Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
July 3, 2010

Demand for Argan tree oil helps Moroccan women branch out.
John Thorne, Foreign Correspondent / July 14. 2010

Najat Bouloudn, 20, shells out the kernels of dried argan fruit, which produce oil prized for its nutty taste and health benefits. John Thorne / The National

AMELN VALLEY, MOROCCO // When the noon sun hits the mountains above the Ameln Valley in southern Morocco, stone and shadow interact to form the face of a gigantic lion that protects the women when the men are away. – until now. “Women don’t need anyone to protect them,” said Mamass Outaleb, 25, director of the Tifaouine Women’s Co-operative. “They just need to be respected.”

In the past few years, some local women have emerged from their houses to capitalize on an influx of tourists hungry for oil from the rare Argan tree, which grows in the valley. In the process, they are quietly shattering tradition.  “In the past, women only went out to go to the Souq. Now they’re going out to work,” Ms Outaleb said. “It’s about discovering the world, so that a woman isn’t left sitting in a corner like an object.”

Ms Outaleb grew up in Tamaloukt, one of 26 tiny villages that seem to have sprouted from the mountainsides. Pillars of red granite tower above, and the valley floor below is dotted with the green tufts of Argan trees. Argans are rarely found outside Morocco, where they grow in abundance and most are protected by UNESCO. The valley’s several hundred full-time inhabitants are Amazighs, or Berbers, herders and farmers who have inhabited North Africa since before recorded history. With water increasingly scarce and agriculture difficult, most families now depend on sons and husbands working in Morocco’s cities.

Local women founded Tifaouine in 2000 to get themselves out of the house and into business, one of dozens of similar organizations working today in the surrounding Souss region. In 2002, the US Peace Corps helped build a workshop for the group, part of efforts to get Tifaouine and another local women’s co-operative, El Baraka, up and running. “The goal is to work ourselves out of a job, so that Peace Corps volunteers are no longer needed,” said David Lillie, the Peace Corps’ Morocco country director. “Within the cultural context of the community, if there are women interested in working with us, we definitely like to work with women.”

Many women in Tifaouine hope to move on to better things. But for now, it offers a rare chance to take charge of their affairs. “I wanted to change my life, and change people’s mentality,” said Fatima, 31, yanked out of school at age 10 by her parents to mind younger siblings. “And I wanted to have fun.”

She has been part of Tifaouine from the start and comes to the workshop every day to make leather slippers, bags and cushions.  “At first, my parents were against it, but eventually they changed their attitude,” she said. As she spoke, Fatima embroidered jagged multicolour patterns into a piece of red leather destined for the heel of a slipper. “I still want to study,” she said, tying off a stitch. “But I’m not sure how.”

Meanwhile, a tapping came from outside, where Najat Bouloudn, 20, was cracking dried Argan fruit between two stones. Nine years ago Ms Bouloudn’s parents took the unusual step of sending her to work as a housemaid in Casablanca. She returned home last year.  “I couldn’t go out and I couldn’t make friends, but now I come and go as I please,” she said. “Ultimately I want to do something different, but I don’t want to leave the valley again.”

Argan fruit, about the size of an almond, turns hard and brown in summer and falls to earth. The women shell out and roast the kernels, then use a machine to press out oil with a taste between that of olive and peanut. Mixing the oil with almond paste creates a spread called amlou; unroasted oil is used as a skin ointment.

Most of Tifaouine’s business comes from European tourists who have discovered the area over the past few years. Some visit Tifaouine’s workshop, while others buy the group’s products at the nearby Chez Amaliya hotel. Most of Tifaouine’s 24 regular members earn between 500 and 700 Moroccan dirhams (Dh210-295) a month, Ms Outaleb said.

 “It’s just pocket money, but what matters is that the girls learn to work,” said Fatima’s brother, Khalid, 27, tending the family shop one evening.
Like other men in the valley, Khalid has cautiously embraced the idea of women working outside the home.  “If Fatima wanted to go to the city, or abroad, that’s different,” he said. “But here in the valley, no problem.”

On a cafe terrace over the shop, Ms Outaleb was drinking hot chocolate. High above, the shadows were deepening on the mountains and the vast face of the lion was melting back into the stone. “In the beginning, the men’s attitude was that women couldn’t work,” she said. “Now they’re learning, little by little, that women can do things.”
jthorne@thenational.ae
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100715/FOREIGN/707149900/1011
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Earth Day Network contributes US$25,000 to High Atlas Foundation's One Million Tree Campaign.
by BI-ME staff / Sat July 17, 2010 INTERNATIONAL.

