Tafilalt Oasis

This weekend we went to the Talfilalt Oasis, in Erfoud. Water is supplied to the oasis, which is man made, by irrigation channels. We left AUI on Friday afternoon, and the drive took about 6 hours. We were all supposed to dress "conservatively", but again we were left wondering what was meant by conservative. No one is exactly sure how conservative we are ever supposed to be dressed. I was wearing long pants, but when we got there one of the professors was wearing capris, so apparently that is okay? The drive was rather harrowing, with most if the roads carved into the sides of big hills. You could clearly see the climate changing as we traveled further. In Ifrane and the Atlas Mountains, they environment is Taiga, or, Mediterranean scrub. As we drove, it became more and more arid and eventually we were in the middle of a desert, with nothing but small patches of scrubby bushes and sand.
When we got to our hotel room, we were pleasantly surprised to find air conditioning in our room. After dropping off our bags, we ate in the hotel restaurant, where they served haira, the traditional Moroccan chick pea soup. I was kind of disappointed, after hearing so much about it. This one was kind of weird, because it has what appeared to be chopped up mushy spaghetti in the soup. Maybe this was just not a very good version. On the table were some dates, which the Talfilalt Oasis is famous for. No one at my table liked the dates except for me, because they weren't hard and dried, like the dates everyone is used to. One of my table mates was so considerate as to take the entire plate of dates and pour it into the middle of the tagine, which was both equally stupid and annoying. I constantly wonder why half the people in our group are in Morocco, since they don't seem to respect the culture or the people at all.
On Saturday, after some wardrobe hassles, we went to go look at some of the ancient ruins in the town. First, we stopped and looked at the remnants of the old irrigation system, which is an underground channel funneling water from the mountains to the oasis. The channel is made only out of a hole in the ground, with no reinforcement, so they had to be carefully maintained. They were later replaced with irrigation channels fed by a far-away dammed river. We stopped to look at the new irrigation channels. Originally, they had been dirt-walled channels, and water soaked into the dirt. The government decided that this was "lost water", so they lined all the channels with cement. Now the water just evaporates, instead of seaping into the soil and watering the surrounding trees. This is a classic example of an isolated government on top of a privileged hill, unable to relate and understand what its people actually need and interfering with their lives in attempts to "help" them. The combination of Bayoud disease, a palm-killing disease, and the lack of water delivered to the Oasis is causing a general decline in the date palms, the main source of income for people living in Erfoud.
After, we went to the Qasr Fidah, which is old home of Sultan Moulay Sulayman when he was the governor of the Talfilalt Oasis. It was turned into a small museum, which happened to have a room of Moroccan Jewish artifacts, which was interesting. The symbol of Morocco used to be a six-pointed star known as the Seal of Solomon, like the Star of David, but was changed to a five-pointed star by the French Government, but the six-pointed star can be found on older houses and artifacts.
I missed the Sufi dinner and the camel ride because I was sick all weekend. I also unfortunately forgot my camera, so I don't have pictures of the Oasis, either. The ride back was relatively interesting, though. The two Professors from AUI who were with us, Professors Shoop and Ross, were rather unpleasant to the whole group all weekend. They were driving back to AUI in a separate car, and managed to crash into another car around a turn. The accident resulted in just some minor car damage and a flat tire, but seemed to mellow out the fussy professors a little. While they were trying to change the tire, though, we were swarmed in our van by the local children, who kept asking us for money and sticking their arms in the van windows and grabbing at us. At one point, some of the older boys started opening the van door repeatedly, and Soana almost killed them before she could lock the van door. The whole thing was a comedy of errors, and was rather funny.

Note to self: If ever giving local children candy, make sure you have enough for everyone.