The girls of Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa

After the visit to the Zaouia the Friends of Iligh were taken to a square that lies beyond the Soek. It has the municipal building and an extremely old Argan tree. Apparently it was already there when the Saint chose this spot to settle in. Or maybe it was because of this tree that he settled here. Who knows. Argan trees are everywhere in this region, but strangely enough not in this valley. The Argan fruit was ripening. The fruit looks like an olive, but when ripening it also has the same color. But at this stage it looks more like a mother's tit. Anyway along side the tree stood a large trailer. It was a driving school classroom. With the Medical Caravan it is one of the amenities Aisha has established in her role as political representative. The school was for girls and women to teach them the 3Rs and simple handicrafts. In front of the caravan was a market stall where the village women sold what they had made. A lot of the traditional handicrafts that women used to carry out have either disappeared or have been commercialized. And this is a way to give them something outside the duties at home and farm. The Friends of Iligh bought a lot of trinkets. At that moment lessons were finished in the trailer. Out came a group of teen girls. It quickly became evident what they had been taught: cutting and styling hair. At least three of them had sat model too and they didn't hide it. The next day I saw them again, but they still had not hidden their stylish 'coup'.

The graveyard of the Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

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.

On the way to Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

The next day March 23 the Friends of Iligh went first to Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa. We left in a caravan of at least three cars. Just like in Tiznit the day before there were a number of hangers-on whom nobody knew who they were. The 'Friends' were spread out over two cars and one little bus. The five people of the NIMAR had a big 4WD, Herman and Wies Opdeijn drove a hired Duster and we were in the little bus. Mohamed Ouhaou was also there and a colleague of his. We took the old road that goes from Tiznit to Tafroute. The Anti Atlas that runs from east to west sort of peters out towards the south when it gets close to the ocean. Stretching out from Agadir southwards is a great big flat basin. Where the basin meets the Anti Atlas the landscape changes abruptly. You notice it whatever road you take to Iligh. The road is straight and flat till suddenly it rises while twisting and turning. The vegetation also changes. In the basin flourish Savannah type plants. As soon as the road hits the mountains the plants change. It had rained copiously in the month of March and it was green and lush. Everywhere were flowers. Yellow linseed flowers were in bloom everywhere and the wheat was coming up. It was in stark contrast to the parched outlook the landscape had presented in September. Just before the market village of Tirmigh is the turn off for Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa. From the turn off it is about 20km to Iligh. The first time Paul Pascon came this way he walked the distance and the road wasn't paved yet. In Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa we were welcomed by Moulay Imam Aboudmiaa, the Mayor of the village and the two spiritual leaders of the Zaouia. Imam came in a brand new Peugeot sedan and was in the company of Bouchari the older half brother of Hamdi, but I didn't know that then. The group was taken up the steps towards the Zaouia for a guide tour. I stayed behind to sketch the butcher who had just skinned a goat. While I was sketching the head was discarded, the heart given to a cat and the intestines were taken out and the insides washed.

After supper in the Tiznit Hotel

In the afternoon of the first day of the 'Reunion des Amis d'Iligh' the group was taken to meet Tiznit's famous resident architect Salima Nagji. I went back to the Tiznit Hotel to take a rest in my room. Although the hotel is situated on the corner of the busiest roundabout in Tiznit I didn't hear the traffic in my room at all. The rooms of the Friends of Iligh were all situated around the landscaped and shaded court with at its centre the swimming pool. A typical three star hotel the Tiznit had an alcohol license and a bar where the local drunks and as far as I could see prostitutes gathered. Right across from the window plus balcony of my room an old gent sat during the day in the shade of a date palm. I soon discovered that he had a great view of what went on in the rooms. I slept till evening and joined the group for supper in the hotel's dining room. Of the experts who met Aisha in Leyde in October only one was in Tiznit: Herman Obdeijn. He was accompanied by his wife Louise (Wies). Poor Harry Stroomer who had wanted to come had had a minor stroke on the day before coming here. Fortunately it wasn't crippling and the prospects for recovery were good. It brought home the fact that it was 5 to 12. Harry's right hand man Mohammed Saadouni was with us. And a good thing it was. During the day there had been a lot of local luminaries that had tagged on to the group, but back at the hotel the group had thinned out considerably. Aisha, Annie and Bert were still staying at Fatima's. After supper the 5 strong delegation of the NIMAR had also gone to the rooms. Left were from left to right Paul Dahan of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, he was accompanied by his Belgian wife and 4 year old son, Herman Obdeijn, retired diplomat and Morocco specialist, Wies Obdeijn, retired medical doctor, Mohammed Saadouni and Abdallah Al Moutassir the history professor with whom Aisha was doing her phd. Paul Dahan, who cherishes his Moroccan passport, was a lively fellow who got a discussion going and who held some outspoken views that he didn't suppress. Around him it was never dull.

