Morocco’s desert festival in Taragalte bridges the Sahara gap

 

Southeast Morocco’s last oasis, M’hamid El Ghizlane, was the unlikely setting for the Taragalte Festival between January 23-25. Despite the challenges of access and comfort, this annual three-day event near the spectacular Drâa valley attracted hundreds of Moroccan and international festival-goers. They joined forces with the artists and speakers to celebrate a nomadic Amazigh culture threatened by desertification, depopulation and a stagnant economy (see the introductory paper). WMC correspondent Daniel Brown reports on a small but defiant music festival that also addresses the environmental, economic and social challenges of our day.

 

 

Mokhtar Bel Adr wiped his forehead with a gnarled hand, distorted by decades of picking one of the 18 varieties of dates the region grows. His hands were slightly numb, feeling the cold of a Saharan winter night that brings the temperature here down to 1°C. Sitting on a stool in his dusty living room he continued to ply his tea, pouring it repeatedly into a glass, then back into the teapot. Steam rose above his head towards the roof made of a mix of earth, straw and palm leaves locally known as “ajna”.

A gaping hole underlined the fragile nature of the abode which, like the rest of Mokhtar’s village, Kasbah Talha, was still repairing the damage caused by this year’s floods. “I didn’t just pick dates, you know,” he told me in his stuttering French, as he handed over a scalding glass of mint tea, “I also spent a little time in France, Nice to be exact, and years working in Casablanca. I had to give up because of my knees.” The 80-year-old ruefully smacked his thigh.

 

 

Two young schoolgirls pushed open his door, crossed the room and exited into the main stree without saying a word. Mokhtar’s two-room home also serves as a thoroughfare between the Kasbah’s labyrinthine passages and the road towards M’hamid El Ghizlane, two kilometers away. Mokhtar mumbled in the Tamazigh Berber of the region as I sat uncomfortably on a large bundle of dusty rags, sipping the strong desert tea. It was still early, the Taragalte festival seven kilometers away was slowing awaking from its previous night of festivities and I profited from the respite to take in the neighboring realities.

Kasbah Talha is quiet in the morning sun. Only 50 families remain in this suburb of M’hamid, consisting mainly of young children and old folk who increasingly depend on the income sent home by faraway sons and daughters, eking out a meager living in the city. The rural exodus caused by unemployment and drought has gutted the entire region of its youth, drawn by the lure of jobs in the fishing industry in Dakhla and Laayoun, or by the army.

“My brother patrols on the Mauritanian border, we see him twice a year,” explained Abdelrahman, somewhat ruefully as he shoveled together some “ajna” to fix his neighbor’s roof. “He’s a plain border guard, earns 3,000 DH ($340) a month to get bored and his wife is lucky to see him twice a year…” Abdelrahman felt somewhat luckier having fought his way into Marrakesh University where he was finishing off an economics and accounting degree, which he was convinced would find him work some time in the future. Meanwhile, he used his holiday break to earn his family some money : 110 DH ($12) a day on the worksite.

Beneath the beauty, poverty

It is to the backcloth of such stark economic realities that the Sbaï brothers, Halim and Ibrahim, decided to found the Taragalte Festival in 2009. Two of 14 children living in M’hamid, they picked up where elder brother Ahmed left off after deciding to continue his career as a physician in Geneva. In 2005 Ahmed had set up the Association Zaïla (“ephemeral passage” or “dromedary”) to protect the patch of desert between Zagora and M’hamid. This response to the rapid degradation of the immediate environment in M’hamid consisted in large annual operations to clean away the detritus by federating volunteers from local schools, farmers and groups.

In some ways, this was a modern version of an age-old tradition. “Since time immemorial,” write sociologists Mohamed Aït Hamza and B. El Faskaoui, “oasians have developed forms of adaptation to their environment. The management of scarce and fragile agrarian and pastoral resources are just some of the demonstrations of this civilisational genius.”

 

 

 

The Sbaï’s had plenty of challenges to face when setting out on what many saw as a quixotic mission. M’hamid has long been neglected by Morocco’s central authorities. Situated in the mideastern corner of the country’s Sous-Massa-Drâa region, it hosts many of the 86 poorest communes in the country. (statistics from Rabat’s Haut Commissariat au Plan). And the beauty of the Drâa valley’s rivers, mountains and flora cannot disguise its glaring lack of infrastructure and endemic poverty. It is perhaps this which persuaded the influential Le Guide du Routard to write disparagingly that M’hamid was “founded in 1932 with the arrival of the French (and) offers nothing of any particular interest.” Both allegations are false, as festival co-director Halim Sbaï emphatically notes. “The Saadi dynasty of the 16th century used M’hamid as its base to launch its expeditions southwards in its conquest of Timbuktu. And M’hamid was probably created much earlier than that, when the Sahara was green and fertile. And,” adds the former tour operator, with emphasis, “our heritage has plenty to offer in terms of historical sites, spectacular scenery and a rich culture.”

