It happened in Tiznit

The main square of Tiznit is not the prettiest place in Tiznit, but it is the place where the tourists eventually gravitate to. There are coffee houses where one can sit down, drink NosNos, eat Pizza and watch the farmers coming to town from the outlying villages. I made this drawing the first time i found myself in this town. This trip Bert and me were there again. Bert had to get a Moroccan sim card for one of her phones. After scoring the Sim card and buying a pile of paperbacks with feminist content, we sat down for a coffee. I don't think a market is held in the square anymore. Neither will there be military parades. The building at its short side where one sees the picture of the ruling king was probably the garrison in the days of the French. It still looks pretty official. The square is now used as carpark. The farmers coming in park their 4wheel drives there. Some of the cars are top of the range BMW and Merc SUVs. We were looking out on the preposterous posteriors of two of those, when a poor looking, old woman in dusty wraps sat down in the shade between them. Something about the way she squatted down alerted me. I said to Bert:'I'm sure when she gets up, she will leave a mess on the pavement.' The good thing about wearing all those garments is that nobody notices when you are taking a piss or shit in public. After a while the old woman got up and walked away. A puddle was dripping down from the side of the expensive Merc onto the dust. Point taken. A little later she came back. She was in the company of a farmer, probably her son. The man zipped open the BMW SUV and got in behind the wheel. Herself stepped nimbly over her puddle and got into the passenger's seat. Poor? my ass and of course she hadn't dirtied her own car.

Tiznit

Is Tiznit on the N1 or is the N1 there because of Tiznit? It must be the latter because the French occupiers made Tiznit into a garrison town. It's famous for its silver smiths. That means that in the past it had a Jewish population. But those thing don't make an attractive town. Better drive through quickly in search of better places to visit or stay. But for some strange reason I always got stuck even though the same old man on the same old moped is on the look out for any car with foreign or car hire license plate. He attaches himself to the car like a leach as soon as we enter the walled city by its main entrance. He will offer his assistance and when we decline he will annoy us till he's bought off. By then we are on the main square ready to park the car. But Tiznit also is the centre of a whole province or 'departement' and has a great covered food market and in the outskirts a real Supermarkt. It turned out, Tiznit isn't as bad as the first impression warrants. During our discovery trip to Iligh Tiznit became a very important link and even a fun place to come to. It also has a comfortable Riad with a roomy and leafy garden inside the city walls. What sold me was the kiosk on the main square that not only sold cigarettes, bottled water, biscuits, batteries and other important items, but also books in French and Arabic. There was a whole collection of fiction and non-fiction on the 'leaden years', the years of cruel oppression during the reign of Hassan II. There were also books in French on Feminism and books with a feminist intent. The books in French were published by Fennec Press a Moroccan publisher of quality paperbacks for a very good price.

Agadir for Wifi

Agadir is actually not such a bad place considering that it is rather nondescript. At least it has lots of four star hotels where there is good Wifi reception. Agadir is more than just a beach resort town. It is the economic hub of the Souss valley. It has a university, many young people and a 'modern' outlook. It also has a seizable ex-pat population. It does not have a 'heart'. Probably due to the fact that it was flattened by the earthquake of 1960. When I first started traveling south of the High Atlas mountains I didn't want to spent any time there. I had seen some of the sun scorched, pink fleshed, crowds in shorts and halters in Marrakesh and I thought I would die of embarrassment if I saw an entire Moroccan town filled with them. Mind you I find it uncomfortable too if I see them in the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam. The first time I stayed in Agadir I was in the cheapest hotel closest to the airport: the Ibis Hotel on the eastern bypass as far as possible from the beach and surf fun. It was everything you would expect of that kind of hotel: cheap, minimal and characterless. But its position next to an Afriqia filling station and cafetaria where all the local MacGirls came to study made it bearable. However when Heleen Toet had to catch the plane in Agadir, Bert refused the Ibis. We stayed instead in the Tildi hotel close to the beach. It turned out to be a great choice. Most resort hotels also have noisy indoor entertainment of some sort. The Tildi hasn't. Instead it has a beautifully appointed garden and pool. It is a big but quiet hotel for holiday making families and couples from everywhere. It also has a helpful staff and functioning Wifi. Not only that but it is easy to find being close to the main drag that connects the important dots on the way out of town. That means that it is also a great place to come to when one needs to meet or connect with people. On top of that it turned out that Agadir has plenty of places with a typical Moroccan ambiance whether 'modern' or 'traditional'. And that is why one is in Morocco in the first place, isn't it?

What happened in Taroudant

There are some cities in Morocco that took a while for me to find likable. Among them Agadir, Tiznit and Taroudant. To me they are still not cities to spent a lot of time in, but they did grow on me. And in each I have found something that I can do when I'm there. Taroudant of course is famous for its city wall of reddish clay. Indeed a very impressive piece of work. It is the reason some call it 'Little Marrakesh'. When I was there with Heleen Toet we stayed in a 'Riad' of which the boundary was made up by part of that wall. With Heleen we stayed often in exotic and often luxurious locations. We were also driven around in a private car with chauffeur. When we were in Taroudant Khalid the driver had time off. We took taxis instead. For lunch we went to a place Bert and I had been to before. The restaurant is upstairs and on street level is a coffee house. The place is run by father and son. After lunch when we were out in the street again Heleen discovered that she had her passport no longer on her. We went back inside the restaurant but didn't find the passport. Father and son then took over the search with Bertje. While they were discussing the possibilities and retracing the steps we had taken in Taroudant. Heleen and I sat down on chairs in front of the coffee house. Heleen wasn't particular worried or upset it seemed. I thought it better not to interfere. Across the street two girls were passing the time of day. I started to sketch them. Heleen was looking on. The search party decided that the passport must have been left behind in one of the taxis we had taken. The son said that if the taxi driver had found it he most likely would have brought it to the police post next to the central taxi station. Cynical as always it seemed far fetched to me. However Bert and Heleen went off to the police post. Indeed The passport was there waiting for Heleen. Although outwardly unmoved by the episode the sketch had taken on a special meaning for Heleen.