The Earth Day Network recently announced a US$25,000 contribution to the High Atlas Foundation’s One Million Tree Campaign during a reception in Bethesda, Maryland, hosted by HE Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United States. The Moroccan Ambassador to the United States hosted the reception in his home to honor the contributions of the High Atlas Foundation to rural development in Morocco. Yossef Ben-Meir, president of the High Atlas Foundation, said, “the High Atlas Foundation aims to raise US$200,000 to plant 200,000 fruit saplings in rural areas in 2011. Earth Day’s contribution represents a major milestone in meeting that goal.”
 
The Foundation’s goal for 2011 is part of the One Million Tree Campaign launched by the Foundation in 2006. Every dollar contributed will buy a sapling, according to Ben-Meir. The campaign was conceived to develop income for rural Moroccan communities in many regions of Morocco, particularly remote mountainous areas where traditional crops (barley and corn) were not producing enough food to feed the communities. 

In addition to providing higher value cash crops for communities, the fruit trees (varieties that do not require pesticides) help to prevent erosion and desertification, and offset carbon emissions.
 
Since 2003, the High Atlas Foundation has planted 200,000 fruit saplings and trees, benefitting 25,000 people in six provinces of Morocco.
 
“Earth Day Network is honored to make this important contribution to the High Atlas Foundation One Million Trees Campaign.  The Foundation’s campaign is reaching out to communities in Morocco that will truly benefit from these trees for food, income, and environmental needs,” said Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Network President.  “We are counting the Million Trees Campaign as a contribution to our Billion Acts of Green™ initiative, which counts green acts from individuals, organizations, businesses and governments to quantify sustainability efforts.”
 
Earth Day Network was founded on the premise that all people have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. The organization works to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide through education, public policy, and activism campaigns. More than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest secular civic event in the world. The Network recognizes Morocco’s “exemplary” leadership, particularly in the area of renewable energy, and selected Morocco’s capital Rabat as the site of one of the major celebrations (April 17-25, 2010) marking Earth Day's 40th anniversary.
 
The High Atlas Foundation is a U.S. and Moroccan nonprofit organization that works to establish projects in rural communities of Morocco that local people design and manage, and that are in partnership with government and nongovernment agencies.  It was founded by former Peace Corps Morocco Volunteers as a way to use their experience gained for the continued benefit of the Moroccan people.

The High Atlas Foundation supports projects in fruit tree agriculture, clean drinking water, irrigation, women’s cooperatives, youth development, and participatory training at its Center in with Hassan II University in Mohammedia. The Foundation often works together with communities that neighbor national parks and partners with the High Commission of Waters and Forests.  Other major supporters of its tree project are Trees for Life International, G4S Maroc, the OCP Group, the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, GlobalGiving, the Penney Family Fund Foundation, and the Kate-Jeans Gail Tree Nursery Memorial. 
 
The next special fundraising event of the High Atlas Foundation is a Moroccan film festival to be held in New York City at TriBeca Cinemas on October 29-30, 2010. Organizing for the festival is well underway and the first sponsor has been secured – the Moroccan American Center.

More information about festival activities can be found here or by emailing Moroccanfilmfestival@highatlasfoundation.org.        
 
For more information and to view photos of the Foundation’s One Million Tree Campaign please visit www.highatlasfoundation.org.
http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=47190&t=1&c=35&cg=4&mset=1011
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Morocco theatre school wages battle for young minds.
By Zakia Abdennebi and Tom Pfeiffer Mon Jul 12, 2010 SALE Morocco (Reuters)

It seems hard to object to Mohamed el-Assouni's street theatre school, set up on a patch of scrubland between a rail line and a huddle of slums on the outskirts of Morocco's capital Rabat. But the idea of young boys and girls gathering to learn somersaults, dancing and walking a tightrope was too much to bear for the radical Islamists living nearby, he said.

Assouni dug a 200-metre trench to bring water and power to the school's tent. "The bearded ones ripped out the pipe and cable in the night," he said. "Yes sir, we are in conflict with those people. We don't deliberately disturb them, but they say we corrupt the local children."

Judging by the numbers thronging the tent on a recent Sunday, the Islamists seem to be losing the argument. Learning to trampoline, make puppets and take part in street parades is a big draw for the children, many of whom already work to supplement their parents' meagre income, leaving little time for play. More than 260 have enrolled but not all turn up.

More at http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE66B2IG20100712
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Where the kasbahs star
July 11, 2010

The mud-brick forts of the High Atlas fended off invaders for centuries - until Hollywood came along, writes Lee Atkinson.

