Carpet Auction in Morocco's Middle Atlas

A carpet auction is a vivid and theatrical experience to onlookers and an economic necessity to those who produce the carpets. Suzanna Clarke visits the one held in the Middle Atlas town of Khenifra.

Red is the colour primarily associated with the Middle Atlas town of Khenifra, 165 kilometers from Fez and 300 kilometers from Marrakesh. Not only is it the vibrant hue of the hills and escarpements of the surrounding Meknes-Tafilalet region, but it is also the colour of the blood spilt during the many battles fought by the proud Berber tribe of Zayane, who are the main inhabitants.

The name Khenifra comes from the Amazigh (Berber) word Khanfar which means "attack ". A vital staging post on the trade routes, during the twentieth century the region was fiercely resistant to French colonisation. It wasn’t until 1920, after numerous bloody battles, that the Zayane and neighbouring Berber tribes with whom they had united, were forced into submission. However, they were never entirely subdued and popular uprisings followed.

Nowadays, the palm tree-lined streets of the city, with their pink toned buildings, are clean and relatively affluent. The main street features a sculpture of a Berber clasp, or fibula.

A short walk away is the central carpet souk. Here, the colour red also predominates in the hand woven rugs on sale in the small shops around the fringe, and there are also other vivid colours along with white and black.

In the centre of the souk is an open area, with benches on the side, which is regularly used for carpet auctions. It is here the women from the villages in the region come to sell their wares. These carpets represent months of work by groups of women, who make styles and designs distinctive to their area. Usually, the two senior women of the village go to the souk, carrying their bundles, to do the deals. Naturally, the price they can achieve will have an impact on the kind of winter they and the rest of their village will endure.

The women gather at the souk hours beforehand, to await the other players in the process – the dallal, or auctioneers, and the carpet dealers, who have small shops around the fringe.

When the auction starts, it is like the opening of a play. From the wings come a line of wiry, weatherbeaten men – the dallal, lugging carpets that look almost as heavy as themselves. The carpets are unfurled with a flourish, for the appreciation of the attentive audience. An opening price is called and the auction is on. The dallals are in constant motion: as well as displaying the carpet to the crowd, they ferry it around the carpet dealers in the shops, who may also bid. The bidding begins when the first bidder shouts “Oukha” or “okay”. It’s done in the colonial currency of reals, in jumps of 100 reals at a time. (The equivalent of five Moroccan dirhams, or 63 US cents.)

The women from the villages watch with a mixture of patience, wry amusement, and delighted smiles as their carpet reaches the hoped for price; or anxiety if it fails to sell despite making the rounds repeatedly.

When there is only one bidder remaining, then he - and it is usually a man - is declared the winner, and the money is handed over directly to the seller. Both parties then give a small commission to the dallal.

Some women choose to sell their carpets straight to the dealers. They may achieve a higher price at auction, but they run a risk if it fails to sell, as a dealer may see it as an indication that the carpet will be difficult to move.

Interested buyers also flock to the auction, to get the pick of the carpets. The dealers pass the carpets on to the big carpet shops in Fez and Marrakesh. So a carpet for which a group of women may have received less than a thousand dirhams (US $125) can end up selling for many times that by the time it reaches its final destination.

If you would like to see the regular Khenifra carpet auction in action, contact Michele at Yomikha Travel on  +212 (0) 642 704 601 or chriftrans@gmail.com. She can tell you when the auctions are held and arrange transport.


See also: Guide to buying Moroccan Carpets

All Photographs: Suzanna Clarke or Sandy McCutcheon

Text and photographs copyright The View from Fez 2011
Please ask permission before reproducing.


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Moroccan couscous - the traditional way

Couscous, or seksu as it's know in Moroccan Arabic, is one of the staple foods of the Maghreb. It's made of ground semolina that's moistened and rolled in flour.

Moroccan couscous

These days we usually buy ready-cooked couscous in packets from the supermarket, but there are parts of Morocco where it is still hand-rolled by village women and the difference in taste is remarkable. This is the 'real thing'.

Cynthia Berning, a US Peace Corps volunteer, has been working with a women's association in the small mud village of Khoukhate, some 130km south of Fez in the Middle Atlas, with the aim
of bringing back an appreciation for the art - and taste - of hand-rolled couscous.

Cynthia Berning

"The majority of women and girls [in the village] are still illiterate and thus have few opportunities to contribute financially to providing for their families", explains Cynthia.
"Enter the Association ENNAHDA ('rebirth' in Arabic), an association with the goal of increasing the standard of living for all residents of Khoukhate through the creation of employment for the women of the village."

