in the local Amazigh language, and it is the chosen name for the tea salon project initiated and driven by a dozen women from the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou.

The choice of this name for the initiative carries significant symbolic importance as it represents, in a very concrete way, the awareness of rural women that they possess the ability to improve their own living conditions, and therefore have the responsibility to take action to achieve this. This embodies the model of a wise economy where women, regardless of their level of education, value their talents and put them in the service of their community, no matter how small. Tawasna is truly a buzzing hive of labor, solidarity, and fulfillment.

These women have freed themselves from the oppressive tradition of passivity that confined them to a stereotyped role where rural women resigned themselves to always being relegated to the background. The Tawasna project is nourished by the experience of each of the women who carry it, from their lives as wives and mothers, and especially as women aware of their new challenges and ambitions.

Work, a key to the fulfillment of rural women

Tawasna is a project built by and for women. It represents a space of fulfillment for its caring actors towards one another. In addition to their duties as homemakers, they take on the role of project managers with determination: they plan, organize, animate, and consult to ensure the smooth running of their enterprise, which allows them to weave and strengthen intimate bonds conducive to team cohesion.

All these women see their work within Tawasna as a key to their personal development and also a source of happiness because their commitment reflects back a more productive image of themselves. Above all, it is the discovery of self-confidence, of this ability to take charge autonomously, that fills them with pride. This energy drives them to strive harder to improve their situation, to give their best to enhance their immediate living environment, and to develop their personality.

This adventure brings together female volunteers from different backgrounds around the project. Elderly women from the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou position themselves as seasoned mentors. Fadma Ihho is the perfect example: a self-taught and inspiring sexagenarian woman who exudes her aura over all her colleagues. Her profile as an actress imbued with patience and serenity gives her the status of a charismatic leader.

Alongside Fadma, educated young girls gather. They represent the modern younger generation of Aït Ben Haddou, proud of their origins. Laila Azdou, the manager of the Tawasna project, embodies this model. After higher education at university and teaching experience, she decided to return to her native village. For her, life in the ksar is in perfect harmony with her personality. She then decided to put her knowledge and skills to work for her colleagues mobilized in the Tawasna project.

These local forces are supported by other individual goodwill, such as young girls and boys from different countries who intend to contribute to the project. These volunteers have also embraced the Tawasna project and participate with dedication in its development.

As for Loubna Mouna Guenoun, she plays her role as conductor by ensuring not to interfere too much in the project. True to her own expertise, she oversees the project from a distance but with vigilance: she coaches, advises, coordinates, and energizes… in a collegial approach that leads to autonomy, the primary guarantee of the project’s sustainability.

The women of Aït Ben Haddou have managed to simultaneously enhance the tourist wealth of their territory and their own personal potential. The Tawasna restaurant deserves to be known and visited because this micro-project demonstrates how every woman in Morocco has all the potential required to undertake where she is. It is the perfect illustration of a small community that has decided concretely to “cultivate its garden.”

To contact Tawasna :
Laïla Azdou – Tel: 00 212 669 94 40 75 / Email: tawesna.sdt@gmail.com

The post The hive of women in the ksar of Ait Ben Haddou appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

The cultural heritage of Morocco is abundant, and its flamboyance undoubtedly inspires the millions of visitors who come to stay throughout the year. Its crafts such as carpet weaving, pottery, or woodworking, its architectures where the chapters of a multi-century history can be read, its diverse territories where a myriad of traditions unfold such as festive customs, culinary practices, community arts like dances, clothing, jewelry…, all this harmonious ensemble portrays a smiling face of Morocco, precisely the one that welcomes passing visitors and underpins the strength of a booming tourist economy.

This gleaming image of Morocco certainly has the advantage of undeniable commercial effectiveness, but its flaw lies in simplifying the country’s cultural landscape, turning it into folklore for easy and quick discovery, thus obscuring other realities of Moroccan cultural identity whose nature and expression make their inscription into the mechanisms of frenzied commodification difficult.