Heleen Toet

In the fall of 2016 I spent 5 weeks in Morocco two of them in the company of 92 year old Heleen Toet. The Flying Hippo Bert's travel agency maybe floundering most of the time, but it boasts some very faithful clients. Heleen Toet is one of them. Heleen was born a very long time ago in 1924 into a comfortable middleclass Dutch family. Her father was an engineer with the Department of Water Management the most important state body in Holland. Her grandfather was a Jewish cobbler who converted to Protestantism and married a shiksa. Heleen has clearly inherited his trait of going against the grain. At eighteen she left home to work as an au-pair or nanny, not in Paris or London, but Sweden. She came back to Holland to the conformity of marriage and motherhood. She lived the elite life of a KLM pilot's wife and had two daughters. I don't know if in the end she divorced him or became a widow, but in the revolutionary sixties when she was already well into her forties, she radicalized. Her 'thing' became communal living or in Dutch 'Woongroepen'. In my youth I shared a house with friends and I squatted but I never knew there was a whole movement of people who were consciously experimenting with different forms of living apart and together. They formed associations, had newsletters, held countrywide meetings and organized worldwide conferences. Heleen was and to a much lesser extent still is, in the thick of it. Anyway it was a delight to travel in her company. She wasn't just good company she was also an intrepid traveller and quite unfazed when things didn't go according to plan. Like when she stupidly missed her plane or left her passport in a taxi. Maybe it was because of her devil may care attitude that everything came out alright and was filed as an interesting experience. She bought one of my sketches and that way made it possible for me to have my own font made.

On the Atlantic Coast

In the sixties and seventies the Atlantic Coast south of Agadir became very popular with back-packing 'Hippies'. They used the 'Hippy Trail' and came via Marrakesh. Most just visited for a day or a week, but some stayed on attracted by the easy life style of the friendly Amazigh. It was an easy life for the youths from Western countries. There were lovely beaches, sun, cheap food and plenty of blow. However when too many came to stay and their lazy beach life started to interfere with the work of the local fishermen the latter revolted. It came to an altercation in Sidi Ifni during which the fishermen cleared the beach. However the Western beach lovers never really went away. The style changed. Forty years onwards the whole coast is being developed. Everywhere the French are building gated holiday villages for the masses and villas for the rich. However villages like Mirleft and Sidi Ifni still ooze a bit of that old hippy ambiance. One of the great perks of the region still is: eating fresh fish straight from the surf on to the BBQ and then to the plate. Everywhere there are flimsy huts in the sand above the flood-line that provide this delicacy.

Tifnit

To the north of Sidi Rabat right between the mouth of the rivers Souss and Massa is the coastal village of Tifnit. I think that here in 670 AD the Arab conqueror Uqba Ibn Nafi reached the Atlantic Ocean. Here he rode his horse into the waves and cried out in frustration: 'If the sea hadn't stopped me I would have continued to conquer all heathen kingdoms west in the name of God.' He turned his horse instead. It took another century before Moulay Idriss finally got the Amazigh to adopt Islam. Although only a few years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed Arab conquerors had brought Islam as far a Uzbekistan in the east, the Magreb or Wild West wasn't as easily converted. It was only during the reign of the Ummayades that Uqba Ibn Nafi succeeded to cross the north of Africa. He did it by doing something no Arab warrior had done before. To solve the problem of army logistics in a hostile area he founded a city. It was about halfway between Jerusalem and the Atlantic Ocean: Kairouan. No wonder that this particular campaign is steeped in myths and stories. The exact spot where he had his 'Talatta, Talatta' moment has never been established. It was somewhere south of Agadir. Why not Tifnit?

Building in Sidi Rabat

When the long narrow stretch of coastal lands became national park there were people living there. There were several families that had claims to land and there were two villages: not only Sidi Rabat but also Tifnit. Some fishermen have built houses inside the face of the cliffs. The population of the endangered Black Ibis has stabilized thanks to the ban on grazing in the National Park. But a new challenge has emerged: illegal housebuilding. It will be hard to stem the tide and bring to a standstill the growing number of dwellings that infringe on the building rules. The culprit is beach tourism. The locals want to profit too from the development of the Atlantic coast south of Agadir. Maybe new built houses are not allowed, but in Sidi Rabat the original homes were not more than huts. Those huts are now transformed into modern villas. In 2014 when I was here with Bert and friends we stayed in one such villa. It was big and luxuriously appointed. From my bedroom I saw renovation work being carried out on a former fisherman's hut. Coming back almost all the huts are renovated. Sidi Rabat is an amazing place to stay if you don't mind it that the village is out of the way and the lack of touristic amenities.

In the Souss Massa National Park

Once upon a time the animals that now only live in the nature reserves of Sub Saharan Africa lived also in Morocco. After the ice age, when the ice retreated northwards the sands of the Sahara drove a wedge between the north of Africa and the rest. The habitats of the flora and fauna were also cut in two. At the time of the first Phoenician inroads into Morocco the country must have been like Paradise. Humans and animals must have mingled freely in the green stretch between the sea, Atlas mountains and the Sahara sands. The Phoenicians were succeeded by their kinsmen the Cartages who ruled the whole of north Africa. Hannibal was the most famous of the Cartages. He crossed the Alps with North African elephants in a bid to defeat Rome. However Rome in the end destroyed Cartage. After that the Romans colonized North Africa. Morocco became the purveyor of 'wild' animals to fight the gladiators in the Roman arenas. They were shipped over by shiploads of hundreds. The Romans must have done a lot of harm to the indigenous wild life, but it took till the beginning of the 20th century to really end the diversity of African fauna in the country. Not even the ostrich remained. In the Souss Massa National Park I could sketch these gazelles.

The Black Ibis

The stretch of Atlantic coast between mouth of the rivers Souss and Massa is since 1991 a National Park. It is an area of sand dunes, grazed steppes, sandy beaches, cliffs interspersed with wetlands. The steppes are now reserved for the gazelle and the Black Ibis. The Black Ibis used to be plentiful between Morocco and Turkey, but has become endangered due to urbanization and over grazing. The area is home to three of the four breeding grounds of the bird. It is now 95% of its population in the entire world. The Black Ibis breeds in the holes in the cliffs where they are safe from predators. Since the foundation of the National Park grazing on the lands behind the cliffs became prohibited for sheep and goats. This ensured that the population of the Black Ibis has now more or less stabilized. In the fall of 2014 when we were staying in Sidi Rabat Abdelrahman took us for a trip along the top of the cliffs between Sidi Rabat and Tifnit. There is no road but the ground is flat and firm. We could take the car. Driving slowly and carefully we came upon a flock of about twenty Black Ibises right at the edge of the cliffs. They were very close! We immediately stopped and I got my sketchbook out. We kept very quiet and I could make this drawing without disturbing them. It took about half an hour to get the birds on paper. All the while they acted as if we weren't there at all. Later when I read up on the Black Ibis on the Internet I saw posts by ornithologists who were proud to have seen a couple of birds from afar. Then I realized how lucky I had been.

