The staff of life en pays Berbère

We'd been on the road for a couple of hours already and it was only 8 a.m. Our friend Said had picked us up at our hotel in Fès at the crack of dawn to take us on a wild boar hunt, but that is another story. Now we were heading into the Middle Atlas mountains to join up with members of Said's hunting club. I was tingling with excitement, because the journey was going to take us deep into Berber country.

The Berbers are the original inhabitants of Morocco (and much of Tunisia and Algeria). Since before 3000 BC, they have managed to preserve their culture and language (which is not Arabic). Although many modern Berbers speak Arabic as well, the farther into the mountains you get, the less this is the case. These gentle, proud people fascinate me both for the richness of their culture and their perseverence in clinging to it. They remain authentic.



Slowing down to allow a small herd of sheep to cross the road, we paused in front of a Berber farm. Perched on top of a small mud-stuccoed outbuilding was a magnificent stork's nest. Shaped like a giant preserving funnel, its base so encrusted the vertex of the roof that it seemed to have sprouted and grown there. And perched on top of their magnificent Berber penthouse, the proprietors surveyed the peaceful scene below their beaks--verdant meadows rising toward the glistening white peaks of the Atlas.



Around the doorway of the storks' house were several prints of human hands in deep violet-blue paint, meant to represent the hand of Fatma, a traditional symbol to ward off evil spirits. They were as primal and ethereal as any cave painting. I imagined the woman of the farm--it must have been a woman--pressing her paint-wet hand against the whitewashed wall as an imbrication to protect the storks from evil. And maybe my fantasy was true, because Said told me that storks are considered omens of good fortune, and that everyone protects them.



Somehow that doorway on the storks' house seemed the portal to a magical day. We drove on through countryside that became only more beautiful as we climbed--meadows of psychedelic green, studded with hulking boulders and dotted with sheep like balls of cotton under the transparent light. And although it was too early for the full spring splendor of poppies and other wildflowers, this almond orchard in full bloom with its spangle of wild calendula underfoot made me dizzy with joy.



When the wild boar hunt was over, Denis and I were waiting with Said for his partner to bring around the car, as we were now a rather long distance from where we had started. We were hunkered down on some big rocks in front of a modest but lovely Berber home on the sunny hillside, drinking ice cold water from the communal spring. I was watching a small bird flit among the candyfloss pink blossoms of an almond tree at the corner of the house, when a young man emerged from behind its walls, carrying three pillows. He gestured for us to place the pillows on our rocks to make them more comfortable before disappearing back into the house.



Denis and I were looking at each other, so touched by this hospitality, when the young man re-emerged. Speaking slowly in halting French, he invited us to come into his house for tea. We didn't hesitate a nanosecond before thanking him and following him up to his home among the almond trees. In the yard of the house, within a wall of stacked branches, my gaze honed in immediately on an earthen beehive oven built directly on the ground.



I plied our host with questions about the oven, and he was sensitive enough to note the nature of my interests. He led us a short distance away and down a hill to show me a truly awesome site: the village olive press, made of stone, where families brought their harvests to press into liquid gold. The press was powered by a donkey, and piles of olive pommace told the story of the season's olives.



Karim Qezbour took us on a short tour of his family home. The stuccoed walls were washed with cream, pale ochre, and various shades of the inimitable Berber blue. In every room, objects and furniture had been cleared from the floor, hung on the walls or stacked on shelves, and the floor swept immaculately. The only sign of the sleeping room's function were neat stacks of blankets on a high shelf.



To my delight, Karim showed us the kitchen, where once again I marveled at how such delicious food could be made with so few and such simple implements. Looking at the humble beauty of this room, I thought about our Western excesses, as we buy every imaginable kitchen gadget in a poor attempt to mimic the authentic vibrant cooking of cultures like Karim's.



Karim led us into the deep interior of his house, to the living/dining room. Very long and narrow, it was lined on both sides with a sort of continuous, long, low sitting ledge paved with pillows. We sat down somewhere in the midst of this long expanse., feeling like guests of honor. I imagined this room filled with chattering members of an extended family, passing bread and plates of food among themselves in the easy intimacy of the low seat. Karim fetched a low round table which he placed before us. Then he disappeared for several minutes, returning with a tray laden not only with the traditional mint tea of Morocco, but also a colorful basket holding two dimpled rounds of bread, a bowl of olives, and one of greenish-amber olive oil.



Mangez, vous avez faim, Karim urged shyly. (Eat, you are hungry.) He sat down opposite us and watched with evident pleasure while we tore off chunks of his exquisite bread and dipped it in the shimmering oil. He explained, modestly, in answer to our questions, that everything in this ambrosial repast was grown and made by his family. His mother, he apologized, was away washing clothes at the village lavoir. The bread was from their own wheat, ground in the village, and baked in the oven I'd seen out in the yard. The buttery black olives, grown and cured by the family. The oil, pressed right there.



I had to avert my gaze to the branches of the flowering almond just outside, its beauty filtered by the iron scrollwork that protected each window. I stretched my eyes open very wide to avoid spilling the tears that always afflict me when I am moved. When they subsided, I returned my eyes to those of the gentle young man facing me. I burned the beauty of his face, his burnished chestnut skin flushed like the cheek of a russet apple, into my memory. I praised the delicious, living bread, the olives, and the golden oil. And I thanked Karim for his gift of these simple and perfect foods, and for the warm welcome and generous hospitality which they symbolized, as vibrantly today as they have done for thousands of years. Karim had honored us with the fruits of his pays Berbère: bread, the olive, and its oil. The very stuff of life itself.

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