An opportunity to learn traditional building techniques through an earth building and architecture workshop peaked my interest in Morocco. I ended up spending two months there in the winter of 2018, an experience I divide into three parts, each playing an integral role to my understanding and ultimately deep appreciation and respect for the people and place. The first part was the workshop, which extended to a stay in the area through a dog sitting opportunity, the second, my stay with a family in the city of Sale, and the third, a road trip and exploratory sketching journey with a friend.
It began with the Terrachidia earth restoration workshop in M’hamid, the furthest point of Morocco before entering the expansive sahara desert near the Algerian border. A workshop with this Spanish based organization was everything they promised it would be and more. We learned, practiced and applied the three main construction techniques used in the vernacular construction of the region – rammed earth, adobe brick making, and earth plaster in an existing village, working alongside the local builders. We also learned the incredibly interesting and effective Moroccan method of a waterproof lime-based plaster called Tadelakt, though this is traditionally a method practiced in the area around Marrakech. We participants were quite multicultural, coming from Spain, Russia, Italy, Ecuador, Brazil, Lebanon, and Egypt. I can’t recommend enough participating in one of the four workshops they offer every year!
My stay with a family was initiated through a friend from Chicago, who put me in contact with Yassine and his Moroccan family in Sale, a large city near the capital. He and his family welcomed me with open arms bringing me into their fold as one of their own for the 10 days I spent with them. Thinking of their gracious and generous hospitality brings tears to my eyes, as they shared with this unknown foreigner everything they had including a slew of new Moroccan vocabulary words, their delicious homemade olive oil, and honest family moments through the tender time of the passing of a matriarch. I learned the intimacy developed among people by shared meals eating with your hands in a circle around the same plate, and the coziness of what I called the ‘slumber party’ where everyone sleeps together in one room. I felt an odd sense of loneliness when I returned to sleeping in a room on my own again. I am forever grateful to this family for my ‘entry’ so to speak into Morocco through this deep experience. I hope to return and help with the family olive harvest some season and learn their way of making olive oil, a shared passion between us, from Morocco to Italy.
Finally, the last 10 days were spent with a dear friend and very talented illustrator and sketcher Simo Capecchi. Together we explored and sketched the souks in Marrakech, a kasbah in restoration in Tamnougalt, and found the Moroccan corbelled stone equivalent to a trullo, called a “tazota”. The highlight was meeting Hassan Caid of Kasbah des Caids in Tamnougalt and spending days wandering through the labyrinthine fortified village sketching and learning from Hassan how the architecture developed and responds to the way people lived and continue to live in an oasis in a desert climate. Hassan is tirelessly and passionately restoring portions of the kasbah through his own initiative and international workshops, along with offering a space for artist workshops and for local musicians to perform in the evenings. Simo and I began brainstorming immediately what a potential future sketching workshop would be like in this inspiring environment. And maybe that will be the thing that brings me back to Morocco for second visit.
In the meantime, this is a bit of what I saw in sketch and in photo:
from the mini travel sketchbook –
from the larger watercolor sketchbook –
Rgabi, the village workshop site
From the rooftops of Rgabi
Rammed earth construction
Earth plastering of the walls of the main “streets”
Tadelkt (waterproof lime-based plaster from Marrakech) plaster
Tadelakt maestro Abdel Kager
Adobe brick making in Rgabi
Oasis Bounou, a village slowly being consumed by the encroaching sand of the Sahara
Oasis Bounou
A camal caravan
Fence made from palm fronds for border distinction and to try and stop the encroaching sand
The desert
The desert outside of Ouled Driss
Oasis Bounou at sunset
The desert outside of Ouled Driss
Earth plastering the walls of the main street
Watercoloring during sunset (photo: Marta Tonelli)
photo: Marta Tonelli
Erg Chigaga
Camels feasting on arugula
Camel in the desert
Straw bales in transit, very carefully
Fint Oasis, Ouarzazate
Ait Benhaddou, Ouarzazate
The village of Beni Khalled
An olive press in the village of Beni Khalled (in use until 3 years ago)
The olive mills in Beni Khalled
Sketching the tanners at work in Marrakech with Simo
Marrakech tanneries
Sketching in the tanneries (photo: Simo Capecchi)
A meeting with a camel (photo: Simo Capecchi)
and quite a pose (photo: Simo Capecchi)
Simo sketching in the Tamnougalt kasbah
Tamnougalt
The fortified walls of Tamnougalt
Tamnougalt
A “tazota”, a corbelled dome similar to the trulli in Puglia, outside of El Jadida
Tazota outside of El-Jadida
Portuguese cistern in El-Jadida
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