On the Atlantic coast

Leaving Al Massira Airport in our rented Hyunda i10 darkness had descended. Fortunately Bert and I knew the road well and Bert also has an App on her phone that works as a GPS. It doesn't have every location in Morocco as we discovered later, but it promised that it would bring us to Sidi Rabat. If you have driven the road once you can always retrace it. It's that easy. All you have to do at every roundabout is follow the signs for Tiznit on the N1. There are a great many roundabouts before we turn off for Sidi Rabat and that turn off is not at a roundabout. We left Agadir to the right. After driving through a string of merrily lit up villages we finally came to the dark countryside and eventually the turn-off. The road goes in a straight line through the flat agricultural land. In a small village at the t-junction we take a right and after 8km we are in Sidi Rabat where the road ends in the sand of the beach. Sidi Rabat is situated in what is the Souss Massa National Park home of the Black Ibis. It's there where Abdelrahman has a B&B. I don't know if it is his entirely. I think he co-owns it with Germans. Foreigners can not 'own' anything outright. That is the prerogative of the people whose family originate from here. But whether it is because of the Germans or Abdelrahman the B&B in the dunes is excellent. Before bed Abdelrahman makes us a Omelette Berbère in a tagine. We fall asleep with the sound of the ocean in our ears. In the morning we wake up to the sound of twittering birds. We walk in the cool sea air to the beach where I make the first sketch of this trip.

Agadir

When we booked out trip to Iligh we had decided that we wouldn't spend the first night in Agadir, but coming from the airport directly turn south and stay right on the Atlantic Ocean at Les Dunes B&B in Sidi Rabat. Agadir is an ginormous conglomeration that stretches forever more south and eastwards. To the south it melted together with the towns of El Melloul and Inezgane two busy and chaotic hubs. Agadir was founded by the Portugese and became an important port under the name of Santa Cruz Do Cabo De Gué. But I'm sure there was already a settlement there before the Portugese came. In 1541 the Moroccan Saadi dynasty took over and build a stronghold on top of the mountain that still dominates the town: hence Agadir. By the middle of the 17th century when Michiel De Ruyter used the port, it was still known among traders as Santa Cruz. I still remember that when I was at secondary school in the winter of 1960 an earthquake completely destroyed the town with the loss 15.000 people. It was the first time I heard of Agadir. However the stronghold on the mountain didn't suffer. The inscription in Dutch 'Vreest God ende Eert den Kooning 1746' (Fear God and honour the King 1746) is still there. Nowadays a rather similar inscription in Arabic graces the side of the mountain: for God, King and Country'. Agadir is the biggest holiday town of Morocco. Actually it's not bad for a town mostly dedicated to sun worshipping, scantily dressed, white, heathen, foreigners with a lust for alcohol.It also services the agricultural output of the Souss plain.

Car rental

Al Massira is the airport of Agadir and the airport closest to Iligh our destination. As soon as we were through the entry formalities Bert went to the Avis desk while I was waiting for my suitcase. Ibrahim of Avis remembered us well after a little prod Bert gave him. He is a very cheerful and friendly person. I had ordered a Hyunda i10 a car in the cheapest A bracket. I had already had a notification from Avis that the car was waiting for us. That boded well. Often enough the cars in the A bracket aren't available on demand and you are obliged to take an up scale car which means extra costs. On the Internet the car was priced at about Euro 350,- for 10 days. Ibrahim showed us what was included. I decided I wanted to get full cover insurance. That was a whopping Euro 300,- extra. But hey, how about when somebody backs into the rental at a carpark and we aren't there? It had happened to me before. It was already getting dark outside by the time the formalities were done with and Ibrahim was bringing us to the Hyunda. The call to prayer sounded over the carpark and cats were hunting between the car tires. A thick layer of sand covered the new looking four door hatchback. Four doors for such a small car! The boot held after some fitting and shoving our two small suitcases and nothing else. The Hyunda proved to be a delightful little car. Excellent for the crowded streets in the towns, comfortable on the narrow and bumpy country roads and strong enough for the steep mountainsides of the Anti Atlas.

Thoughts on Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

In the weeks before Bert and I left for Iligh I had been thinking about what had made Iligh special. As I wrote before: Bert thought it special because its architecture has a Sub Saharan outlook. What else made it special? That it was an important hub in the Trans Saharan trade? Iligh of course was only one of a number of hubs in that part of Morocco. Maybe it was because of its legendary connection with Michiel De Ruyter and Queen Victoria? Or was this heap of melted adobe buildings with some restored casbahs special because Paul Pascon had directed his focus on it? Why wouldn't it be special because of that 16th century Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa who settled there between the local Berbers? On the internet are a number of stories about the saint. Sidi Ahamed Ou Moussa was born in a village in the Anti Atlas somewhere between Ifrane and Iligh. Apparently he had been a good for nothing youth who was put on the straight and narrow after meeting and helping an old man who then expressed his thankfulness. He became a Sufi. According to the stories Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa travelled around a lot and met with different adventures that were remarkably like what Odysseus encountered on his travels. In the end he settled in the valley where is now Iligh among people who were strange to him. His sainthood drew pelgrims and students. But that was not always appreciated by the original population. Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa hadn't completely forgotten his past as an unruly youth and if necessary knew how to use his fists. It was his son Ali who was not content with spiritual authority and sought material power. He established the chiefdom. I did a quick search on the internet for other Sufi saints whose offspring started a secular dynasty and found only one: a small short lived kingdom in Konya at the time before Ottoman rule covered the whole of Turkey. In Morocco a lot of the powerful ruling dynasties were started by the offspring of men with religious fervor. But they weren't Sufi saints. I thought that made Iligh pretty special.

