Dancing, weddings and irrigation systems

This weekend was one packed full of Moroccan culture. On Saturday night Hassan knocked on our door at 9pm to tell us that there was a dance in the neighbouring village from 11pm to 3am! So we headed down there in the dark and found a place to sit amongst the women. I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it before but the women in this region of Morocco wear a black robe called a hemelheff (not sure its spelt like that – might also be called an amelheff not sure) which covers them from head to toe and which they pull across their face so that only their eyes are showing when they see a stranger. All the women had dressed up in amazing brightly coloured sparkly robes but with their black hemelheff over the top so that you couldn’t see any of the splendour! The men and women sit separately at these events and watch a group of men singing and dancing non-stop for 4 hours. There seem to be two parts to the show; firstly the men sing/chant to a drum beat and kind of jiggle round in a circle, then they stop dancing, line up in a row and two men sing/wail at each other and people go up and stick bits of foliage in their collars to show their appreciation for the performance. The women show their appreciation by making a very high pitched (almost beyond the human hearing range) warbling kind of sound. They repeat this many times for 4 hours. Stacey describes it as ‘a marathon for the ears.’ Anyway we managed to escape at 2am as we were pretty cold and tired.

Sunday we decided to have a day off and walked along the valley to visit a traditional Berber house museum in a neighbouring village called Oumsnet. We came across a herd of goats on the way but they were too busy being herded along to climb trees for us to take photos of. Oh well, next time! The guide who showed us around the house spoke very good English and after the tour we sat down to drink mint tea and got talking about our work. We explained the work we were doing looking at the pollution from the communal washing area in Imin’Tizeght and he explained that Oumsnet had the same problem and that he was looking at ways to solve it. After tea he showed us the village’s washing area and the work that is currently being done to line the earth irrigation channels with concrete. He said that unlike Imin’Tizeght the villagers of Oumsnet are very happy that the work is being done on their irrigation system because it means that there is a lot more water available for irrigation. After the disastrous meetings we had with the women (there was another one on thurs with a government minister which descended into chaos – we’re glad its not just our meetings!) it was refreshing and inspiring to see a village where improvements really are being made. We took the guys e-mail address and promised we’d keep him posted on our work. We’re thinking about extending our work to fins a solution that would suit Oumsnet also. The idea is that we’ll produce a report with different options for solving the problem which can be used in any village in the valley.

Got back late to find that we were supposed to be at a wedding but noone had told us! Berber weddings are very different to English weddings. The whole village is invited and the men and women sit in different rooms and celebrate completely separately. We were sat on the roof with all the women and luckily Maggie was there to tell us what was going on. The night kicked off at 8pm with singing and dancing. Then around about 11.30pm we sat down to eat. The first course was cous cous (very hard to eat with your fingers) covered with amlou which is a kind of syrup made from almonds made locally. Next we were presented with 2 whole roast chickens, then there was another course of beef with prunes and finally a massive plate of fruit. Usually at a Berber wedding it is the tradition for the bride and groom to go off and consummate the marriage and then show the freshly soiled marital sheets to everyone to show that the bride was a virgin. Unusually and luckily for us for some reason this didn’t happen at this wedding! Then everyone headed outside for another session of watching the same group of men sing and dance for 4 hours. It’s amazing to be amidst so much rich Berber culture and tradition but sometimes a little confusing and tiring.