I was determined to take every sketching opportunity I could get. I had made only one sketch in Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa thus far. If a whole chapter in the graphic story was going to be devoted to this Sufi saint I had to get to work. The village named after the saint is a small but rather prosperous place. It is also a governmental seat of some sort for the immediate region. There is a police post and a Caïd. As Paul Pascon already remarked that because of the saint settling on the spot it attracted people from all over and was therefore not connected to any particular tribe. Half way up the stairs to the Zaouia I was met by an old man leaning heavily on a stick hardly able to come down the steps. On one of the turning platforms of the stairs he stopped, turned east, leaned his elbows on the parapet and started to pray. I sat down and drew the scene. It said some important things. The old man was one of the elderly that find shelter on the last stage of life in the Zaouia. With the visiting group of o.a. unbelievers he didn't feel free to pray inside the building. His legs were so crippled by old age he could not kneel anymore and get up by himself. That's why he prayed standing up. If one of the strictest rules of Islam, how to pray, can be adapted to necessity than Islam is not strictly cast in concrete. Of course in all religions it is what believers/followers do with it and make of it. The graveyard in the background had a rather newish wall built around it, but the old crumbling walls hadn't been demolished. One can clearly see the devisions. I thought it reflected the expansion of the graveyard, but that isn't wholly true. The lowest part is strictly reserved for the Aboudmiaa family.
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