Written by Hafssa Ait Tabamoute - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Morocco

During the first two days after moving to my site, "Tiwichi," I participated in putting the last touches on a carpet one my host family’s neighbor was making. Since then, I knew that I just love the way these women and girls are collaborating and helping each other to weave a very beautiful carpet, with such beautiful patterns, and in a very intelligent way with very simple, yet, important tools.
           
The thing about carpet weaving, is that two or three girls can sit in front of the equipment to design the pattern they agreed on, but the most interesting thing is that two or three more girls can make it from behind the equipment, which makes them finish it in a very little time.

It has been a week now that my host sister decided that she wants to make a carpet. I, unfortunately, wasn’t there from the first day to see how they organized and put together the carpet’s equipment, but I was there to hear all these traditions, beliefs, and bride-related stories about making carpets.

I learned to make it from both sides, but for my host sister’s carpet I was sitting from behind the carpet in order to be able to count the number of knots of the flower pattern I was designing at the left of the carpet and trying to do the same flower with the same number of knots and colors. The flower was made by green, red, white, and blue colors, so I was counting how many knots for each color and trying to do the same thing.
 
It might seem easy, but believe me, it is not, because you need to stay really concentrated to avoid mixing colors or losing the pattern’s shape.
 
We were in the third line making knots of the flower when one of the girls working from the front of the carpet asked me to give her some water. I handed her the glass between where the carpet ends in the right and the wooden pole that holds the carpet yarns, and I was surprised when she said: ‘’no, don’t pass it in between it will bring me bad luck at my wedding.’’

​I have been talking with the girls about some others traditions or stories related to the carpet weaving, and Soukaina, my host sister, told me that when a girl gets married she is not allowed to touch or to make any carpet until making ‘’a7erchich oumlil.’’ "A7erchich oumlil’’ is also made with the carpet materials, but with only white yarn. Only after that can she participate in helping the other girls or women weave or she can start making one for herself.

Moreover, when someone comes while the girls are working and he or she wants to shake their hands saying ‘’hi’’ from the top of the carpet material, the girls who are not married refuse. They think that if they do it they would get married to one of the douars (little villages) that are situated near to the mountains. Actually, girls do not prefer to get married to those places.

I used to watch women and girls, back in the village of my father when I was a little girl, how they made the carpet, but I never paid attention to the materials it is made with, which shows how our grandparents used such smart methods and techniques to create simple, yet beautiful daily life items.

Written by Hafssa Ait Tabamoute - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Morocco

The 10th of April was the day I moved to my site Tiwichi in M’Zouda commune, 75km from Marrakech city. After meeting with the authorities of the commune, I went with the treasurer of ‘’Al Farah’’ association, whose name is Mohamed Ait Hamou, who hosted me in his house for the first night. He presented me to his wife and his daughter. They are now my host family.
 
The people of Tiwichi village work in the fields, the men sow and the women help them in the period of harvesting. Some women and men, who get paid, work in the farms that market olives, wheat, watermelon, beans, pumpkin and other vegetables. The only farm that exports its products is the farm of orange.

This year, people don’t go to their own fields, because there wasn’t much rain, so what they sow doesn’t produce much, except for the big farms that get water from their own wells that they dug.
 
What surprised me the most in my site, unlike in the other villages in M’Zouda commune, the girls here can hang out in the village, go out for a picnic, visit each other, spend the night in each other houses… So in the first weeks when I arrived I was always going out with them, talking to them about the problems they have, getting to know their traditions and culture which are somehow different from mine… Even if I am a Tamazight as them, there are so many differences between us in term of dialect and traditions.

 ‘’Akhamal’’ is a special skirt the girls and the women must wear whenever and wherever they go out. Even for weddings, they wear the traditional dress, but with ‘’Akhamal’’ on the top of it. After spending a week with them, I also started wearing even in the meeting I am having with the teacher at school and with the association members. I actually liked that skirt.
What I love the most about my site is the so beautiful sunset they have. I just cannot keep taking enough pictures of it when I am out with the girls for a walk around the site.
Well, pictures will definitely better explain what I am talking about :)