{"id":3018,"date":"2018-12-03T03:38:27","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T03:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2019-01-04T04:29:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T04:29:52","slug":"searching-for-hada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/?p=3018","title":{"rendered":"Searching for Hada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saturday, October 6, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohssine Nachit is a professor of intercultural communication and dialogue at Moulay Ismail University, in Meknes.  The university was founded in 1989, although schools of sciences, arts, and humanities had existed as part of a university in Fez since 1982. His wife runs the riad where I am staying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I contacted him by e-mail before the trip, saying that I wanted to learn something about Berber culture and perhaps visit some Berber towns or villages. This was before I realized that such a request was like contacting an American professor and saying that you wanted to learn about white people, or Southerners, or people with European ancestry. People of Berber blood and Berber culture suffuses Morocco; their influence is as ubiquitous as that of Arabs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But don\u2019t call them Berbers around the professor.  He is one of the people who consider it a disparaging term. The correct one is Amazigh, which he and others here pronounce \u201cAmazeer.\u201d It means \u201cfree people\u201d in the Amazigh language. The word \u201cBerber,\u201d however, is universally used in guidebooks and on the web, which suggests to me that Nachit\u2019s view is a minority one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are places in the country that are predominantly Berber, the towns of Azrou and Khemisset south of Meknes among them. Many Berbers are farmers and strongly identified with the land. They also have one tradition not shared with Arab Moroccans\u2014dancing in which men and women have physical contact.  The dance is called \u201cahidousse.\u201d It predates the arrival of Islam and is not frowned upon,\u201d the professor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Berbers were the original inhabitants of Morocco (and much of the Mahgreb), which was later settled by Jews, Romans, Arabs, and Europeans. At various times many Berbers were Jewish or Christian; now all are Muslim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weaving of both rugs and cloth is a Berber activity important for both economic and cultural reasons. It is done almost exclusively by women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be an Amazigh woman is also to be an Amazigh weaver,\u201d Nachit said. \u201cYou are valorized by your culture and society when you weave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is changing, however. Today, young Berber women prefer to study or go abroad and not stay home and weave, he said. The weaving tradition has remained more intact in isolated rural villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regions have their own design traditions. Only in Azrou and areas near it is blue used as a dominant color. A group called the Gerwain is among the few that uses pink. One of the more distinctive designs are made by a group of Berbers called the Beni Ouarain, high in the Middle Atlas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beni Ouarain rugs are popular with high-end interior designers in the United States because of their coolness and minimalism. They are almost entirely white and black, which Nachit said references the snowiness of their geographic home. The white wool is often shaggy and the black designs often abstract, like Joan Miro or Paul Klee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I told Professor Nachit that I would like to see some Berber weavers and possibly buy a rug, he suggested I go to Khemisset, southwest of Meknes on the way to Rabat.  He said I should try to find a woman named \u201cHada,\u201d who was the grand-dame of carpet making there and from whom he\u2019d bought some carpets over many years. Unfortunately, he added, he didn\u2019t have Hada\u2019s address, cell phone number, or even last name. But he assured me that if I stopped at the large carpet shop you see right when you enter the town, somebody there could direct us to Hada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, I set off to look for Hada.  With me was Sanaa, a 23-year-old woman, just out of film school, who I\u2019d hired as an interpreter for a few days.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In retrospect, I can\u2019t imagine what Professor Nachit was thinking. I had the impression that Khemisset was going to be a one-stoplight village. It turns out to be a city of 130,000 people. There is no one main road into town that I was able to detect, and there was no carpet store in plain view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Sanaa and I got there we saw no obvious place to stop and inquire as to Hada\u2019s whereabouts\u2014the notion was ridiculous, in fact\u2014so we drove into town hoping to find a souk selling carpets, or a crafts cooperative, or some obvious place to inquire. We found nothing but the usual cubical concrete buildings with steel doors; streets, many torn up, with lots of red dust; and small amount of foot traffic, it being Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took many turns until we couldn\u2019t have found our way back to the road that brought us into town even if we\u2019d wanted to look for Nachit\u2019s carpet store again. I suggested we ask someone on the street about a place we could get rugs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pulled over and Sanaa asked an older man walking by. He was no help.  We drove around and stopped again. While I searched on my phone for a carpet shop Sanaa approached a group of young men behind us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my surprise, she returned to the car with a 36-year-old man named Mohammed. He said he could take us to a man who was a rug dealer.  He had a car (and later told me he buys and sells cars, when I inquired as to his job.)  We followed him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a short time, we pulled over in front of an unfinished house. It had three gray steel doors on the ground level, which appeared to be a garage. Above it was a wall whose lower half was stucco and upper half exposed brick. There were three window openings with no glass. A red and black rug hung out of one window. Rebar rods stuck from the unfinished second floor. It was impossible to tell if the house had a living quarters. There were a few nice houses nearby, but the unbuilt lots were weedy, and the neighborhood was unappealing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mohammed and Sanaa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mohammed went to a side door and came back and said someone would help us in a minute. Soon, one of the bottom doors opened to reveal a tall man, a white van, and an unfinished room stacked with folded carpets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stepped inside and introduced ourselves and said we were looking for a woman named Hada who was a rug expert.  