VALLEY OF THE ROSES: Kelaat M'gouna, Land of Kasbahs and Aromatic Roses | Extrait ARTE/2019

Описание: Discoving the deep Morocco and the pre-Sahara that begins as soon as you cross the Atlas to the south. It is not sand for the most part – more a wasteland of rock and scrub, but it is powerfully impressive. There is, too, an irresistible sense of wonder as you catch a first glimpse of the great southern river valleys: the Drâa, Dadès, Todra and Ziz. Lush belts of date-palm oases, scattered with the fabulous mud architecture of kasbahs and fortified ksour villages (ighrem), these are the old caravan routes that reached back to Marrakesh and Fez and out across the Sahara to Tinbuktu, Niger and old Sudan, carrying gold, slaves and salt well into the nineteenth century.

Alongside the road to the sandy desert, you pass by multiple villages such as Imider between the Dades valley and toudgha valley, these villages (or ighreman in Berber) used to be essentially a fortified tribal village, They are massive structures, built – in the absence of other available materials – out of the mud-clay pisé of the riverbanks. A unique and probably indigenous development of the Berber populations, they are often monumental in design and fabulously decorated, with bold geometric patterns incised into exterior walls and slanted towers. Seasonal rains wash off some of the mud, so the buildings require constant upkeep.

These oases down here are traditionally measured by the number of their palms, rather than in terms of area or population – and they still play a vital role for their communities. Families continue to toil over individual plots that have been handed down through the generations, growing apricots, pomegranates, figs and almonds among the palms, and tomatoes, carrots, barley and mint in the shaded earth below.

Irrigation methods have barely changed in centuries, either. The fields are watered by a combination of communal wells and khettara, (Targwa) underground channels . Water is funnelled off to each plot in turn, with every family receiving the same amount of time to replenish its crop.