When the operation started two years ago, it was limited to couscous production. But the business has now grown to include jams made from locally-grown fruit - fig, apple, apricot, orange, carrot and watermelon, there's herb-infused olive oil, almond butter, and the Moroccan high-energy snack 'zmita'. All the products are marketed under the name 'El Karma', which is Moroccan Arabic for fig tree, and is also the name of the natural spring in the village.

Now the association has an eco-tourism project where groups of visitors are welcomed to Khoukhate to learn the secrets of a good Moroccan couscous, and at the same time experience traditional rural life. Visitors roll their own couscous from scratch with the local women, and then cook it and eat it for lunch.

Couscous preparation: step 1

Step 2: sifting the couscous

Couscous ready for sale

The association has teamed up with Fez Food and Cafe Clock and it's now possible to learn this traditional art in Fez - great for people who don't have the time to go out to the village. There are monthly couscous workshops at Cafe Clock, conducted in English, French and Darija. The three-hour session begins with fresh vegetables, wholewheat flour, and water brought from the village spring. It finishes with lunch, and could be the best couscous you've ever eaten.

The next workshop is at 11h30-14h30 on Friday 13 November at Cafe Clock. For details and to book, contact Fez Food. Fez Food also runs excursions to the village.

For a peek into Cynthia's adventures in this tiny village, visit her blog, Couscous Chronicles. Information on the women's association can be found here.

See all The View from Fez Moroccan recipes here: Moroccan Recipes

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Micro-credit in Morocco is a winner.

Tiny buttons from micro-credit!

Recently we reported on the micro-credit schemes in Morocco and discovered that 600,000 out of a total of one million clients in the micro-finance sector in 2007 were women. Today we decided to examine one small and highly successful scheme.

L'Association D'Artisanat Des Femmes De Khenifra has been assisted in setting up an enterprise in which the women make traditional articles including very small buttons - the type used on djellabas. These tiny creations are works of art in themselves, but the women have gone further and created a range of interesting products from them. Some incorporate other materials, some are threaded together as wrist bands or necklaces.

Linda Zahava

Trying to trace the roots of the project took us to some interesting places and people. Firstly there is Linda Zahava, a Peace Corps worker and the dynamo behind the drive to market the women's work. Linda, an artist in her own right, was in Fez to show off the collective's merchandise and find an outlet. Linda is an enthusiastic advocate of the micro-credit scheme and quick to explain how it is changing the lives of the women who have become involved.

She also guides us in the direction of another remarkable woman, Rebecca Kousky, who set up an organisation called "Builda nest". Nest is a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the lives of women in developing countries. The mission of Nest is to support women artists and artisans in the developing world by helping them create sustainable entrepreneurial businesses. To do this, Nest provides micro-credit loans to be used for the purchase of the supplies and materials necessary to begin and/or maintain art or craft-based businesses.

Djellaba buttons

It was Nest that talked with the women of Khenifra and came up with a plan for women there to practice traditional crafts such as embroidery, carpet-making and sewing djellabas. At the moment they are concentrating on making the fabulous textile buttons by hand (pictured above).

Even though Khenifra is a provincial capital, it is not a tourist destination, so the women must sell their products to middlemen who buy them for very little and sell them in the tourist towns for a great profit. Other than craft work, there aren’t any jobs there, so most women work alone in their homes, sewing or weaving.

One problem for these women has been that they don’t often leave their homes, except to go to the souk so they tend to be isolated and lack companionship from other women. The goal of Nest's program was to help the women get together and form an “association” – the Khenifra Women’s Handicraft Association. This is now a formal organization registered with the Ministry of Artisanat. As an association the women not only support each other, but they sell their products at expositions and craft fairs around the country. Nest provided the funds necessary to form this association and to renovate a space for the women.

Latifa shows off the women's fine work.

"The Khenifra women have a lot to be proud of."

Overall statistics in the micro-credit sector show that more than 20 billion dirhams ($2.26 billion) have been distributed thus far, 13 billion dirhams, ($1.48 billion) of which is invested by women in productive projects, especially in poor rural area. The micro-credit sector has been developing at fast pace since the 1990`s and it is now an essential instrument in the struggle against exclusion and poverty in Morocco

High illiteracy rates, particularly between women, about 60%, are a serious constraint for their participation and ownership of businesses because they have fewer and lower options to get a job, that’s why women are more interested in micro-loans than men.

The Khenifra women's work can be seen and purchased exclusively in Fez from Cafe Clock.

For more information please contact Linda Zahava at: lindaza@hotmail.com

If you would like donate to the great work the Peace Corps, Nest and the women are doing please visit The Nest in Morocco.


Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news