A KASBAH is a bit like a lamington: fancy-looking and full of promise on the outside but a bit bland, boring and empty on the inside. Or at least the one I'm sitting in is. On the outside it's a fairy-tale concoction of crenellated ramparts, pointy-tipped towers and red pise (rammed earth) parapets decorated with ancient Berber symbols carved into the walls.

Inside, however, it's just a set of dark and dank empty rooms linked by an equally dark and dank winding staircase. Still, it's a great place to sit on the floor with your back to the wall and a glass of mint tea as you discuss the merits of Spanish A-league football with the owner's son and a welcome rest stop on a day-long walk though the Valley of the Roses.

The Vallee des Roses is a tight slithering valley in the stony High Atlas Mountains of central Morocco, better known as the Valley of 1000 Kasbahs. In spring, the terraced fields that hang above the threaded M'Goun River will be a riot of pink blooms that will strike a stunning contrast to the orange, purple, yellow and red banded mountains.

But we're here at the tail end of winter and the dense hedgerows of wild roses are just bare thorny bushes, although the pocket-sized fields are thick with the green shoots of young barley and broad beans and the almond trees are swathed in snow-white blossoms.

As we trek through the fields, we pass tiny women bent double under impossibly heavy loads of firewood strapped to their backs (I tried to lift one, much to the hilarious delight of the women but could not stand under the weight, let alone walk for hours up and down hillsides), diminutive donkeys laden with equally heavy loads and cheeky school kids on their way home for lunch. We wander through remote Berber villages where all the buildings are the same colour as the mountainside they cling to - they are after all, made from the same mud - and the old women have chin tattoos that match the symbols carved into the walls of the houses.

Each village clusters around a ruined kasbah or ksar - the fortified houses and watchtowers that speak of a tumultuous history of fending off invaders - and a mosque. Brightly coloured carpets covered in geometric designs hang from window ledges, goats bleat from rooftops and chickens squawk from behind mud brick walls. Our day-long trek is just one highlight of a five-day journey across central Morocco, from Merzouga on the edge of the Sahara not far from the Algerian border to Marrakesh, along a route nicknamed the Road of 1000 Kasbahs.

We'd set off in the midst of a Hollywood-style sand storm, badly tied makeshift turban tails swirling behind us in the wind, our ears, eyes and nostrils full of the red-gold Sarhara sand, watching the massive desert dunes reshape themselves as our convoy of camels lumbered to our Bedouin camp for the night.

By dawn, the desert is calm and beautiful and we hit the road that flanks the snow-capped High Atlas, leaving the now serene sands behind, taking time to walk through hidden gorges and peer down from hill-top vantage points at oasis-like palmeraies - river valleys full of date palms - that dot the otherwise barren desert landscape, before reaching Kelaa M'Gouna and its beautiful valley of roses.

We spend two nights here in a Berber house with great views, dodgy plumbing and some of the best home-style cooking we find anywhere in Morocco.

At Ouarzazate we wander through the partly ruined Taourirt Kasbah. Once the home of the former Pasha of Marrakesh - who, legend has it, was famous for his thousands of slaves and hundreds of wives - the rambling kasbah still features beautiful painted ceilings from the 17th century. These days, the labyrinthine dungeons are out of bounds but much of the rest of the complex has been used as a movie backdrop. In fact, Ouarzazate is Morrocco's Mollywood and the surrounding countryside with its sand dunes, palm-filled valleys, snow-capped mountains and fairy-tale like castles and kasbahs has stood in for Tibet, Rome, Egypt and Somalia in numerous movies, including Lawrence of Arabia, Jewel of the Nile and Gladiator.

Many of the blockbusters were filmed at nearby Ait Benhaddou, the biggest and grandest mud-brick kasbah of them all. These days the World Heritage-listed hill-top fortress is home to just eight families. The fortified city hasn't changed much since it was built in the 11th century and most former inhabitants prefer to live in the more modern village across the river.

On the day we visit they have been left stranded by the rising floodwaters of the usually dry river at its base, now a raging torrent of fast-moving red mud uncrossable by the donkeys that usually ferry locals and visitors.

We climb ever upwards as we cross the High Atlas on the breathtaking mountain road called the Tizi n'Tichka, which winds its way in a series of hairpin bends, blind corners and switchback turns to more than 2260 metres above sea level - making it the highest mountain pass in Morocco - before descending to cross the plains towards the hustle and bustle and open-air theatre of Marrakesh.