The short life of Paul Pascon

Paul Pascon was born in 1932 in Fez. His family originally came from France but had lived for a couple of generations in Morocco. When Morocco became independent in 1956, he chose to become a Moroccan citizen. Pascon became an important sociologist embracing new methods of research and introducing them in Morocco. His work inspired a whole generation of Moroccan sociologists and historians with his post-colonial take on his studies about rural society. In 1965 he visited for the first time Iligh and the neighboring Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa. Through his studies of old documents he was able to throw a new light on how pre-colonial society in that part of Morocco (Tazerwalt) worked. It was not a strictly tribal society but a society made up out of different groups formed around the descendants of the Sufi saint and its 'symbolic capital'. His studies of the society in the Tazerwalt was so sympathetic to the existing make up, history and population that his memory is still cherished. The sympathy was mutual. Also the participating students and other scientists participated in it. Unfortunately his life was clouded by misfortunes. During a camping trip his two sons disappeared never to be found again. Pascon himself died on a road trip in Mauritania in 1985. Not everybody believed it was an accident. Rumors abound.

Paul Pascon and Iligh

Bert had contacted the person behind the Dutch name that was also on the cover of the study 'La Maison D'Iligh' by Paul Pascon. He sent the book to her by return mail. She read it in one sitting. She couldn't put it down. Although it was a historic and sociological study it read like a detective novel according to her. I read the prologue. In it Paul Pascon writes how he visits Iligh for the first time to find two elderly brothers with the ear glued to a radio listening to the BBC world service. Although Iligh itself seems at the end of the world in the middle of nowhere, the brothers are very aware of what happened in this world. Pascon is surprised by the importance Iligh used to have as a hub on the Trans Sahara route and the riches of its 350 year history. The brothers take to him and in the end let him into some of the old archives. He decides to study them. When he finished his study he knows he has just scratched on the surface. There will be much more to discover. But that never happens. Paul Pascon dies in Mauritania in an unfortunate car accident. After the first interest the publication of 'La Maison D'Iligh' generated Iligh slowly sank back again into nothingness. While in the next thirty years the area immediately around and south of Agadir developed into a popular holiday destination, Iligh hardly ever saw visitors. It literally sunk into the earth as I could see on Google Earth.

Plan B

On the plane from Amsterdam to Agadir we discussed Plan B although the day before our departure Bert had had contact with Aicha. Her message was: my Dad is looking forward seeing you and be waiting for you on the 27th. Still Bert had stood at a closed door too often to be absolutely sure. If things didn't pan out at least we would have ten days to spent in Southern Morocco. We had a rented car and could go anywhere. We could laze on the beach. We could go further south to TanTan. Drive along the south side of the Anti Atlas. See the western part of the Draa Valley. Discover areas we both hadn't visited before. We could 'do' the surrounding country of Iligh. I could draw everything but the inside of the stronghold. Plan B almost looked better than Plan A. Because what was Plan A? Aicha wanted two things: the preservation of the old manuscripts and making Iligh known to the world. Bert was curious. Bert wanted to know what was in there. Was it really what Aicha had suggested it was? And in how bad a state was it in? That was her main motive. Me, on the other hand, I wanted to make sketches that I could turn into a graphic novel. The first I would make in 25 years. The plane circled over the agricultural lands of the plain of the Souss river. We had arrived! When we stepped outside onto the tarmac we were overwhelmed by that deliciously heady smell of warm, slightly damp air, Ozon and exhaust fumes. It reminded me in a good way of Ahwaz, Iran where I had lived and worked. It felt like a good omen. Everything would be wonderful. Whatever!

Gaining confidence

I watched a show on Belgian TV in which the Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang was asked if being able to play a piano concerto faultlessly is possible because of hard work or talent. He conceded that talent and inclination were of course prerequisite conditions. He flexed his fingers and said: 'I just practiced for three hours on the piano and my fingers feel really soft and nimble now.' He pinched his rather pudgy fingers tenderly. 'This feeling in my fingers gives me confidence. I can play anything now without any difficulty.' He went on to say that it was like digging for gold and finding a vein. The harder you dig, the deeper you can penetrate into the vein till a whole mountain of gold opens up for you. I know that this is the same for me. The work I did in the last couple of years as a Urban Sketcher under all circumstances and anywhere at all has made it able for me to feel confident. I know I can sustain a production of drawings that is enough to compose a graphic novel from. The only doubt I had was access. I didn't want to have to spent ten days scratching the surface not being able to get to any vein at all. On the plane to Agadir we discussed a plan B.

Having a good laugh about it all

The situation surrounding our trip to Iligh, what Bert and I would find there and what we would do with it was so confusing we had a good laugh about it. We decided that whatever would happen, we would take it in our stride. Whatever bridge we'd encounter, we'd cross. Whatever we would find on the other side we would take on and not despair. In short: this was it. This was the story. This we would shape into a graphic novel. Well, supposedly one had to know beforehand what the purpose of the effort was and which part of the public we were aiming for. Initially the Jewish History Museum of Amsterdam had been interested in it as a possible part of educational projects they were doing to create more understanding of Jewish history among Muslim school-age children of Moroccan descent. Many kids with a Moroccan background believed that current Israeli politics was what being Jewish was all about (to say it politely). Anyway with this radical change of plan, we didn't know anymore who our public was and if we would have any at all. And the designers of my website whom I told our plans to also pressed the importance on me of making it fit tablet and smartphone. I did a little try-out before I left: it looks as confusedly scattered as I felt.

Doubt is creeping in

In the two months between booking the plane tickets and hiring a car for our trip to Iligh and actually traveling doubt started to creep in. At least with me. Bert and I rarely spoke. I was busy in Polranny, Ireland and she was busy in Amsterdam. I knew she tried a couple of times without success to get Aicha on the phone or by Messenger. We knew already that she had been ill for quite a while in the winter. But what was ailing her we didn't know. What were we going to find when we stood at the door in Iligh? It was all one big uncertainty. Letterlijk & Figuurlijk the book by Joost Pollmann about the different forms a graphic story could take had had a profound influence on me. Did it still make sense to draw a straightforward historical story set into the traditional framework? I had visions of me researching endlessly the original props surrounding Michiel De Ruyter on his trips to Iligh. And how about the detailing of the court of Aboudmiaa? It would take years for the graphic story to get finished. On top of that I always had said myself that a 'historical' movie said more about the time it was made in than the time it was supposed to be in. Wouldn't it be the same for a graphic history? And what about making an entire graphic novel on the computer instead of on paper? Was Photoshop really the right software for it or did I have to resort to Illustrator or Indesign? Did I have to take a subscription out for the software and do a course in how to use it? Did I really want to spend time and money on those things? When Bert and I got together again three weeks before the departure we didn't know anything anymore. Wasn't the whole rigmarole surrounding our involvement with Iligh a story in itself?

