International Storytelling Festival in Zagora

From today until December 24th the 5th edition of the International Fair of Tales takes place in Zagora. The festival focus is on the African oral heritage 

Placed under the theme "Tales of Africa", this cultural event provides a rich programme with artists from Togo, Chad, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal, South Sudan, Congo Brazzaville, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Palestine and China.

There are individual and collective storytelling shows, popular arts performances, theatrical plays, recreational activities for children, and an academic conference on storytelling hosted by writer and playwright Abdelkerim. Berrechid and the writer and researcher Abdelmajid Chakir.

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International Festival of Nomads - 16th to 18th March

Morocco is famous for its many unique festivals but one in particular is not to be missed - the International Festival of Nomads

An open-air event in harmony with nature and with the nomads' world, the International Festival of Nomads is a forum for freely expressing and exchanging ideas in a friendly environment, showcasing a civilisation of children, women and men with a strong cultural identity of the values ​​and wisdom that are the legacy of their ancestors.

Various cultural activities highlight the tangible and intangible heritage of the nomadic tribes and contributing to preserving their cultural identity. Economic and social solutions are presented during the conferences and workshops, to encourage collective and associative initiatives and open new opportunities to local development.

Set in a colourful and exotic setting, the 14th Nomads Festival will be once again a great meeting of nomadic cultures, an exploration for the visitors and a model for the younger generations, who have an opportunity to open up to new borders while preserving their traditions .

An ode to the discovery of another culture and to the familiarisation of the history of the Saharan nomads, the festival was initiated by the Association Nomades du Monde,  thanks to the vision of its director Noureddine Bougrab. This Arabic teacher had the primary goal of "involving young people" in this adventure.

The event, which is free and citizen-oriented, allows for "three days of music, debates, games, dromedary races, gastronomy and crafts that make the whole region live" Life and to bring it closer to this way of life, the same source said.

Thursday 16, Friday 17 and Saturday 18 March 2017, the public is invited to M'Hamid El Ghizlane, in the province of Zagora to join this most musical celebration. Indeed, this edition will be marked by the participation of Tuareg guitarist Bombino and the Malian group Terakaft, among others. The kingdom will be represented by the legendary group Nass El Ghiwane, the rising star of the Gnawas Mehdi Nassouli, the Sahrawi diva Saïda Charaf, the rocker Mohamed Jbara as well as the traditional dancers of Ahwach de Ouarzazate.

During the festival there will be three days of conferences, round tables and workshops are offered on various subjects: nomadism, heritage, flora, fauna, agriculture, environmental protection, economy, health and education.

The culinary art is present through one of the essential preparations in the desert: sand bread (mella).

And there is sport, with a demonstration of nomadic hockey and a camel race called "ellaz".

sand bread preparation

M'hamid El Ghizlane ("the plain of gazelles"), the last village before the vast expanses of the Sahara, is a rural municipality of the Zagora province, in the southern Drâa - Tafilalet region. It is located at the end of the N9 road, after Tamegroute, and it shares its southern border with Algeria.

An ancient cultural crossroads - its territory used to be a stop for trans-Saharan traders - M'hamid El Ghizlane is part of a nomadic area. With its little adobe shacks made of mud or clay bricks, the little ocher village seems to come right out of sand.

The climate is dry, with high temperatures in the summer, and cool in winter. The landscape is arid. Due to the land's barrenness and dryness, and the shifting national borders, a great number of nomads have abandoned their itinerant lifestyle. However, the people of M'hamid treasure the traditions of their ancient lifestyle, and preserve the noble legacy of their ancestors.

M'hamid El Ghizlane is sheltered in a palm grove stretching for 16 km along the river Drâa (oued Drâa). One of the banks is M'hamid Bali, the old town, which holds an important kasbah. On the other side, M'hamid Jdid, (the new village), offers essential facilities: groceries, craft shops, cafes, restaurants, family hotels and tourist agencies.

The legendary Nass El Ghiwane will perform at the festival 

Every Monday there is a souk, an opportunity to see the famous "blue men", desert camel-herders, and to buy local products, bathed in the colours and fragrances of these goods.

Getting there is easy. M'hamid El Ghizlane is accessible from the international airport of Ouarzazate and then by road to Zagora. There are rental cars at the airport or in town. Local transport is available with regular bus connections. The CTM (Compagnie des Transports du Maroc) is present in all bus stations

For accommodation, visitors can choose between different categories of hotels, riads, guesthouses or desert camps. M'hamid El Ghizlane has established itself as the main departure point for desert excursions, especially to the dunes of Erg Lehoudi and Erg Chegaga.

