It seemed a cruel joke for OAT to take us to a luxury resort and spa and then want us to be keen to leave it to spend a day in a rural Berber village. It was no joke though. The day we spent in Aït Benhaddou is one of the most interesting and rewarding of this trip.

We began our “day in the life of a Berber village” with a tour of a typical residence and the farm tilled by several local familes. Aït is the family name in the village, Ben means son of (from the Hebrew) and Haddou means boss. Thus Aït Benhaddou is the village of the Aït boss.

We met Mohammad who took us on the tour. He had never been to school and cannot read or write – his dream is that his three children all become educated. However, Mohammed’s knowledge of local customs and agriculture was impressive as was his command of the English language. In fact he speaks several languages which he learned as a boy helping tourists cross the nearby river on donkeys. Mohammad has an interesting sideline to farming and giving tours. He is an extra in movies shot around Ouarzazate and was in season 4 of The Game of Thrones. Can you think of a reason why the film industry might want to cast Mohammad as an extra??

Animals live inside the houses in this (and many) villages. “Inside” is inside the exterior wall in this case. Goats and chickens were in residence when we visited. Here’s Terri making friends with one of the goats.

The inside of the home was spacious and comfortable if not luxurious. These homes are built bit by bit as cash becomes available and as the family expands. The older woman who lives in the house said that on holidays her 14-member family gathers and there are rooms for everyone to sleep in. I can’t even picture 13 more people sleeping in my little apartment!

Mohammad took us to the fields where a woman was cutting alfalfa to feed to the animals. Women with donkeys already loaded with the feed passed by.

Mohammad also took us to visit his brother who is a painter – both a house painter and an artist. When the house painting business is slow, he turns to his art. This young man paints pictures with all natural pigments – saffron, indigo and “Berber whiskey” (tea). I really couldn’t understand why anyone would want his pictures when I first viewed them. (Click on the photo to the right to get a better look at the “uninteresting” picture in the works.)

However, that is only stage one of the process. He then fires the paper over a propane flame. Suddenly – within seconds! – the colours appear and the painting is revealed. He sells his paintings in the market in the nearest town.

Following tea at a local guesthouse, Mohammad turned up back over to Issam who took us to Inik Simik (means little by little), a women’s association that bakes cookies and bread and makes cous cous for local hotels and restaurants. The government’s National Initiative on Human Development trained 24 women on how to start and run a small business. The women wanted to make carpets, but input costs are high and production times are long, so they decided to start with baking cookies since no one else in Aït Benhaddou made cookies for sale.

There are now 40 women who are part of the association. They either work scheduled hours in Inik Simik or, if they have children and cannot be physically present in the building (which was donated by the family of one of the members) they raise two sheep. When lambs are born, they are allowed to keep one for themselves and the other is given to a new member to start her on the road to independence. You can see on the sign that the Grand Circle Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Overseas Adverture Travel, supports this venture. OAT gave the association a refrigerator not long ago when the women found they needed one. They now need a larger space that will incorporate a daycare centre. Grand Circle Foundation is currently raising funds to help the association with this project.

The women of Inik Simik hope to convert the association into a money earning cooperative that will provide incomes for the members. Their ultimate goal is to empower women and children of their village through education and better health care, and to change the perception in the village that women are useful only in the home and in the fields. It was wonderful meeting with these women and preparing cookies and cous cous with them. It is inspiring to see what they have built, having come from such a patriarchal society.

We lunched at the home of one of the Inik Simik association members. After lunch they dressed three of our group in typical wedding clothes and decorated those who wished with henna designs on their hands – a happy end to a wonderful day!