Bert's first visit to Iligh

At the end of 2014 Bert is in Amsterdam planning the itinerary for the next group she'll be taking to Morocco. She writes: 'I'm looking for interesting places to visit between Tafroute and Agadir. The name Tazerwalt pops up and on a photo on the internet I see for the first time the thrilling architecture of the stronghold of Iligh. There are also references of more Jews that move from Ifrane this time to Iligh. Surprise, surprise: in connection with Iligh the name of a seventeenth century Dutch admiral of the fleet Michiel De Ruyter is mentioned in a book about Morocco in Dutch I've just bought written by De Mas and Obdeijn. According to them Iligh is in that same century destroyed with the loss of everything. Obviously a new Iligh has arisen because when I visit Iligh in March 2015 the stronghold is there. Nobody home. It is Friday afternoon. Everything seems asleep. A village woman whom I speak to mentioned a name in connection with the stronghold: Aboudmiaa. Apparently he is not here but in Tiznit. In the Summer of 2015 I discover articles about the region Iligh is in: Tazerwalt or Tazeroualt. A second name pops up Paul Pascon a Moroccon researcher. He has written a book called 'Maison D'Iligh'. But I can't find the book anywhere. But 'Maison d'Iligh' does have a Facebook page. I contact the name attached: Aicha Aboudmiaa. We set a date to meet during my next trip with a group. But when we arrive the door stays closed. Eventually I meet Aicha in the Oases Tulip Hotel in Agadir.'

Bert's story

Bert Hogervorst has her own story about how she got interested in Iligh. She writes: 2013 I was struck by the prominent presence of Jewish people in the history of Morocco. I find it fascinating. Not only in the big cities but also in the south of Morocco where I visit the Ferkla Oases with Peti. The local museum gives a very elaborate presentation of Jewish life in the past. More Jewish traces in the Valley of the Draa river. The connection is with caravans and trade. I see old photographs on the Internet thanks to local man Kacimi. 2014 I'm in south Morocco in the fall with Peti and others. With some difficulty we reach Ifrane and visit there the synagogue. Ifrane has a surprisingly old Jewish settlement. There is also a Jewish cemetery next to the Oued (river). Later I find a reference about Ifrane in a blog of a Jewish American. The settlement is pre-Islamic. On the same trip we visit the Mellah of Tahala. After much asking around we find a very kind and knowledgeable young man. There is a small cemetery. The Souk is well preserved and many more buildings. It is a small ghost-town. We are shown a register of the Jewish families that used to live here. The young man brings the Souk and the Jewish community to life with stories from when he was a kid and the stories from his father and great-parents. These five Jewish families came to Tahala from Ifrane. He tells about the loss and sadness in the small town of Tahala when the Jews left. Apparently it were the Rabbys that left first. According to him there was a library with documents. Where was this? He waves vaguely towards the mountains. Would he have meant Iligh, a place I hadn't heard of at the time?

The birth of an idea

On November first 2016 Bert and I flew back from Agadir to Amsterdam. The plane was full and not having a seat booked we were placed far apart from each other. It is a four hour plus flight so I had plenty of time to think over our meeting with Aicha. Yes, I would like to come back to Iligh to make drawings especially if Bert could come along. Of course we would have to pay our own fare, but if we could stay there and we could do our own cooking that would make things a lot cheaper. Bert could do research into those mysterious documents and I could draw. And then I got the idea for a graphic story. We could make the history of Iligh come alive if we told the story from the point of view of Aicha's father as a young boy. Start at the time that the film crew from the Alliance Israélite came to Iligh to film in the Mellah. That must have been a life changing experience for a ten year old. Him being the crown prince having to witness that the spotlights were turned instead on the scruffy kids from the narrow dusty alleys. That would make a great intro. From there the story could revert back to the time that Michiel De Ruyter did business with the first Aboudamiaa trying to sell Dutch hats and sides of smoked pork to a Muslim ruler. When the plane landed I thought I had it all in the bag. Bert wasn't adverse to the idea, but wanted first to see if there was any interest in the Netherlands for a story on a little chiefdom on the edge of the Sahara.

Meeting Aicha Aboudamiaa in Agadir

On the last day of October 2016 Bert Hogervorst and I met up with Aicha Aboudamiaa in the Ibis Hotel in Agadir where we were staying prior to our flight back to Amsterdam. Bert and Aicha welcomed each other as old friends. It was the first time I met Aicha. Still Bert didn't know much about her. She is a daughter of Imam Aboudamiaa the descendant of the first ruler of Iligh: Ali Aboudamiaa. Bert had told me that the name in Arabic meant literally 'Father of Tears'. One could only speculate what it stood for. Aisha didn't have the answer there on that day in Agadir. Aisha told us that her father wanted to get international interest in Iligh and its history. Aisha was supposed to do that, but she has a full-time job in Agadir and not the time nor the connection. Could we help? I thought: I don't think so! Bert told her about our visit to the Jewish museum in Casablanca and our talk with Zhor Rehilhil director of the museum. Bert told Aicha that she should get in touch with Zhor. The museum is very well endowed and Iligh obviously isn't. But Zhor wants proof of the many documents in Hebrew that are supposedly in Iligh. Aisha tells us that her father doesn't want any of the documents to leave Iligh not even for preservation and documentation purposes. He has been in contact with the government minister in charge with the national heritage. He is afraid that once the historical papers are in Rabat, he will never get them back. Her father wants to get the international focus on Iligh in the hope that that way enough money will be generated to get the documents saved without interference from up high. After excuses that nobody had been in Iligh to open the door for us when we were there, I showed Aicha the drawings I had made there. The one of the Zaouia and the two in the part of the stronghold that is open to the public. She likes them very much and asked point blank if I want to come back a.s.a.p. and make more drawings.