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12th Zagora Film Festival Opens This Week

The twelfth edition of the Trans-Saharan Film Festival at Zagora opens on December 17th and runs to the 20th under the theme: Film and Tolerance

Again this year the festival will hold an international competition for feature films, with entries from Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, Holland, Canada, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates.

Featured films will have a common link with subjects related to desert culture; water, nomadism oasis lifestyle, customs and manners, Kasbahs and climate change.

Egyptian actor Abdelaziz Makhyoun has been chosen to chair the competition jury. Makhyoun is known for Beggars and Proud Ones (1991), Alexandria... Why? (1979) and Hadduta misrija (1982).

Abdelaziz Makhoyoun

Besides the competition section, the festival devotes a lot of energy into promoting training for young people in the region, with workshops led by experts on acting, audiovisual reportage,  documentary making and a master class provided by the Moroccan writer Mohamed Ariouès, focusing on writing film scripts.

The Association for the Trans-Sahara Zagora movie hopes to promote the image of Zagora as a city with high cultural and human values and a place of innovation, openness, dialogue and tolerance.

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Rural Literacy Education for Morocco's Women

Rural education offers Morocco's women the promise of a quiet revolution. Women in remote parts of Morocco are benefiting from a scheme that also teaches civil rights, numeracy and even beekeeping. Santorri Chamley, writing for The Guardian's Poverty Matters blog, reports from Beni Zuli.

Fatima Kadmire (left), one of the beneficiaries of the literacy programme for women in Beni Zuli Photograph: Santorri Chamley

In a tiny classroom at the Maison de Citoyenneté support centre for the education of rural girls and women in Beni Zuli, an isolated village in Zagora, deep in south-eastern Morocco's Draa Valley, Fatima Kadmire is describing how learning to read and write is transforming her life.

"The best thing is that I can now dial numbers and send text messages on my mobile phone without having to rely on others to do it for me," says Kadmire, 21, who is sitting at a small desk at the front of the class.

She is one of the beneficiaries of an accelerated literacy programme targeting rural women and girls in Zagora and other remote regions in Morocco as part of the national literacy strategy. The class she is enrolled in is run by the Association des Femmes pour le Développement et la Solidarité (Afdes).

Afdes is part of Réseau Associatif pour le Développement et la Démocratie (Razded), an umbrella group of associations and NGOs established in 2007. The organisation's aim is to strengthen the role of women in Zagora's economic development and democratic process, in partnership with the department for literacy.

As well as the 300 hours they have to acquire basic reading, writing and numeracy skills, beneficiaries are given lessons in social and civil rights, development, environment and income-generating activities such as weaving, baking and beekeeping.

The Maison de Citoyenneté, or Citizenship House – a peach-coloured building opposite the mosque on Beni Zuli's main thoroughfare – is one of the first adult education community support centres in Morocco. It was built to help address one of the biggest barriers to education facing rural women and girls: lack of access to learning centres and middle schools (attended by 12- to 16-year-olds), which are usually located very far from home.

Beni Zuli, which has 18,000 inhabitants, is a beautiful village with traditional mud-brick houses. Like the rest of the province, it is flanked by the imposing Atlas mountains; its arid landscape is punctuated by a string of lush palm groves and oases. The village is one of the most remote in Zamora, which itself is a two-and-a-half hour drive along a narrow mountain road from the nearest airport, in Ouarzazate. With more than 70% of its 280,000 population aged under 30, the province is among the programme's main target regions.

One of the main objectives of the programme, which is enabling Kadmire and other rural women and girls to overcome deep-rooted cultural and traditional constraints, is integrated social and economic development. Post-literacy training will enable them to consolidate the literacy skills they acquire, preparing them to run micro-projects.

Such help, which promises to lift rural women out of the cycle of illiteracy and poverty, is welcome. In 2004, King Mohammed VI pushed through landmark reforms to the Mudawana family code against tough opposition from religious conservatives in 2004. The measures attempted to address a range of issues including underage marriage, women's rights, domestic violence, forced child labour and sexual trafficking. Despite the reforms, however, many rural women remain second-class citizens.

Almost 20,000 women and girls have benefited from the accelerated, state-funded literacy programme since it was introduced in Zagora in 2007. Its grants cover course fees, teacher-training and learning tools such as textbooks and pens.