Did he know such a person?  His name was Kareem and he said he knew two women named Hada who might fit the bill. One of them had two houses, however. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We waited around downstairs while he talked to someone upstairs. Two small boys appeared when he returned. One of them clung to his leg.  There was a tray with tea glasses on a table, but he didn\u2019t offer us tea. He did, however, say he was willing to take us to the Hadas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He put his children in the front seat of his van. The older one, probably eight, sat in the driver\u2019s seat and pretended he was driving.  Kareem got in and pulled the van out. I was already feeling bad that we\u2019d imposed on him, his children, and whomever might be unseen in the house.  I gave a little money to Mohammed, and Sanaa and I took off behind Kareem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We drove through a nicer neighborhood that had white stucco walls (stained brown at street level) around the houses, and then into a more modest one. Kareem pulled over, got out of the van and then, halfway across the street, returned to it and grabbed his younger son, who was about three, through the driver\u2019s window. He knocked on a door and spoke with someone, then returned to the van. Whether this was one of the houses of the two-house Hada I never learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We followed him into a commercial neighborhood, stopping to let pass a man pulling a cart covered with limes.  A block later we did the same thing for a man with a cart with tomatoes on it. By this time, I\u2019d decided that if the next stop didn\u2019t reveal Hada, we\u2019d call it quits and go to some village out in the countryside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stopped in on a street of new houses. Kareem got out and knocked on a door. Someone answered and they spoke.  Several minutes later, a stout woman in a blue dress with a tightly wrapped head scarf stepped through the door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kareem introduced us to Hada.  I asked if she was the Hada who knew Professor Nachit from Meknes.  She said yes, she had worked with his father, and she knew him.  She invited us in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hada, with her son<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t quite believe that we\u2019d driven to an obscure city and found ourselves within two degrees of separation\u2014Mohammed and Kareem\u2014from a woman whose last name we didn\u2019t even know. We thanked Kareem effusively.  He refused money until I insisted he take a small amount as a symbol of my gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stepped into the house and took off our shoes. A woman about Hada\u2019s age sat at a table in an anteroom. It was separated by a half wall from the living room, which was darker and had built-in seating covered with cushions along the walls. We sat down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to give Hada\u2014whose full name was Hada Ourahou\u2014a sense of me and my  purpose before I launched into an interview interpreted by Sanaa.  So, I said, in fractured French, that I had heard of her from Professor Nachit, was interested in Berber carpet-making, would love to hear about her work and life. I said I also hoped she might be able to take us to see someone making a rug at home\u2014something that Professor Nachit said she\u2019d probably be willing to do.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She watched me while I spoke, occasionally saying a word or two in French, and nodded her assent when I was finished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had an impish smile that was exaggerated by a gray and black scarf that covered her hair and most of her forehead. I sat between her and Sanaa. Partway through our conversation her son appeared with a tray with a teapot and glasses, and she poured all of us the usual sweetened mint tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mint tea, the “Moroccan whiskey”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hada had stopped making carpets five or six years earlier. Making a carpet sometimes took six months, and she no longer had the energy for it. Now, she\u2019s a carpet dealer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked her how old she was when she made her first carpet.  She said 21, which surprised me; I would have thought younger. She learned from one of her grandmothers. \u201cIt\u2019s like the first day in school,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard like that.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She brought that first carpet with her when she got married and moved to a house with her husband. It\u2019s gone now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said it took her about five years to become good at weaving. She guessed she\u2019d made 500 rugs in her life, selling nearly all of them. I asked where she got the designs, and she tapped her head. She selected colors that went with each other, \u201clike putting on clothes, matching shirt to pants.\u201d  If a client wanted a rug that looked like one she\u2019d made, she was happy to weave a duplicate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only women and girls are still making rugs, she said. It was always women\u2019s work because it could be done in the home and fitted into the tasks of homemaking and childrearing, which were women\u2019s responsibilities. Children also used to make rugs, but no more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked her how far she went in school.  She said she left at age 19. I asked her how old she was now, and she said 64.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNearly the same,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m 66.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd still working!\u201d she said with a laugh, reaching out to shake my hand in solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girls who want to go on to higher education have no interest in weaving, she said. Today, only five percent of girls learn to weave, although when she was a child nearly all did, and also learned ancillary skills such as spinning and dyeing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the villages, people now have cell phones, Facebook, WhatsApp.  The old people have the time, the young people don\u2019t,\u201d she said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked about her own family. She\u2019s a widow; her husband, a career soldier, died seven years ago. She has three sons and four grandchildren\u2014three boys and one girl. The girl\u2019s mother doesn\u2019t want her daughter to make carpets. \u201cOf course, I\u2019m sad. This will die,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partway through our conversation, Hada had gotten up and stepped back from the living room to make a phone call to a woman she knew who might be making a carpet in her home. Sanaa later said that before making the call she\u2019d said to the woman in the anteroom, in Arabic, \u201cIt\u2019s not a good plan.