From environmentalists to festival founders

It is very much this vision of a town with a prosperous and dynamic history which governs the Sbaï’s approach to the festival. For six years, their annual gathering has combined music with debates and exposés on the region’s patrimony as well as its ongoing environmental challenges. Ibrahim and Halim also remind visitors of the ethno-linguistic kaleidoscope the Drâa valley has inherited thanks to a history that brought together populations from the south and north.

The indigenous dark-skinned Drawa shared the staggering landscape of desert and mountains with Saharan Arab tribes like Aït Sedrate, as well as Aït Atta nomads, Shurfa and Murabatin saints and a Jewish minority centered on M’hamid. “The valley inherited a very diversified and hierarchical ethno-sociological structure,” write Hamza and El Faskaoui (op.cit.), “a mixture which marked the collective memory, despite the devastating effects of schooling (sic.), exodus, migration, tourism and growing urbanization.”

 

 

The Taragalte Festival has sought to recreate the “moussem”, a crucial tradition which, would annually unite these at times conflicting communities. “We want to resuscitate the most important moussem called Sidi Khalil,” explained Ibrahim Sbaï in an impromptu interview under a roasting winter sun. “This used to mark the end of the date harvest and would celebrate the departure and return of the great caravans southwards.” The bearded artistic director paused searching for his words. “It was a moment when people would rekindle traditions through music and poetry.”

The Drâa’s scenic beauty and crystalline light are elements that clearly played on the imaginations of the artists invited to this sixth annual gathering. Gnawa virtuoso Mahmoud Guinea underlined the power of the elements and the welcome he enjoyed, “light years” away from the circumstances under which his paternal grandfather from Mali was sold into slavery in the Sahara. “May there be a 1,000 more editions of this festival!” he exclaimed at the press conference. A measure of the magnetic lure of the setting was shown by festival headliner Aziz Sahmaoui. On Sunday, the singer was on his way home after his stunning Saturday night concert, but then abandoned his fellow-band members and doubled back at Zagora, 97 kilometers away, to further taste the otherworldly atmosphere of M’hamid.

 

 

“When we arrive here,” he told me as he reclined on the Azalay Hotel terrace overlooking an endless forest of palm trees, “there’s the light and this silence which injects us with a kind of truth and energy.” His arms swept the horizon as the sun dipped, shooting its final red beams. “It makes us look deep into ourselves and ask questions in front of this nature, this vast force.” Unconsciously, Aziz strummed the ngoni he’d been repairing for the previous hour. “There’s also this Saharan music, this union celebrated in the festival. For my group University of Gnawa, it’s like a philosophical echo. Taragalte is a union of Senegalese artists, Malians, Moroccans, French, Algerians. It’s a beautiful intersection serving culture, music to embellish the moment, soften the bitterness of life. For me, this M’hamid meeting is a renewal of oneself.”

 

 

Uphill challenges to local traditions

This was the unabashedly romantic vision by one of the true musician poets from North Africa. Yet, the outlook also ran smack into genuine fears for survival shared festival participants like Brahim Zalzouli who presides over a regional association of tourist guides, Argat-Ozt. He has seen a steep drop in tourism as the western media links this northwestern corner of the Sahara with the vast expanses in the south where AQMI, Boko Haram and other violent insurgencies are said to operate. “These amalgamations have been devastating for us,” he confided. “It’s ironic, really, since we’re next to one of the most secure borders in the world.” Indeed, the open hostility between Morocco and Algeria has resulted in a watertight frontier dating back to 1994. “With a nosedive in tourism,” Zalzouli pursued, “the youth are disappearing towards Europe, Switzerland, France, and the like. The future is very bleak : the youth don’t know about their heritage, they’re no longer in touch with the legacy of their rich history.”

 

 

Issa Dicko, cofounder of Mali’s Festival in the Desert, has been a regular guest to Taragalte since 2010 and insisted that the problems the region’s Saharan communities are facing are not of their own making: “It all boils down to geo-strategic issues between the major regional and world powers. The Sahara represents a huge mining potential for the multinationals and cultural concerns are collateral victims to various tug-of-wars between States and private interests.” An opinion local tour operator Brahim Mizrahi put more prosaically if somewhat provocatively: “The desert here is a capricious woman which drives men crazy. Coming here is easy, leaving isn’t.”