Story and photograph: Santorri Chamley

Read the full story here



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The Ancient Library of Tamegroute

In the south of Morocco, near Zagora, only about 10 miles (18 km) along the Draa Valley, is the town of Tamegroute. The name itself means “border town” as this area was once part of Algeria's frontier. The town does not appear interesting at first glance, but it contains a rare treasure that is worth visiting.

Tamegroute - more than meets the eye!

Tamegroute has a history as an important center of learning and religion through its famous Sufi zaouia, historical center of the Nasiriyya Sufi order, one of the most influential - and at one time one of the largest - Sufi orders in the Islamic world. It was established by Sidi Mohammed Ben Naceur.

The Naciri brotherhood is monk-like in their devotion to this sage. And, surrounding the area are various patients praying for a cure to their ailments, whether mental or physical. Sidi Ben Naceur was an important leader of the area, considered a saint, and revered for his scholarly and peacemaking abilities.

The librarian at the Tamegroute Koranic library
(photo: Suzanna Clarke)

The Zaouia Naciri contains the tomb of Naceur and still contains the famous medersa, or Koranic school, dating back to the 1600s. The Koranic library is also impressive as it once held nearly 50,000 Arabic works that have now either been lost, are still in use, or have been sent to various museums across the country. The pre-university school is still in use and was once a major hub of learning in Morocco. Young scholars had access to amazing works, including that of math, philosophy, biology, astronomy, and even their very own Amazigh (Berber) poetry.

The library is being renovated, but at this stage the conditions in which thousands of priceless books are being stored is less than perfect. Although photography of the texts is forbidden, they are on display on small shelves protected by glass. The gold calligraphy and the extraordinary illustrations are superb. One exhibit is a Koran more than 900 years old. As we said, it is worth a visit.

Morocco News Briefs

INDIAN DANCE

The Indian music and dance concert presented by Culture Vultures at Riad Lalla Zoubida entranced a large crowd this weekend.

Siross and Yona

photos: Gerard Chemit

TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour starts in Fez today with the Grand Prix of HRH Princess Lalla Meryem at the Henri Lecomte Tennis Academy. There are 32 players competing for a prize of US$220 000.

Carla Suárez Navarro leads the field, the first time she has ever held the No.1 seed at a Tour event (she has been the No.2 seed before though, at Bogotá the last two years). It is the Spaniard's first time playing this clay-court tournament and she hopes her one-handed backhand will take her to her first title, her best previous results being runner-up finishes at Marbella the last two years.

Hot on Suárez Navarro's heels will be Patty Schnyder and Anabel Medina Garrigues, the No.2 and No.3 seeds, respectively. Both Schnyder and Medina Garrigues have won a multitude of Tour titles - Schnyder 11, Medina Garrigues nine - Medina Garrigues is also the defending champion here. Schnyder begins against a qualifier while Medina Garrigues begins with a wildcard.

MICROLIGHT ACCIDENT CLAIMS TWO LIVES

Two French nationals were killed when a microlight aircraft they were aboard crashed in Morocco on Friday, officials said.

"The two passengers were of French nationality," an official in Ifrane province, 240 kilometres (150 miles) east of Rabat, told AFP, without giving further details.

The microlight was travelling from Ouarzazate to Fez when it crashed near the hamlet of Dayet Oua, striking a house but not causing any other casualties, the official said. An inquiry has been launched into the cause of the accident.

COLLAPSE OF MEDINA HOUSE (UPDATED)

News has just reached us of a house off the Tala'a Kebira in the central medina collapsed late last night, killing several inhabitants. First reports suggested that as many as ten people may have lost their lives. Later reports told of four deaths and six injuries. One of the dead is known to be a young girl. The two-floor house which sheltered two families was in a state of advanced dilapidation, authorities said, adding that a probe was opened to determine the exact conditions of the collapse.

MARCHE MAROC

Peace Corps volunteers in Rabat announce the third of their series of Marche Maroc Craft Fairs, which benefit the artisans they work with all over the country.
The Craft Fair will be held May 7-9 at the American Club in Rabat, and attendees need to be on a master list for security reasons. Anyone interested in attending can apply at: MarcheMarocExpo@yahoo.com

MOROCCAN JEWISH LEADERS UNHAPPY

Jewish leaders in Morocco are reportedly unhappy after the government demolished a historic Jewish building, the Benchimol hospital in Tangier.. According to reports from Tangier, the government razed the community-owned structure. The land still belongs to the community.

