Boutmetzguida
Boutmetzguida
Despite the fact that Sidi Ifni is charming in its own way, we were relieved to leave the damp, foggy city to spend a night on Boutmetzguida, a mountain 30km away where the Foundation Dar Si Hmed is testing fog harvesting nets for the mountain villages that are in dire need of water. Although the focus of our project here with the foundation is to provide water to the villages in Boutmetzguida, this was only our second trip up the mountain since our arrival in Morocco two weeks ago, because the trial fog catchers that are already set up is extremely inaccessible. A trip up to Boutmetzguida consists of a 2-hour rocky drive in a stick-shift Range Rover that’s been around longer than I have, and an additional 2 hour trek. This time around we decided to spend a night on the mountain, which would allow us enough time to conduct field surveys to determine the locations at which we were going to set up basins under trees to capture fog water.
This thing is older than me.
Our friend Ibrahim
Dr. Vicky Marzol, aka “Lady Mist”, explaining the functions of the fog nets on our first trip to Boutmetzguida. She’s one of the few experts in the world on these nets and works with fog water harvesting in the Canary Islands.
Fog and weather meter
John Michael looking like a ranger + spectacular scenery.
Lunching at the village. The man in the blue robe is going around spraying all of us with some perfume that strongly resembles Chanel No. 5. Perfuming guests is one of the many ways that people here welcome visitors to their homes (in addition to feeding us with copious amounts of delicious food and tea).
Goat and vegetable couscous. Heaven.
Although the sights, the excursions and the food have been eye-opening and interesting, the most memorable parts of our trip have definitely been our interactions with the local people. Their hospitality has been overwhelming in making us feel welcome. The most touching experience for me occurred on our second trip. I hadn’t had enough water and was feeling dizzy and dehydrated so I decided to rest while the others scoped out the region. I was also suffering from an allergic reaction to the pack mules and was sneezing every so often. Halfway through my nap I realized that someone had brought in a large blanket for me. We weren’t able to communicate because they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak French or Arabic, butthey motioned to me that I should take the blanket if I was sick. A couple minutes later they came back in carrying a tray with an herbal tea, explaining “C’est bon pour ‘atchoo’!” Not to make this sound like the stereotypically cheesy epiphany-in-a-rural-village experience, but it really was memorable and heartwarming.
Boutmetzguida herbal tea: “C’est bon pour atchoo!”
Hafiz with our mascot, manbearpig.
Stunning view of the sunset.
Morocco 2010!
Aissa, Becca and Marilu busy digging a basin under the wild olive tree at the top of Boutmetzguida.
Fearless leader + Al
Goats eating the fruit of the Argan trees. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a picture of goats climbing on the trees, but we found out that during July, which is Argan harvesting season, the mountains are generally closed off to goats so that they won’t eat up all the precious Argan, one of the main luxury exports from Morocco.
We’ve got about a week and a half left, so stay tuned for more updates to come. Mslema!
Joyce