Dicko, meanwhile, insisted on problems shared by populations on both sides of the Sahara, pointing to the loss of basic nomadic skills amongst the youth. “They no longer know about the remedial uses for the desert’s plants, the woolly cumin that grows here, for example. Now, that’s an effective way of curing diarrhea. Nor are they able to navigate thanks to the stars, a gift that used to be the difference between life and death. Modernity,” he continued, “represents true dangers to our way of life, both here and in Timbuktu where I’m from. There were great civilizations here once and much of its desert culture can still be salvaged if we federate our efforts.”

 

 

Peace Caravan towards the South

Dicko was part of a Cultural Caravan for Peace which, for the second year running, set out from Taragalte back towards its homeland in northern Mali. In February, the Caravan, largely back by the American NGO Timbuktu Renaissance, will perform in Segou, Koutiala San and Bamako where it is internally exiled.

Violent instability and inconclusive negotiations in Algiers continue to jeopardize plans for the Caravan to return home to Timbuktu where it was at the heart of a Festival in the Desert that used to attract the likes of Bono and Robert Plant. Its director Manny Ansar has been globe-trotting for two years searching for solutions to the exile. “This desert music is a vital part of our concept of peace,” he calmly explained to me, readjusting his glasses. “The three festivals here, Taragalte, the Festival du Niger from Ségou, Mali, and our own exiled version, we all have similar approaches to this concept : music can relay universal values, it allows the nomadic communities from which it emanates to re-acquaint themselves within their universe, in their own, somewhat difficult, daily context.”

 

 

Sitting near the central stage of Taragalte festival site, Ansar’s voice was challenged by the wind and the riffs produced by Ahmed Ag Kaedi, guitarist in Malikanw. This ensemble was one of three acts representing the Caravan on the final day of the three-day gathering. It was first spawned at a residency in South Africa in December 2013 and brings together Ag Kaedi with the likes of veteran star Samba Touré of Timbuktu, the outstanding violinist from Ségou Zoumana Tereta, vivacious vocalist Sadio Sidibé from Wassoulou and the powerful singer Cheick Sissoko from Kayes. 14 months on the road have allowed this kaleidoscope of Mali’s various regions to gel together, though the road to consecration is still a long one. “It’s a steep learning curve,” admits Ansar, “but we’ll get there, we’re determined.”

 

 

Music seeds spawned

Malikanw was in good company at Taragalte. Considering the festival this year was hastily re-organized as a result of budget difficulties, the line-up was a solid if uneven mix of North African and Malian grooves, both modern and traditional.

Aziz Sahmaoui and his University of Gnawa band tore into their repertoire to provide the unquestionable highlight of the three days. They have been touring their 2014 CD release “Mazal” for over a year and it’s become a well-oiled band. Next to Sahmaoui and his wily three-string ngoni was the precocious Guimba Kouyaté on guitars, self-assured percussionist Adhil Mirghani, discreet yet solid drummer Jon Grandcamp and the sizzling Alioune Wade on bass. Wade was a revelation, a name to be marked in red for the future, both dextrous on the bass and spine-tingling as a vocalist. His encounters with the likes of Joe Zawinul, Cheick Tidiane Seck and Oumou Sangare have honed his onstage self-assuredness and his upcoming third solo album promises to mark him out further as a major West African force.

 

 

The festival’s impact on the local music scene remains harder to gauge. Five years after setting out on a semi-professional career, the Génération Taragalte group has cobbled together a demo CD strongly inspired by the Malian Tuareg group Tinariwen and their landmark concert at the inaugural 2009 festival. But little of the local Amazigh flavor has seeped into the band’s repertoire. Why not, for example, integrate the rhythms of the traditional “aqlal” dance ceremonies or the “sqel” sword dance performed by the Draâ communities at moussem gatherings down the ages ? These vibrant traditional performances have marked visitors to the region including American author Paul Bowles who was captivated by the interweaving of local disciplines: “music and dance are one thing (for the Amazigh),” he once wrote.

 

 

However, the enthusiasm of the numerous youth at the festival was infectious. None more so than a local trio of 15-year-olds calling themselves Les Petits Princes, named after the book by Antoine St. Exupéry, the immortalized French author who flew over the Sahara frequently when posted in Tarfaya (this is where he is said to have thought up the idea of his book).

The three adolescents are faithful followers of the festival and since Tinariwen’s visit they have been steadfastedly learning the intricacies of the desert blues. On the final night of the Taragalte Festival they accepted guitars and a darbuka drum to improvise a set for a French TV crew on the dunes next to the encampment. And there, under the usual tapestry of the Milky Way, they dazzled onlookers with an incongruous mixture of songs honoring the desert and the small canals which transport water from the Drâa to the fields, known locally as “seguias”.