It may just be a trick of the light but time really does seem to move slowly on the Road of 1000 Kasbahs.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/where-the-kasbahs-star-20100708-101b8.html
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Austerity plan jolts Moroccans.
2010-07-15 By Siham Ali for Magharebia

The Moroccan government announces austerity measures to stave off the type of economic difficulties faced by neighbouring countries. Concern is mounting in Morocco about the nation's economic health, following an announcement that the government will adopt an austerity policy in 2011.

Economy and Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar announced to Parliament on Monday (July 12th) that due to unstable global economic conditions, Morocco must stay vigilant and implement measures that include controlling the wage bill and reducing government spending on telephony, fuel, travel, and vehicle and building procurement.

Compensation fund spending will also be controlled, with a ceiling of 2% of GDP set on the budget. Fund expenditures are set to reach 25 billion dirhams by then end of 2010, up from a projected 14 billion. "This indicates the need to move forward with reforms by targeting the least privileged levels of society, so as to avoid unnecessary expenditures," Mezouar said.

MP Abdelaziz Hafidi Abdelaziz said the austerity measures must not affect certain projects, particularly in the area of social policy. He also called on the government to open up a national debate as soon as possible about the compensation fund, in order to implement long-awaited reforms without harming the interests of the middle and underprivileged classes.

According to economist Mohamed Bachaoui, an austerity policy is necessary, as 2011 will bring higher oil prices, rising costs for raw materials and more uncertainty in European markets. "The government can't touch the investment budget, because that would compromise the development of the national economy and their major projects policy," he said. "Similarly, it will be difficult to change much in fiscal policy. So the choice has to be to change the way the administration works."

Public employees expressed fears immediately after the government's announcement. "Are they going to remove performance bonuses and travel costs just when civil servants really need them?" asked S.R., a civil servant. "Until everything's been fully explained, we'll remain sceptical. I believe the government should start by reducing ministers' salaries and the benefits they enjoy. Middle- and lower-level civil servants must be protected, because their financial resources are very limited."

Hicham T. said it was time to reduce unnecessary spending by the administration and the benefits programmes enjoyed by top civil servants. "With strict control on its operating budget, the state will be able to save a lot of money," he told Magharebia. "Charity begins at home; ministers must be the first to set a good example in times of crisis." http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/07/15/feature-02
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On the road to Morocco.
BY DIANNA WRAY

Kelly Combs, 21, will board a plane next week with only one suitcase and a backpack in hand. He’ll be headed for the African country of Morocco as a recipient of the $25,000 Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship.

At the Wednesday meeting of the Rotary Club, Combs walked to the front of the room to accept a proclamation from Mayor Larry Melton, declaring the day to be "Kelly Combs, Rotary Ambassador Scholar Day."

His parents, Dean and Dianne Combs, beamed proudly as Melton read the proclamation. "We’re very pleased and very happy to see him get this opportunity. We really appreciate the Rotary Club for doing this," Dean Combs said.

The younger Combs flushed with embarrassment as members of the Odessa Rotary Club cheered him, but his smile filled half of his face. It’s taken a long time to get to this point. Two years ago, Combs came across a flier posted at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, advertising the Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship Program. The program, founded in 1947, was designed to further international understanding between people from different cultures.

Combs, who graduated from UTPB with degrees in political science and leadership, had already missed the application deadline for the year, but he started working right then to apply for the following year, he said. He contacted Rotary Club member R.C. Paulette about the program, and, after meeting, Paulette agreed to sponsor the younger Combs for the program. "It enables us to go out as ambassadors to teach people about our country, our state and our city, and to learn about their culture at the same time," Paulette said. Combs is the first person from Odessa to win the scholarship, Paulette said.

Applicants design their own programs. The only requirements are that they go to a different country to study and that they act as ambassadors of Rotary while living abroad. When applying, they get to choose places they would want to go and study. After a lot of research, Combs chose schools in three places including Turkey and Ghana, with Morocco topping the list.

"It’s just a really old culture, and it’s been around forever. They speak Arabic there. It just seemed really interesting," he said, his eyes lighting up. It’s a long way from his schooling at Permian, Bowie and Reagan Elementary in Odessa.

After arriving in Morocco, Combs will spend the first month in Rabat, the capital city, learning French. Then he’ll attend Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, a small town in the mountains of Morocco, working toward a master’s degree in international diplomacy.

The scholarship requires Combs to do community service projects and to hold presentations about where he comes from for the people of Morocco. He said he’s excited to get the chance to see a new place and to represent West Texas to the rest of the world. "I’m going to get to see a new place in the world and learn about a new culture and new experiences totally different from the life I’ve led. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can’t believe it’s happening to me," Combs said.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/size-49984-small-span.html
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