The Ammeln Valley

Today has been an eventful and amazing day! We got up early to take a ‘grand taxi’ to the valley where we will be working. A ‘grand taxi’ as they call them is a crumpled old Merc which they cram 6 passengers into, 2 on the passenger seat in the front and 4 in the back. So there were 4 of us crammed in the back - me, Stacey, Mostapha and Hassan (an engineer from the DPA) – as the taxi wound its way along a single track road through the mountains occasionally passing men on donkeys or women with baskets hung from their heads, for 3 hours! Needless to say we were glad when we finally reached Tafrout, the largest town in the area, 10km away from our village. After a quick stop in Tafrout we carried on further into the valley to a village called Imallen. The Ammeln Valley is breathtaking. Barren granite mountains tower over small oases, containing clusters of pink houses and palm trees, dotted along the valley.

Today we thought we were going to Imin’Tizght, the village where we will be living and working, but it seems the plan has changed overnight. Instead we will be staying with a family near Imallen this week so that we can do a study of that village before we move onto Imin’Tizght next week. So we arrived in Imallen and carried out a GPS survey of the fields there. The village is in the process of sinking a well to increase the amount of water available and we have been given the task of assessing the current situation and proposing ways of improving and maximising the land use. Surveying the fields in the midday sun was hot work but it was really interesting to talk to the people who live there and to see the site where the well was being sunk.
After lunch which was beef tagine followed my mint tea, we headed to Imin’Tizght to see Mostapha’s summer house where we will be living and to meet the other members of AIDECO in the community centre. After that Mostapha and Hassan left to go back to Tiznit, leaving us to settle into our new lodgings.

We’ve just got back from a walk along the valley with Mohammed (the son in the family we are staying with). It truly was amazing with the sun setting behind the mountains and now that it’s dark there are so many stars!

The only bad thing about the valley is the amount of bugs, huge bugs, and the prospect of coming across a scorpion or a wild boar but hopefully that won’t happen!