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.

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.