Morocco Day16: Ouarzazate
Ouarzazate is Africa’s film capital boasting two film studios, Atlas Studios and CLA Studios. Thanks to its otherworldly landscapes and good light, it has hosted countless international film productions. Some of the blockbusters filmed here include Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, The Mummy, Kingdom of Heaven, Game of Thrones (scenes for the city of Yunkai), Black Hawk Down, and Babel.
Ouarzazate is also home to the Noor Solar Complex, one of the world’s largest concentrated solar power plants, producing renewable energy for much of Morocco. We couldn't see the array, but were able to see the reflexion on the central tower from about 20 miles away.
About 20 miles northwest of Ouarzazate, on the old caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakech, is the town of Ait Ben Hadou. It is a well preserved ksar with mudbrick towers rising above a desert riverbed, backed by the High Atlas Mountains.
We met our local guide, Mohammed, here. He was quite a character; with no formal education he speaks 5 languages (well) and is a wealth of knowledge about the history and culture of the area, as well as about movies shot here. He has been an extra in several movies and has met several famous actors, He claims he looks more like Denzel Washington than Denzel Washington.
He introduced us to a local painter from whom we all brought original watercolors.
He uses a technique that requires heat to activate some of the pigments bringing his paintings to life.
From here, we next visited a local family where we learned about their life and culture and also joined them for a cous cous lunch.
Our host was quite the entrepreneur. He was an olive farmer, building contractor, and miller. Most of the locals brought their wheat to an old fashion flour mill (mule powered grindstone) miles away. When the village was finally electrified, he bought a small electric mill and began grinding wheat for the village fior a small fee per kilogram.
Within the house was a small yard that housed a cow, goats and chickens.
We all helped to feed the livestock.
The interior of the house was quite large, though pretty sparse
Medicine Chest
Outdoor Clay Oven for Baking Bread
Delicious bread with homemade olive oil
Off to the olive orchard
After returning from the olive orchard, we had our hand in local construction techniques. The houses are made from adobe (mud, hay and dung) by placing the mixture into rectangular molds one at a time.
Rich was a natural!
Back in the house, our hostess demonstrated how she made cous-cous by hand, mixing flour and water and pressing the dough through a strainer.
Cous-cous is only eaten on Fridays (Moslem Shabbat) because the preparation requires 3 hours of cooking (not to mention the fabrication time). It takes Jeri about 10 minutes to prepare it at home. Here, the cous-cous is steamed over boiling water and vegetables which eventually are placed over the cooked cous-cous with meat (lamb or chicken)
The cous-cous was good, but I'm not sure the extra 2 hour and 50 minutes for steaming made that big a difference.
We left the family and drove into the new city of Ait Ben Hadou to visit a women's cooperative. This cooperative is supported by the Grand Circle Foundation (GCF) which was established in 1992 (as part of the Lewis Family Foundation) to give back to communities visited by travel programs. Their mission is : “Changing people’s lives. One village, one school, one person at a time.” They support a broad array of programs globally – including education, community development, renewable energy, historic preservation. Here, the GCF funds a local group: the Imik Simik Women’s Association for Rural Development, located just outside the Ksar of Aït Benhaddou. The Association was established around 2012 by ~15 women; by recent years it has grown to ~43 women.
The primary goal of the cooperative is skills training for women(sewing, reading, cooking, crafts) in a region that is socially “male-dominated”. They have an active bakery that sells to bake shops, and guest houses in the area, and are about to open their own coffee shop. This has been possible because of funds provided by OAT for a
new women’s centre at Imik Simik which was completed at end of 2021.
We got to play dress-up in some of the garments produced here.
The women (and one male member of our group, Steven) also had their hands hennaed.
Dave helping out Carolyn tying her shoes
We concluded our day with a ride back to Ooarzazate. Tomorrow, off to Marrakesh.
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