According to government officials in Rabat, the building was condemned and the demolition had been scheduled for months. The fact that the destruction occurred over Passover left the small Jewish community angered at what they called the government’s “insensitivity.”

Ironically, the demolition was done with the consent of the Jewish community.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
An International Symposium on Regionalisation and Sustainable Development will be held on 6 and 7 May at the Palais de Congres in Fez.

Organised by The South North Center in collaboration with the City Council, the Wilaya and the Fez-Saiss Association, the symposium will discuss the advanced regionalisation project proposed by Morocco, as well as take a look at a few international experiences.

In his speech on November 6, 2008, HM King Mohammed VI announced "a process of advanced and gradual regionalisation" for Morocco. On January 3, 2010, he appointed 21 members of the Advisory Commission of Regionalisation, which will reveal its findings toward the end of the year. In that same speech, the monarch wished to "involve all the forces of the nation to the overall design effort for this project."

The objective of this symposium is to review the other experiences of regionalisation, particularly those of Germany, Turkey, Spain, the United States and France and make recommendations on the proposed regionalisation of Morocco. The goal is also to create a network of specialists and experts for further coordination, discussion and reflection on the subject.

Participants in the symposium will be experts, academics and representatives of civil society in Morocco and several countries. See the full programme here.
For more information, contact Dr. Moha Ennaji, Director of the Symposium, at mennaji2002@yahoo.fr


MOROCCO'S SECRET SQUIRREL

The Barbary ground squirrel (Atlantoxerus getulus) lives in rocky habitats from sea level to 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) in the Atlas Mountains and is often hard to find. The photograph of the female was taken this week a few kilometres from Zagora. The presence of a fox in the area had the squirrel on full alert.

Photo: Sandy McCutcheon. 

Star gazing in Morocco

The stars above the Draa (click to enlarge)

Star gazing is not one of the things that immediately springs to mind when one thinks of Morocco. However, it is an ideal destination because although most of us live in areas with high population density and light pollution which obstruct the natural starry sky, there are areas in Morocco where there are no city lights.

Recently The View from Fez discovered an observatory located at the end of the Draa Valley near the small town of Tamegroute (Zagora) on the edge of the Moroccan Sahara. The observatory, situated on the roof of the Kasbah Hotel SaharaSky is the first private astronomical observatory in North Africa. Their optical equipment is impressive, including Schmidt-Cassegrain and Ritchey Chretien telescopes with up to 16 inches (400mm) aperture.

The owner, Fritz Gerd Koring, is serious about astronomy and knows exactly what people need to maximise the potential of his equipment. The observation deck is 400m² providing a full panoramic 360° view. Lights in the hotel can be turned off while viewing and laptops and your own equipment can all be catered for.

In case you do not have experience with telescopes, the proficient staff will gladly assist your star trek through sections of the crystal-clear sky above with countless stars, galaxies, nebula, and, of course, the solar system objects.

From the southerly vantage of +30° latitude you will be able to see constellations of the southern hemisphere which are out of range in central or northern Europe. The View from Fez intends to visit again soon and hopefully bring you more about this unusual Moroccan destination.

For more information visit the hotel website: Kasbah Hotel SaharaSky

The website is available in French, Spanish, German and English.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Beware the camels of Zagora

Every now and then (especially when the boss is away in Ireland) I cruise the internet looking for unusual stories about Morocco. Having not much luck this week, I was somewhat pleased to discover the homely column by Bob Morgan Jr who writes in the strange little New York journal The Garden City News. His articles come out under the heading The View from Here...

Bob Junior's latest piece is about a trip to Morocco and a short journey on a camel...

At Zagora, each of the seven of us on the tour got on a camel for the 2 1/2 hour trek to a campgrounds in the desert. Our two guides, both Berbers from the surrounding region, served us a traditional meal of Moroccan tagine, and even improvised a show of traditional music. When it was time to turn in, the tent lodging actually proved pretty good, with numerous blankets sheltering us from the cold night.

Unfortunately, however, the return trip from the campground, also a 2 1/2 hour journey, proved to be my undoing. While I was a little sore from the trip to the campgrounds, somehow my thigh muscles completely locked up on the way back. By the time I got off the beast at Zagora, I could barely walk and I have been hobbling ever since, with only a very slight improvement in the last 24 hours.

Yes, I see the humor (and believe me, so does Robert) of getting injured by a placid creature that rarely goes faster than five miles an hour, but my thigh still hurts.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news