Introduction to Tiznit

After the friends of iligh were officially welcomed by the governor we were shown around town. We saw the Mellah, the old Jewish artisan souk, now lovingly restored by Tiznit's architect Salima Nagji. Tiznit is an old oase with and ancient well and an historic mosque of which the minaret is unfortunately very tastelessly renovated. In the late nineteenth century it was walled and became a garrison town. Not in the last place because of the threatening power of Iligh. The French extended the barracks. By that time the power of Iligh was waning and the French used the garrison to suppress the Tazerwalt region. Tiznit also has a resident Sufi saint to whose brand new sanctuary and shrine we were taken. Our guide was Mohamed Ouhamou, the cultural officer of the city. His French wasn't great but the people who spoke Moroccan Arabic or Tashelhyt translated. For some unclear reason he attached himself to me. I suspected he thought I was going to desecrate the Sufi sanctuary, but I was only on the look out for a sketching opportunity. When you are with a group that is sort of aimlessly milling about it is very difficult to find a good moment. Anyway next we went to lunch. We drove a little way out of town in the direction of Guelmim till we came to a Afriquia petrol station. At the back was a great big resting area with an excellent traditional Moroccan family restaurant. I absolutely love those places, but when you are a non-Moroccan tourist, you rarely find them. No doubt we were taken there because of the female element in our group. As on cue the men gathered around one table and the women around the other. It was only remarked upon with the dessert and our guide gamely choose to switch to the women's table. Then I made this sketch of M Ouhamou.

The Friends of Iligh and the Governor of Tiznit

Once in Tiznit I became aware of the enormous achievement that Aisha and Bert had brought about for the comfort of the Friends of Iligh. They had persuaded the Directorate of the Province of Tiznit to rent the Tiznit Hotel for our group for three nights including breakfast and supper. Not only that but the Directorate also provided transport and lunch. They had taken care of the design and printed posters and a folder with relevant information. Of course the Aboudmiaas were once a powerful family in the region and their history is closely tied to that of the Province, but still... Bert is a total stranger without any connections whatsoever. She is not sponsored or endorsed by a government, university or organization. I'm totally impressed! After checking in and dropping off the luggage in the hotel, we were taken to the palace of the Governor to be formally introduced. That happened in one of those great reception rooms that you see all over the Islamic world: seats along the walls, little tables close to the seats and a great big empty space in the middle. The Governor who was accompanied by the mayor of the town and a secretary general was affable and vaguely interested. I didn't get the impression that he exactly knew what he was in for. But his interest became peaked when he realized who was in attendance. In the meantime servants were offering a variety of drinks and sweets. I'm usually all for it, but now I felt that it was more for the intent than the partaking so I did take a bit but left it on the plate. After the introduction Aisha gave a short presentation. The Governor then mumbled some politenesses and that was it.

Back in Tiznit

Aisha's friend Abdellatif Jhilal picked me up from the Tildi Hotel at exactly 10 o'clock. He drove me in an upmarket gleaming black Volkswagen sedan in around two hours to Tiznit. The Tildi is situated in a narrow quiet street that runs down hill to the beach. Just before the beach it is cut short by the main traffic artery that runs north-south parallel to the coast. This wide street took us first to Inzegane past the huge Marijane supermarket, the bus station and the Grand Taxi station. Next it crosses the Sous River that gives the region its name. March should be the time of the year that abundant water is passing under the bridge. It wasn't bad actually. Morocco also had had a miserable and cold month just like in Ireland. Next we drove through Ait Melloul. In this town is the turn off for the N1 to Tiznit and beyond. The other route goes to the airport. It was the route I had come that morning. By that time I knew that Abdellatif was courtious, somewhere in his forties, unmarried and from Taza. He taught theoretical mathematics at Agadir university and had been taken once by Aisha to Iligh to meet her family. After having established his antecedents without giving mine away we could proceed over the N1. First through the string of villages from one roundabout to another and than on to the new fast road. We passed the turn off to Sidi Rabat on the right and hit an empty stretch. Abdellatif had the address where we would meet the others and stay: the Tiznit Hotel. I knew where it was: on the major roundabout. Who would have thought that Tiznit would become such an important part of my Moroccan experiences? At the end of my stay I would finally get the chance to make a sketch of this roundabout from another hotel: the Idou Hotel. On the sketch you look from the west side of the five exit roundabout towards the east. The road to the east is towards Tafroute and is the traditional way to get to Iligh. From left to right is the N1 north to Agadir and south to Guelmim and beyond. That is the new or alternative way to Iligh. The two roads towards the west of which only one is visible go into the town.