Behind the towering totems of Moroccan cultural heritage, there remain cultural gems too often overlooked. Behind this simplified vision of heritage and its staging before the amazed eyes of visitors from around the world, there lies the neglect of the diversity of Morocco’s cultural identity. And there is a whole people, and Moroccan youth in particular, who have little knowledge of the breadth and richness of their own cultural heritage.

The shepherd silently fades from Morocco’s identity pantheon

The shepherd in Morocco is one of those cultural gems that often goes unnoticed. Though he roams alone with his flocks of sheep or goats in the massifs and valleys of the country’s vast mountains, he carries in his pack the distant past of all Moroccans, from those ancient times when human communities were nomadic and traversed continents like territories.

He is the living expression of Morocco’s geographical singularity, composed primarily of the majestic Atlas chain, of which he is a natural inhabitant.

He is one of the major genealogical roots of Moroccans, many of whom hail from rural and mountainous Morocco and count a shepherd among their ancestors.

Today, the shepherd should be a recognized, valued, and protected figure within Moroccan society, just like the carpet weaver or the dancer adorned in their radiant attire.

Instead, fewer and fewer people choose this way of life. Transhumance routes for herds are becoming increasingly scarce, access to water is becoming more difficult every year, the shepherd lacks social status, and there is no support provided by the community to sustain the activity, let alone to encourage its continuation among the younger generations.

The figure of the shepherd is gradually, silently disappearing from Morocco’s identity pantheon.

A collective determination to act

However, some in Morocco have become aware of this fading and have wondered how to counteract this inexorable process that sees, here as in so many other countries, modernity and time eroding entire segments of the cultural fabric of human communities. They may not be numerous, but their intention is sincere, and their approach pioneering.

Firstly, there is the Moroccan NGO We Speak Citizen, already heavily involved in valorizing the most fragile components of Moroccan cultural heritage. After opening a House of Orality in the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou near Ouarzazate, and after promoting the tradition of the argan tree in the hinterlands of Agadir, a focus on the realities of the shepherd was an obvious next step.

Further reading : La Maison de l’Oralité du ksar d’Aït Ben Haddou : une première au Maroc

Secondly, there is a Belgian national, Anne Alaime, who has been living in Morocco for nearly ten years in a region where the shepherd is precisely the central figure: the Aït Bouguemez valley with its high mountains in the heart of the Central High Atlas, at the foot of the M’Goun massif, which rises to 4,071 meters.

Anne became passionate about this valley, and it was evident that she would engage in preserving the local sheep breed, the Tighaline, perfectly adapted to these mountainous regions. The first step was to breed and nurture a carefully selected flock to maximize the inherent qualities of this breed. For this, the expertise of the Hassan II Institute of Veterinary Agriculture was sought. Then, Anne focused on highlighting the particular quality of the wool provided by the Tighaline ewes. Mobilizing the talent of the valley’s women allowed for the weaving of carpets as they were made in the past, with incomparable quality compared to carpets produced from industrial wool.

Along the way, she discovered the harsh realities of the shepherd’s life and understood why many of them dissuade their children from following the same path. Year after year, the toil becomes more challenging. Everything contributes to making the profession impossible to sustain. Everything participates in its disappearance from the Moroccan landscape.

The encounter between Anne and Loubna Mouna, head of the NGO We Speak Citizen, will enable the affirmation of a collective will to act against the disappearance of this shepherd profession, one of the oldest facets of Moroccan cultural heritage.

The flagship location of this old profession on the brink of extinction

To address this challenge, the need quickly arose to organize a moment of discovery of the realities and issues at stake. Thus, from May 3rd to May 8th, 2023, at Anne’s project site, in her open-air sheepfold in the village of Imelghas, province of Azilal, at the heart of the Aït Bouguemez valley, the “Shepherd’s Days” were held. These days brought together an audience from major cities in Morocco, sensitive to the protection of Moroccan heritage, as well as academics concerned with pastoralism or rurality, and of course, the shepherds of the valley and others from neighboring territories (such as Lake Isoghar, the Cathedral Valley, Ouzighimt Valley, etc.). According to all involved, these days provided a framework for concrete actions to meet the challenge of restoring the support and means necessary for the sustainability of the shepherd profession.