\u201d  The woman gave Sanaa an embarrassed look when she realized she\u2019d heard the comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it turns out the weaver was at home and willing to have us visit. Hada put on a djellaba. Four of us\u2014we were joined by a woman named Taaroucht, Hada\u2019s best friend, who\u2019d appeared at the house at some point\u2014got into the car and drove off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We arrived at a house in a more modest neighborhood.  Hada knocked on the door and was let in.  We followed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Entrance hall at Fatima’s house<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The entranceway led to a small living room with a couch and a few low stools. On the wall were five bouquets of artificial flowers. Off the living room and parallel to the entranceway was a room that was both kitchen and workshop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Living room wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The weaver was a woman named Fatima Belaamri. She had a red, blue, and tan headscarf. At one point in the visit I asked her how old she was. She said she didn\u2019t know but would show me a card that might help. She went into one of the two bedrooms and returned with an identity card that had her birth year as 1964.  So, she was 54 or thereabout, although she looked older than me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She went into the weaving room, sat on the floor, and knotted a few rows of the rug, which was stretched vertically against a wall in front of her. She cut the leftover thread from each knot with knife wielded with lightning speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fatima knotting a rug<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rug was white with a sparse black design\u2014a sort of Beni Ouarain knockoff. It was for a client in Marrakesh. She\u2019d been working on it intermittently for three months and expected to finish it in a week.  Working fulltime, it would have taken about a month, but she\u2019d had a busy summer with weddings and other activities. She would get 1,300 Dh for it\u2014about $140. I asked her where she got her designs, as I could not see a pattern in front of her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust always in the head,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She asked if we wanted tea. We couldn\u2019t refuse, so she made it and brought it out into the living room, where we talked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fatima and Sanaa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Her parents had lived in a village, but she\u2019d grown up in the city with an uncle. (No reason given, and I didn\u2019t ask.) The uncle, who was in the army, had no children, and she considered him her father. She\u2019d gone to school for only two years and didn\u2019t know how to read or write. She\u2019d learned to knot and weave carpets starting at age 12. She has seven children\u2014five daughters and two sons.  All the daughters make carpets, as do seven granddaughters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her husband, a truck driver, had died a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another woman, younger than the weaver, was also there. As we were waiting for the tea to arrive, she went into the second bedroom and brought out four rugs that were rolled up and tied. I always feel bad when someone starts unbundling carpets to show, but there was no stopping her.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A rug with sequins woven into it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two of them were black-on-white designs like the one in the works, and two were made from scraps of old carpets. As an example of frugal recycling, like New England oval rag rugs, they were interesting, although they were also pretty ugly.  If I\u2019d had more room in my suitcase I might have bought one as a gesture of thanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had tea and some cookies. After a while, the woman asked us if we wanted to stay for lunch. We thanked her profusely but said absolutely not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you come back to Morocco, this is your home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thanked her for showing us her work, and for answering my questions.  I gave her 100 Dh, but she would have taken nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Leaving Fatima’s house<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As I waited to get into the car in the alley out front, a girl in a red dress with beautiful dark hair came by on a scooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We returned to Hada\u2019s house and got serious about looking at\u2014and buying\u2014rugs. We stepped into the garage next to the house where they were stored and she began unfolding and shaking ones into full view. There was a lot of conversation, not on price but on what members of the group thought about each of them. I finally bought three: an orange knotted one fron Ait Yadine that was about two years old; a red one from Ait Abbou that was about five years old; and a tan one from Khemisset that was 2 years old.  I did not try to argue down the price on any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Shopping for rugs; \u00a0Hada and Taaroucht, and one of Hada’s brothers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We thanked Hada for all she had done, and also thanked her son and Taaroucht. Then we left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driving back to Meknes we passed plowed fields that were dry and devoid of vegetation; a few had also been burned. We passed olive groves, some with netting over the trees. We passed donkeys burdened with goods or riders. We passed a man walking a bicycle up a hill with four sacks of onions, two on the front and rear forks, like makeshift saddlebags. We passed roadside stands with vegetables, bags of nuts, and bottles of yellow olive oil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Farm fields, between crops<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sanaa, who doesn\u2019t drive, spent a fair amount of time looking at her Android phone. It had a  dog on the home screen, which seemed unusual for someone in a country whose main religion considers dogs unclean. On the back was a sticker of Jimi Hendrix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked her how my introductory speech in French to Hada had gone.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was full of faults,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid she understand it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, October 6, 2018 Mohssine Nachit is a professor of intercultural communication and dialogue at Moulay Ismail University, in Meknes.  The university was founded in 1989, although schools of sciences, arts, and humanities had existed as part of a university in Fez since 1982. His wife runs the riad where I am staying.  I contacted him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morocco","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3072,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}