Tarmelot

So, I'm taking a break from writing papers because well...we all need a break from time to time. I thought I'd tell you all about my experience yesterday visiting the community of Tarmelot which is literally right outside Ifrane (where AUI is located and where I've been living for the past 4 months).

If you've read my previous posts, you know that Ifrane is a rich resort town. Very clean, expensive (by Moroccan standards), and houses a university attended by upper-class Moroccans (its the only university in the country that you have to pay for). So in a way, its a little bubble away from the realities that is the life lived by most Moroccans. It's been interesting to be at AUI for the semester because it has meant I've been able to hear a variety of perspectives and begin to grasp the complexity of the economic/class/cultural situation here in Morocco. But at the same time, sometimes it gets hard to break out of the bubble and remember that the kids at AUI with their Hummers and clothes from Casablanca, Rabat and Paris...are the extreme minority.

Tarmelot is certainly the opposite. Just 5 minutes away from the university and within eyesight of the characteristic red roofs of Ifrane is a tiny little shepherding community located in a valley between rocky hills not very far from the high school where I've been teaching English. There are about 20 families...perhaps 100ish people? living there and have been since about 45 years ago when they were brought in from the countryside (some of them nomads) to raise sheep for the rich people in Ifrane.

As we turned off the paved road (two of the other international students, me, and our pastor Karen) onto a dirt road, we passed a tiny one room school house that they are just completing. The first school for the community - Karen was exclaiming "there's a door now...and a built-in cabinet!..." where they will soon have a full-time teacher from the Moroccan government to teach the kids and hold adult-education classes (only one of the women in the entire community is literate). Right now the only students who go to the school in town are the kids in the two families who are "rich" by Tarmelot standards...

A little ways down the road we soon got our first glimpse of the homes...made out of stone and cement with roofs made out of wood and covered with flattened tin cans to keep out the wind and rain. They sort of look like long hutches except made out of the stones that cover the hills where their sheep graze. We got out and were soon greeted by a number of women and children...a round of kiss kiss, kiss kiss (the French-style greeting) for us all with shy, warm smiles from the women and curious grins from the kids.

We first went into one of the houses where the women work...two years ago Karen and some of the high schools students/AUI students worked with the women to start a weaving cooperative to generate income for the women. It is now fully operational with the women organizing themselves, working their looms, buying the materials - Karen and the AUI student group Hand-in-Hand provide them with help to market the items...the entire room's perimeter is lined with homemade looms made out of think branches of wood with strings of wool coming down and rugs and purses at various stages of completion towards the bottom. The woman use some of the wool from their own sheep but also by some dyed wool in town for colors and contrast. Each women buys here materials and then gets income from her finished products when they sell. Their work is beautiful...

We went into one of the women's houses...apparently the gathering place because it is one of the nicest houses owned by the most well-off families, so there is electricity from a solar panel and a real roof made out of aluminum. The women laid out rug after rug after rug, with purses and blankets in between to show us. They were beautiful and good workmanship. Though you could tell they're still trying to figure out some details...Karen was talking to them and telling them that the purse straps might be a little long and you could tell they weren't taking her too seriously, until I put on the purse and the bag hit my knees... :-)

They brought us tea and sat around watching us and talking amongst themselves as Karen told us a little bit about the community and their struggles and successes. Clearly, the cooperative has brought a lot of opportunities for the women and given them a way to bring some extra income for their families, but also helped reinforce the strong sense of community between the families. It was so nice to sit there and watch their faces as Karen complimented their work or asked about how their families are doing. The toddlers squawking and walking around, one of them, little Abdu allah was practically a weeble, bouncing off of everything in sight and just grinning with delight. The young women our age smiling shyly...those are the times when it makes me wish I could really speak Arabic, and not just the ridiculous Modern Standard Arabic that I'm learning but the colloquial dialect.

It was a lovely morning and was glad to be able to make a couple purchases to support their project...its so nice to see what powerful change a project like that can make, and the importance of people like Karen and community organizations who provide the help to get them off the ground.

So that was Tarmelot...perhaps more thoughts on that some other time. For now, time to go write about Moroccan authoritarianism...