Balancing text and image

I was going to split up the book I had written about Morocco and divide it in different graphic stories. First I was going to do a try out. I would take Tangiers. Tangiers was easy I thought. There I had made many sketches in one neighborhood the Bab Teatro district. It is full of stories both contemporary and historic that are also interesting for people who would never go to Morocco. I wrote the text. It was too much really compared to the drawings I had. Next question could I make extra sketches from photographs? Was that 'cheating'? Rework portraits of historic people featured in the story and taken from the internet? Did I have to draw the story? Or could I just stick to the random sketches I had made of the neighborhood? Could the images be totally separate from the content? Wouldn't it become an illustrated book instead of a graphic story? Did it matter either way? I didn't find a solution. In the end I decided to go back to Tangiers to make more sketches in the Bab Teatro district and to have them correspond with the content of the text. The graphic story about Iligh Bert Hogervorst and I were going to make was by that time already on the cards. It turned out that on the next trip to Morocco I could combine a visit to Iligh with a stay in Tangiers. Bert and I would go to Iligh before we would go to Tangiers where Bert was going to meet a group she would take on a train trip through Morocco. I would stay on in Tangiers for another week to make more sketches.The distance between Iligh and Tangiers is enormous, but with the use of busses and trains it could be done with ease in two days. It turned out we did it in 24 hours.

Just trying things out

After the 'cardiac event' and the graphic story I made out of the sketches I made when in ICU I felt I really wanted to do graphic stories again. But I didn't want to go back to the traditional ways of a template of frames and pen and paper. I didn't see how to do it from scratch on the computer. But did I really needed to start from scratch? Didn't I have oodles of sketches that I had made on hoof? Why not give them a platform too? I started some try outs. While recuperating from the heart attack I had made some sketches of the place where fate had struck. Around that time the subject of a meeting of the Achill Writers Group of which I was a member was 'The Visitor'. My colleague Dan MacDonald had written a poem about death as the visitor. I asked him if I could use his poem for a graphic story. He agreed. His poem is about him confronting death while I made a parallel story in pictures of death stalking me. I did have to rework the existing sketches to a great extend though and I had to make two additional drawings. In the meantime I was wondering what to do with the Morocco book that was ready to go to the book designer. The fact that it would be twice the size of the Syria book sort of put me off. Why not break the book up into different parts and making the parts into graphic stories? If I did that, did I have enough drawings?

From analogue to digital and back again

By the time I got into professional cartooning I already had a Mac, a flatbad scanner and knew how to use Quark Express for DTP. Life changed completely in the late nineties with the introduction of Adobe Photoshop and the Wacom tablet. As a cartoonist and illustrator working solely for clients I rarely did comics. If I was asked to make graphics for a manual I still did it in pen and paper. All the afterwork I did in Photoshop using an A3 Cintiq Wacom tablet. By the time I was ready for a career change hardly any of my work got printed. Everything was digital and increasingly 'made for' tablets and smartphones. I noticed that most of the artists in my acquaintance who made graphic stories still made them for the printing press. Although most of the work in creating the graphic story was done on the computer. Initially I did the same. When by 2013 I seriously got into Urban Sketching I reverted totally to pen and paper. By that time there was already excellent software available for making quick high quality sketches on an Ipad or any such tablet or even a smartphone. Maybe it was for sentimental reasons, or even financial reasons or just plain laziness that I went back to the sketch block. I don't know. Although in prioritizing my expenses an Ipad never featured large. In any case the sketches I had made in Syria were made into a proper book that was published in 2015. The beautiful lay-out had been done by a colleague that knew how to use Illustrator and Indesign something I never took the time to master. In 2015 I was also preparing to put the sketches I had made in Morocco into a book and I had already written 98% of the text. But something was nagging.

From paper to tablet

Graphic Stories were designed and executed on paper. First came the story (typed or handwritten). Then paper was cut to the size of twice the page. With a pencil a template of frames was composed. Next the action and text was drawn also in pencil. Changes could be made by applying an eraser. When satisfied with the pencil sketch the pen and ink came out. In my case a pen that I dipped in a pot of Indian Ink. If a mistake was made white paint was painted over the black ink to blot out the offending bit. If the mistake was of major proportions the scissor came out to cut away the botched up frame(s). The new frames were then drawn on a separate piece of paper and fitted in the hole with the use of glue. Colour was added on a different piece of paper that was put over the original drawing that was put on a light box. Grey shading came from prefab sticky screens of dots. The same applied for stick-on fonts. A screen with dots of the desired density was put over the drawing (on the light box) and cut to size with a surgical knife and then stuck on. It had all to do with how the end product was processed at the print works. It was labour intensive to say the least. If you think I learned these procedures at the college of art, you're wrong. Graphic stories were not seen as art and therefore not taught. I taught myself after I left school, talking to friends and by browsing through shops specialized in artists materials. This way of making graphic stories came to an end with the introduction of the personal computer.

The little matter of lettering

The written text in a graphic story is often as important as the images. It is expected that the graphic artist also has a good hand in writing out the letters of the text. Not me! I was never any good at lettering. I was so bad that the publisher of 'Moord in Iran', my graphic novel set in Iran decided to hire somebody to write the text into the balloons and frames. Unfortunately his style of lettering didn't correspond with my style of drawing at all. It was a hard lesson. No more pussy-footing. From then on I taught myself to write well. In the 20 or so years I worked as a cartoonist I did a lot of lettering. It became second nature to me. However after I was 65 I noticed that my lettering became more shaky. All my life my hand had had these funny little spastic jerks and trembles. For and outsider it often looked horrifying to see me DIY-ing. On paper I had never trouble drawing a straight clear line. But after a certain age the jerks and trembles also started to appear on paper. In particular in my lettering. As a cartoonist I would draw straight on paper, scan it and if necessary work it out in Photoshop on the computer. Actually more and more of the actual work was done on the computer. Why not have a font made of my own lettering? There is software you can download for free that makes a Font out of your writing. You print out a template and draw in with a marker the alphabet. Not me. I couldn't get my jerky, shaky hand to write into the small frames on the template. The letters were all over the place. I had to hire somebody to make a font out of my lettering. It didn't come cheap, but it was just in the nick of time.

