Children of the Sahara Foundation

(Journal of Liz Williams, July 2009)

Part Two

The last family we visit welcomes us with a great show of hospitality:
 
Grandmother Khadija, a lively and talkative character with a sparkle in her eyes;
Mohammed, her grandson, who lives over the hill with her son Lahcen;
Aysha, her teenage daughter who runs everywhere laughing;
Saida, her daughter-in-law, who looks barely 18-years old.
 
Missing are her son Ali, married to Saida, and daughter Fattima. They are both out with the herds where everyone, apart from Khadija, takes their duty in turn.
 
We sit in the cooking section of the tent where a bag made from the body of a goat hangs suspended from a wooden structure. Khadija is making goat cheese and the contents of the bag slosh back and forth as she rocks it. Couscous is cooking over an open fire inside a tidy tent. Nearby, stone walls surround the herd at night and a cave where the family lives when it rains. Khadija’s husband is dead but she lives here all year round with her two daughters, son, and daughter-in-law. Lahcen, her other son, lives in a tent over the hill with his wife and Mohammed. There is no school–none of them can read or write. Water is brought from the river using the donkeys. Someone always stays in the camp with Khadija who walks bent over. Aysha lights the fire in the bread oven whilst Saida prepares the dough.
 
Suddenly there are goats and sheep running all over the camp as the herd returns. Baby goats bleet to attract their mothers. Tea is freshly prepared to welcome home the shepherds. Another carpet is laid outside the tent for the men just alongside the women so we can all chat as a full moon rises.
 
The family are waiting for Lahcen who lives over the hill. Two days earlier he walked to Tamtattouchte because his pregnant wife was in difficulty and a vehicle was sent to pick her up. They were taken to Tamtattouchte then to Tinerhir and finally to Ouarzazate where Fattima had a caesarean.  It was here that hospital staff realized neither of them had any form of identification and the police sent Lahcen back to obtain proof of identity. With no mobile phone, he walks the 10 kilometers from Tamtattouchte in the dark and then another 20 kilometers to Ait Hani. By morning, he reaches the local governor who provides him with papers. Only now can he return to Ouarzazate to collect his wife and baby.
 
Dinner is served first to the men and myself. I’m given a small bowl of gritty home-made couscous that is mixed with sour goat’s cheese and tastes of rancid goat meat; it has such a strong taste that I struggle to swallow but I watch as the men eagerly devour the food from the large dish they share. Suddenly, Lahcen walks out of the darkness and is welcomed home. He joins the men and when they have finished eating, the dish of meat is passed around for the women.
 
It’s 11:30pm. My colleague Abdoullah and I decide to take Lahcen to Ait Hani so that he does not have to walk through the night. The nomad family accompany us to our vehicle where we give them supplies before driving over the mountains in the darkness.
 
I watch Lahcen as he walks off into the night. We drop him in Ait Hani and remark that he looks lost in a world where he will have to wait for a piece of paper to prove who he is before he can return home with his wife and new-born nomad baby.

A nomad woman in her tent.

A nomad herder.

Aysha cooks bread in a mud oven.
Photos by Liz Williams