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Berber dwellings:

And there are also villages: houses made of pisé (puddle clay) following hill sides, blending in the natural mountain décor. Or houses with several buildings (one for each family, including father with his wives, young couples with their kids, uncles/aunts/cousins, etc…) spreading over enormous area in the valley. These houses seem to be villages by themselves!

Houses hanging on the hills, or family houses: they are huge and tall. Ground floor is the animal floor with separate entrances for each (one for the chicken, one for the sheep, one for donkey/mule; first floor for hay and crops; second floor for the family.

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Handmade, those houses are built by the family: one can see men mounting walls by pouring clay in between wooden boards; then they firm it up with a wooden punner; small boards are placed sideways to create loop-holes to keep air flowing in and out across those very thick walls (easily 1 meter/yard thick). Then, when the clay has dried out, they take out the boards: it is beautiful and artistic. Of course, there is still the roof to build: another piece of art! They place big logs on top of the walls, add smaller logs; cover with plastic (if they have any) and with branches to make a thick carpet; they finish with another thick layer of clay. You have a relatively waterproof crust, same color as the surrounding hills!

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Berber villages:

All these ochre colors give the feeling that houses are abandoned: not at all! We have just arrived and a cloud of kids are flying from everywhere and nowhere to “see” and “watch” the foreigners! Shrieks, laughs, hustles… and also the standard “gi’me pens, gi’me sweets, gi’me money”…..(we don’t know if these are the few French words taught in school, or the results of stupid tourists who gave money for pictures taken in the past. Too bad!)

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They are very curious those kids: they want to see! With naivety and natural, some will ask to be photographed; some young girls are already posing with a bit of shyness and grace in front of the camera; some will hide behind their hands or fly away. But all of them want to SEE the pictures. They laugh heartily in front of their portraits. A real fun, naïve, charming and noisy moment.

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When you reach those villages at sunrise, you can hear all sorts of forgotten sounds from an awakening village: endless singing of the cocks, bleating sheep, crying babies,  yelling women, playing kids…No car/engine noise, only donkeys/mules braying: a deafening racket!

They start their day: market, field, school etc...; all moving on donkeys/mules. Everything is carried on those poor animals: herbs, straw, parcels, old folks, kids, products to be sold or bought at the markets, falx, puddle clay for the house...

Men are often sitting on their donkey's crupper, behind the baskets. It is quite comical to see those adults taller than their animals at the back of their living vehicles!
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Of course, there is also a Mosque in each village with 5 calls to prayers a day (4am, noon, then until 9pm).  Small countryside mosques with their pink minarets, their carpets and their dedicated guy who chants the calls in a megaphone/amplifier. Paid by the village, he does not miss one call but everyone takes its time to reach the mosque, coming back from the fields or getting out of the house. Unless folks are already chattering, crouched along the walls of the mosque since the beginning of the afternoon...



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