The Life of Alie Snoek

In the late eighties I approached the poet/writer/magazinist Sjuul Deckwitz with the request to 'do' something together. It resulted in the graphic novel 'Alie Snoek mijn leven' (The life of Alie Snoek). Originally it appeared page by page in the magazine of Dutch comic/actor/play-write Paul Haenen. Later it was collected into a book. Ali Snoek was the first project I did together with somebody else. Later I would work together with another cartoon artist but never with a poet/writer. Because Sjuul Deckwitz at the time had a very distinct and original style of writing, I left the initiative to her. She wrote the text and I would make it into a graphic story. She communicated with Paul Haenen about when the next deadline was, wrote a little story about something in the life of Alie Snoek and dropped it into my mailslot. We never communicated about either the graphics or the story. It turned out to be gas! I thought Sjuul's stories absolutely brilliant. And she liked my renditions. I never found it difficult to turn her text into images. After the first page (on view here The Death) I never kept to the literal story. I let the drawings tell a parallel story to the text. From the beginning I left the text intact and wrote it under the frames in full. No Balloons. No frames within the action frames. It worked! Of course it wasn't a totally new way of telling a graphic story but to me it was. However it was also the last graphic story I did. I got very much into the business of cartoon making working for clients and earning good money. I had nor the time or the inclination to continue with 'free work'. Until I went to Syria and started 'Urban Sketching'. But that is another story.

How I made a Graphic Story

Tintin by Hergé has always been the seminal graphic story for me. There was Tintin and then came the rest. Tintin has everything: a good well-written story, interesting story lines, lovable characters, hilarious jokes, beautiful graphics and lots of tongue in cheek action. However the most amazing thing about Tintin was that although it was written in French by a Wallon and set in Belgium, it translated without any problems into totally different languages and still be culturally recognizable. How strongly unique Hergé's touch had been became evident when Steven Spielberg made a animated film of the graphic story: it became just an other thirteen in a dozen action movie. Tintin deeply influenced me. That was how a graphic story was made and should be made. Of course the medium had evolved, but the basics stayed the same. Between 4 to 9 frames on a standing page of around A4. The page was read from the top to the bottom from left to right. All the action happened inside the frames. The dialogues if there were any, were put into so called Balloons. Additional description got their own frames inside the action frame. Sometimes one picture could be cut into more than one frame while the action progressed. Ideally the story should have a bit of a cliff-hanger at the bottom of the page to encourage further reading. The storyline could also be for a book or movie. It had a hero (or in rare cases heroine), a villain and supporting actors and actresses. It had a problem, mystery or challenge that the protagonist had to solve and bring to a good end. It had two plot points when the hero had an epiphany that would put the story into a different gear. And that was how I made my graphic stories.

Letterlijk & Figuurlijk by Joost Pollmann

When Bert came to Ireland in the summer of 2017 she brought a Dutch language book with her: Letterlijk & Figuurlijk (Literally & Figuratively) by Joost Pollmann. It was the precursor of 'De Strip Professor'(The Professor of Comics)a bundle of 50 essays on different aspects of 'telling a story in images'. In that anthology Joost also included a few lines on me and my 'Urban Sketching' in particular the sketches I made while in ICU after a cardiac event. When I got home from hospital I reworked them on the computer into a graphic story using Photoshop software. Curiously enough Joost had headed the essay in which I featured: 'After Photoshop'. The book had been an eye-opener for me. I had used the medium of comics on and off to tell a story since I was 13 years old and over the years had published three graphic novels. It turned out: I didn't know a thing about the medium. In 'Literally & Figuratively' Joost puts the medium under the microscope. What is a comics/graphic story? Is it literature, is it art, is it film or is it nothing more than 'The Funnies'? Joost concludes: it is a separate medium, should be treated as such and should have its own academic platform. Which it hasn't even though it exists since the invention of the printing press. The title refers to the dual aspect that is so unique to a comics/graphic story: the written word and the imaging. It also refers to how the story is told. Is it told in a literal manner keeping close to a story line as for instance in literature? Or is it a bit like art: an expression in images and maybe words of an idea or emotion or just some vehicle for the use of materials and skills? In Dutch the title also refers to lettering. An important aspect of the medium as it is usually an integral part of the image and isn't conceived or printed separately. Anyway the book shook up my idea of how the graphic story about Iligh could take shape.

Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in Iligh

A curious Dutch connection to Ali Aboudmiaa the first ruler of Iligh was Michiel de Ruyter. Before he became a very successful admiral to the Dutch fleet in the second half of the seventeenth century, Michiel Adriaanzoon de Ruyter was a trader. He traded around the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, from Ireland to the West Indies to Morocco in his ship 'The Salamander'. In a period of 10 years he regularly visited Iligh to trade and if finances permitted bought captured Dutch seamen free from slavery. On his first journey he landed in Salé and with a Jewish guide and interpreter made the journey south on horseback. On later ventures he would land in 'Santa Cruz'now Agadir. Michiel de Ruyter was an avid diary keeper and his exploits are well documented. Although the diaries concerning this period in his life have not been published as far as I could find out. However in a rather extensive biography of his life there are long quotations about his travels to Iligh and his relationship with what he calls the 'Sant'. Thanks to his victories against a.o. the British fleet and to a contemporary biography he became a folk hero in the Netherlands. When I was a child we learned a song about him being a young boy in Vlissingen, Zeeland and dressed in a 'blue checkered tunic' turning the ropes onto the wheels while looking out yearningly over the sea. A didactic hint at doing lots of shite work patiently before being able to do what you really wanted. The drawing is made from the first portrait painted of Michiel de Ruyter at the time of his last travels to Iligh 1655

The Jewish inhabitants of Iligh

Early on in her research into Iligh Bert discovered that from its beginnings Iligh had been a welcome place to settle and a safe haven for Jews. The son of the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa, its first ruler, Ali Aboudmiaa, invited Jews from Ifrane to come and settle in the new chiefdom. Ifrane at the time was an important hub in the trans Sahara trade and it had already a flourishing Jewish population in the second century. The invitation was a timely one. The ruler of the moment in Ifrane inflicted terrible tortures and deaths on the Jews. The Jews were very important to the power and wealth of Iligh. In return they got security,land to build on and gardens and most importantly they got a cemetery. Apparently there are still many unpublished documents in Hebrew hidden in boxes in Iligh. In 1953 a curious little propaganda film was shot in Iligh by the Alliance Israélite Universelle. A film crew came to Iligh settled in the Mellah and filmed the story of a young teacher in shorts(!) who was going to teach the local Jewish boys away from their unhealthy rural ways and into the healthy ways of modern times. His teachings were mainly expressed in gymnastic exercises. 'Il seront des Hommes' (they will be men) was the rather threatening title. The drawing I made after a contemporary photograph shows a local man and a man from the filmcrew.

The Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

The history of Iligh had been illustrious. By the middle of the seventeenth century it had evolved from the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa who had settled there in the late sixteenth century to a rich and powerful chiefdom that stretched from Ifrane in the south to Agadir in the north . Around 1670 it had irked the Alawite rulers of Morocco sufficiently to have a force send out to them. Iligh was destroyed and its inhabitants were either taken as slaves, killed or fled into the mountains of the Anti Atlas. However fifty years later one of the descendants of the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa came back and build up the chiefdom from the ruins. From the middle of the eighteenth century till the very end of the nineteenth century Iligh was back as an important link in the chain of the trans Sahara trade.It had ambassadors to all the great powers of the time. With Britain in particular it did a lot of trade. Iligh's largest export product being Oistrich feathers. However changing geopolitics and evolving fashion wear brought Iligh down. By the time the French in 1912 took over Morocco as a protectorate Iligh's fortunes had already declined dramatically. But the pull of the Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa is unabated. Every year in August tens of thousand of people gather around the sanctuary for the yearly Moussem or pelgrimage. When Bert, Heleen Toet and I visited in October 2016, it was a quiet midweek day. There was no Souk and most of the regular little shops and workshops were closed for siesta.

Itinerary for the next visit to Iligh

Bert and I are still very unsure about situations we would meet in Iligh, things to do and which direction the Graphic Story should take. There are a number of angles we could pursue. Should we tell about the general history of the chiefdom, concentrate on the Dutch angle with Michiel De Ruyter, or focus on the Jewish history of the place and the possible connection between the Sephardic community in Amsterdam and Iligh in the 17th century? And then there was the format of the Graphics itself. Which way image and text could be used together? We had the idea that Bert would do the interviews and view the documents and that I would make as many drawings as possible. But we didn't even know how welcome we were. Aisha had indicated that we would be welcome to stay in the compound where her parents lived. But would they be there? We decided to rent a car so we would be independent. At least we would be able to travel between the nearest town Tiznit and Iligh every day. In case we had to take a hotel. But most important of all: we had a lot of fun making up the itinerary.

Discoverings about Iligh

The Graphic Story about 'Maison d'Iligh' and its history got as provisonal title: The Tears of Iligh. Bert started on the research more or less right away. Earlier she had discovered that two names kept popping up: the Dutch 17th century admiral Michiel Adriaanzoon De Ruyter and the French Moroccan social-geologist Paul Pascon. Paul Pascon had written extensively about Maison d'Iligh. But the book wasn't in print nor was it second hand available. Aicha Aboudmiaa told Bert in Agadir that among the participants of the research project of Paul Pascon was a Dutchman, but she had forgotten his name. Then Bert finds in a footnote somewhere on the Internet that the co-writer of Pascon's book on Iligh H. Van der Wüsten was. With a name like that he must be the Dutchman. She contacts him. He is pleasantly surprised and send her immediately a copy of 'La Maison d'Iligh'. For a learned non-fiction book it was riveting reading. Herman van der Wüsten also gives Bert the name of another Dutchman who was part of the group that helped Paul Pascon: Paolo De Mas. De Mas was also co-author of a history book about Morocco. Bert also contacted him, but he didn't seem to have reacted to her email. In July 2017 Bert and I contacted Aicha. Yes, her father would be glad to see us. We booked our next trip to Iligh for September 26 to October 6.

My first visit to Iligh

In October 2016 Bert and I called on Maison d’Iligh. Although contact was made beforehand again nobody was there and again we finally met up with Aisha in Agadir. Bert asked her for proof of the chest. Aisha promised a photograph. Then the problem was revealed: her father had contacted the ministry for culture in Rabat, but they only want to make the documents and books safe for the future if they can stay in the national library. That was a bit too much to ask of the last descendant of the illustrious House of Iligh. Moulay Imam Aboudmiaah wants his daughter to put Maison d’Iligh on the international stage. It is his only hope to safeguard the place, treasures and history from oblivion. But Aisha has a busy job and it is not an easy task to honor the wishes of her father and save Iligh. After looking at the sketches I made in Iligh and the Zaouia she asked me to come back and made a book of drawings of Iligh. Preferably soon. However there are no funds. In the plane going back to The Netherlands Bert and I decided that a booklet with drawings of Iligh wouldn’t do. Bert had already researched a bit the history of the small kingdom at the edge of the Sahara  that dates back to the seventeenth century and its Sufi saint founder. She had also discovered the interesting connection Michiel de Ruyter had with the place and a tentative link to the Sephardic community in Holland. It wasn’t difficult to come to the conclusion that only a graphic novel about Iligh and its history would do. 

First sight of Iligh

Bert Hogervorst and I are making a Graphic Story about an small former chiefdom in the south of Morocco. This is how we got into it: Bert visited the stronghold of Iligh on the edge of the Sahara desert for the first time in March 2015. She owns a company for private travel called Flying Hippo and was there with a small group. Bert was charmed by the architecture of the old buildings of 'Maison d'Iligh'. They looked more Sub-Saharan and less traditional Moroccan. There was a sign that said: Museum. She knocked on the nearest door. Nobody was at home. A few days later in Agadir she met up with Aisha Aboudmiaah the daughter of the owner of Maison d’Iligh. Aisha told Bert about a chest containing 1500 documents in Arabic and Hebrew in addition to a library of 3000 old books. All of which are in grave danger of  falling apart with age and neglect. At her return in Amsterdam Bert contacted the Jewish Historical Museum. They had organised in 2009 an important photo exhibit  about Jewish life in Southren Morocco. She also contacted the director of the Musée du Judaisme Marocain in Casablanca: Zhor Rehilhil. But Zhor reacted doubtful: is there proof the chest really exists? In October Bert and I visited her. It was an interesting and informative meeting, but we didn’t succeed then to bring her in contact with Aisha.