A nomad woman's work is never done
This Berber woman lives behind the great dunes of the Erg Chebbi located in southeastern Morocco. She is a widow with several children and I have visited her many times over the years. Since the loss of her husband she has not wandered with her small flock of goats. She built a small adobe or mud hut for herself that is adjacent to her large wool tent that she keeps as well. The family sleeps in the hut and it is here that she welcomes guests with the traditional glass of tea. Rarely does she have the mint that the Moroccans prize because she cannot get to the market to buy it should she have the money to do so.
Here she weaves a new strip of cloth to repair her tent. She has shorn her sheep, spun the wool and now weaves it.
The Berber men of Merzouga who earn their living taking tourists to the desert bring their groups to her tent for tea. She earns a bit of extra money this way. The last time I visited her she came out of her hut proudly wearing a white frilly apron that a tourist had sent to her. She has no chairs and tables yet, but just wait!
The bare feet of a nomad woman are used to hold the yarn as she unravels an old sweater in order to weave the yarn into her rug. These are the simplest type of rugs. They look like shag rugs with a design chosen by the weaver.
Baking bread is a daily chore for Berber women
The next photo is of a woman who lives in the village of Merzouga and she is baking her bread in the communal oven near her home. Bread is baked each day. It is a wholemeal flat bread and is delicious fresh from the oven. It dries out quickly even though it is kept wrapped in a woolen cloth inside a special bread basket. Day old bread is fed to the animals.
Below a woman prepares couscous in the kitchen of a home in Merzouga. The house is adobe and has no running water although they do have electricity and television. They fetch the water in jerrycans which they fill at a well in the village.
There is no furniture in the home. Heavy blankets and straw mats are used as rugs and pillows line the walls of the “salon”. You can either lean your pillow against the wall as a backrest, or lie down and place it under your elbow which supports your head. Normally, women do not use a pillow… just the men. Women are most likely popping up and down fetching things or they could be preparing the tea. If the guests are all male, the man of the house prepares the tea and the woman is not present except to bring things as needed for the guest’s comfort.
A nomad family (below) that lives in a tent in the High Atlas. We stopped to visit and the women hustled to make tea for us. You can see the tea tray at the bottom of the photo. I think Morocco is the most hospitable culture I have visited. You are always invited in, no matter if it is a home in town, a tent in the desert or a cave in the mountains.
A woman in her adobe hut in the desert south of Merzouga. She asked to have her photo taken with her son. She didn’t ask for a copy, just to have her photo taken was all she wanted. You can see at the bottom of the photo, she has her tea makings ready. The large round container holds sugar, something no Moroccan can be without.
My Berber friend told me that a husband was considered to be very “gentle” if he did not require his wife to fetch fuel for the cookfire. The women must set out with their donkey and stay in the desert searching for dried vegetation to burn. There are no trees.
The desert is denuded when the women chop down the plants for firewood.