Down to work

Today Mostapha took us to the DPA (Delegation Provinciale d’Agriculture) office in Tiznit to meet Abdallah Houch, the director of agriculture for Tiznit. He was a very nice man, interested in our project and agreed that we could use the offices and resources at the DPA whenever we like. Tiznit is about 100km from the village where we will be living and the idea is that we will work some of the time in the village with a team of people based there, and some of the time at the DPA office.

We also met a technician called Hassan who had worked with Clare and Steve on the project last year and who we will again be working with this year. He told us all about the valley and the work that is going on there at the moment. We were pleasantly surprised that a lot of work has been done since last year when the project was started. Work is being carried out in 7 or 8 villages at the moment to repair the irrigation channels, Khettaras (the tunnel system that taps into the water table) and the holding tanks. In our village all 3 sections of the irrigation system have been repaired and the open irrigation channels have been replaced with UPVC pipes. One of our tasks will be to map the access points in the system and to develop a maintenance program for the channels. We will also be looking at the impact that the works have had on the valley as a whole and translating parts of last year’s report into French so that funding can be obtained for the various packages of work.

It was great to meet people who are so enthusiastic about the work going on the valley and who have huge amounts of local knowledge which will be very useful to us. I think we will be heading down to the village at the weekend. The journey apparently takes 3 hours and is on a very windy mountainous road! We’re really forward to seeing where we will be living for the next 3 months.

We’re really enjoying living with Mostapha’s family and seeing how family life in Morocco is different to in the UK. He has made us very welcome and set up a little office for us to work in. His daughters are keeping us entertained but we have had to resort to looking the door to our study occasionally so that we can get some work done without having to play tea parties or schools at the same time. Meal times are an important event in a Moroccan house hold. Lunchtime is the most interesting meal of the day where we all gather round a steaming pot of Tajine or cous cous and eat from the pot with bread and our hands.

I have a cold. Apparently it is the season for colds even though it is about 35 degrees.