The Shepherd’s House should thus be a multidisciplinary center focusing on pastoralism. Firstly, the primary objective will be to highlight the various aspects of the shepherd’s profession in order to offer future visitors a comprehensive panorama covering both the past and the present, human dimension, professional practices, and traditional uses such as transhumance routes, knowledge of plants, stars, and more.

This house should also serve as a research hub for the future of the profession and therefore support its evolution by addressing issues that shepherds are facing, such as breed selection, improvement of practices, dealing with urbanization, and access to water. A documentary collection should be established to gather all published materials on the subject, and accommodation facilities should be arranged to host research residencies.

An important aspect of the project will be to implement approaches that enhance the value of meat and wool from the Tighaline sheep breed native to the valley, thus strengthening the economic advantage of the high mountain shepherd profession. The carpets woven with this wool are indeed different from mass-produced rugs sold in numerous bazaars across the country.

Likewise, the meat from these high mountain sheep should be marketed nationwide, especially in urban centers, but at a price that respects both the qualitative added value, due to high-altitude breeding and transhumance practices, and the production costs associated with this uniqueness. The project team is already considering the establishment of an official label, such as “mountain-raised animal,” to accompany the meat to the retail points.

Lastly, and perhaps the main objective of the Shepherd’s House project, the place should directly address shepherds to support the continuation of their profession, particularly in the specifics of high mountain practice. The issues faced by these shepherds are concrete and require specific actions: how to provide supplementary food to high mountain herds during the winter season? How to set up water points in these steep areas? How to establish a formal social status for shepherds that could grant access to insurance and retirement benefits? Addressing all these elements may one day encourage young people to join this profession, as has been the case in other mountainous regions of Europe. The Shepherd’s House should fulfill this useful role of advising shepherds and lobbying with the authorities.

The Shepherd’s House project touches upon the essence

The cooperative “Maison du Berger” has come to life. The first flock of Tighaline sheep exists in Anne’s sheepfold. The next steps led by the NGO We Speak Citizen will aim to establish concrete plans for this future Shepherd’s House and then mobilize the necessary partners to implement all components of the project.

Step by step, the project’s leaders, Loubna, Anne, Fatima Zahra, and Younes, advance on this rugged path so that one of the living pearls of Moroccan heritage finally shines at its true value.

They know that the first step has laid the solid foundations for the continuation of this beautiful adventure. Indeed, and from the audience that attended this first edition of the “Shepherd’s Days“, mostly Moroccan and from major cities in Morocco, everyone left with a smile, almost enchanted, as if transformed by this encounter with the world of shepherds.

At the end of these dedicated days, the shepherds themselves had smiles on their faces. Returning to the slopes of the mountains alongside their flocks, they must have felt the satisfaction, and perhaps the relief, of finally seeing themselves, if only for a moment, among the participants, a pearl among the multicolored beads of their Moroccan cultural identity.

With the discreet but steadfast hope of one day being seen as a pearl adorning Morocco’s necklace.

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Beyond all human conditions, the oldest cosmogonies inscribe sound as a founding event in the plural creation of life, and the great sacred texts, such as the Vedas, the Quran, the Bible… were first transmitted orally before being fixed in writing.

Likewise, it is through orality that the first testimonies of humanity’s tumultuous adventure were rendered, through the narration of its heroic epics, as splendidly illustrated by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, along with myriad mythologies, tales, and melodies all united in a single chorus to express and celebrate loudly who we are as humans and where we are going, attempting thereby to somewhat forget our fragility and isolation in the vastness of space and time.

The Iliad, along with the Odyssey, forms one of the two great foundational epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to the legendary aoidos (epic poet and reciter) Homer. Source: Wikipedia”

Morocco is no exception. The long existence of its people is punctuated by stories told around a fire, listening to the elders, or recited in poetry with sound and dance during a village celebration.

Here, as everywhere else, words have been used to transmit customs and traditions, those of tribes or families, as well as fundamental know-how, such as the crafts anchored in Morocco’s identity, which have managed to overcome the centuries thanks to the oral teaching from master to apprentice.

All these words passed from one to another and from generation to generation, all these exchanges of experiences, all these ways of life, memories, tales, all these communal rituals are indeed the jewels of this intangible part of Morocco’s cultural heritage, this intangible continent of its ancestral identity, and as such, they deserve recognition, valorization, and protection.

This is the heart of the project of the House of Orality of the Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou.

A triple mission in service of Morocco’s intangible heritage

The recognition of this heritage involves its meticulous observation in order to uncover its countless components. That is why the primary mission of the House of Orality will be to serve as a research center, offering the public the results of in-depth studies on various aspects of this intangible heritage each year, both through exhibitions in its publicly accessible premises and through periodic publications that will enrich the documentary resources and thus better support the work of researchers and enthusiasts.

During its inaugural year of activity, the House of Orality will focus on presenting the art of weaving in all its facets throughout the history and life of rural Morocco, from sheep to loom, including wool and its precious processing. Visitors to this discovery journey will grasp the major virtue of orality, which is to connect all the constituents of heritage.

Highlighting these jewels of Morocco’s intangible heritage naturally involves their presentation to the public for discovery and admiration in their elegance. However, the House of Orality aims to be more than just a museum and will offer its visitors a sensitive exploration of all these heritage elements presented and encountered for what they truly are: life experiences.

Orality embodies humanity’s vivacity

Loubna Mouna, head of the NGO We Speak Citizen, clearly emphasizes this dimension, which highlights the primary challenge faced by all stakeholders in this project: how to pay homage to Morocco’s intangible heritage without fossilizing it in a museum or distorting it through folklorization.

The exercise is not simple, and it is unprecedented. It echoes the difficulties of bringing to life the intangibility of a heritage deeply rooted in the distant past, at a time when our era is fervently devoted to the rhythm of immediacy and ephemerality.

For Mustapha Merouan, the curator of the House of Orality, this paradox should in no way hinder efforts to valorize and protect this heritage, particularly orality. Indeed, according to him, orality, regardless of the civilization in which it is observed, is precisely characterized by community and immediacy.

Orality can thus be understood as the constantly renewed illustration of the abundant life of our human dimension in its existence, its journey, its evolution, and its future.

Transmission as a response to oblivion.

Finally, for the team at the House of Orality, the best way to protect this intangible heritage, faced with an obvious risk of erasure and oblivion, is to transmit it to as many people as possible, with a priority on younger generations.

The exhibitions presented will be made itinerant, and the funds collected during this first year of activity will be used to open a second venue adjacent to the House of Orality, where a center for the transmission of all these intangible skills will be established. Public workshops for awareness and learning around master artisans in residence will also be offered.

This focus on targeting the youth is ultimately the keystone of the entire project led by the NGO We Speak Citizen within the Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou.

The House of Orality began its work by collecting elements of the intangible heritage existing within the families of the Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou by the young members of this village community. And it is primarily a team of young people, including researchers, videographers, photographers, artisans, artists, tourist guides… both Moroccan and foreign, who have been mobilized by the NGO to build, step by step, this beautiful, vibrant, and creative synergy in service of Morocco’s cultural heritage.

The homage paid to orality is an invitation to engage in dialogue.

The efforts of those who have been involved in this adventure will soon find their fulfillment during the opening days of this House of Orality nestled in its magnificent stone and earth buildings overlooking the labyrinth of alleys and houses of the old and noble Ksar.

The orality presented there will then resonate in the hearts of visitors with the unique, warm voice of Moroccan heritage.

But as one crosses the threshold of this house, and in the sensory journey in which the visitor allows themselves to be guided, let it not be forgotten that orality, in all its forms and uses, is above all an affirmation of universality. Beyond our diversities and in the face of the weighty challenges before us, orality illustrates a humanity that communicates.

Contact : contact.maisondeloralite@gmail.com

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