http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b03phpft
Please excuse the unembedded link here, but it’s a really interesting artical from bbc radio 4’s Shared Planet on Community Conservation Projects, inlcuding those linked to tourism…when I work out how to embed properly, I will…or if you have any ideas, please let me know!
One of the things that is something of a challenge in developing Farm Finn is that there’s very few things that match the image that I have in my minds eye, that can act to feed and develop what is still only the cornel of my idea for this sustainable rural tourism project.
When building Dar Finn, we were forever visiting and feeding off other people’s chantiers. Of course there is the internet, but there’s nothing like a hands on experience to inform and educate an idea…well that’s my learning style anyway!
Obviously a huge influence has come from Carin at Karnfous Retreat whose beautiful build and lovely atmosphere had everything to do with changing my mind towards building on Loubar.
So far my plans for the style and design of Farm Finn’s house, is very heavily influenced by hers, as much because it is so heavily modeled upon local building styles, architecture and methods.
But obviously there is a need to find out more from more places and as such I’ve been prioritizing visits to other rural tourism locations.
The first, Dar Khizana I found quite by luck as bought a magazine, Tourism and Gastronomy in Xaouen which included it as in an article about the region and plans for increased government investment following a visit by Mohammed 6.
The place is the inspiration of a Rifian who has lived for 20 years in Barcelona and certainly reflects Gaoudiesque concepts and ideas in his design.
It’s set in stunning local mountains, green and lush with what the locals describe as a cool micro climate affected by the amount of water coming from local sources and rivers.
I was amazed to see a working water mill and a walk in the countryside was simply a joy.
As ever, in addition to the beauty of the natural environment, I was amazed by the hospitality of the locals.
I couldn’t stay at Dar Khizana but was warmly welcomed at a neighbours’ house. Abdelmalek is a local farmer.
He and his wife offered me one of the most wonderful Friday coucous’s I’ve had in Moroc, as well as an insight in to local family life. Of course food culture is omnipotent and ever present throughout the Rif.
People generally produce for themselves, with little being sold at local souks and only items unable to be bartered or locally produced are paid for, which emphasizes the significance of the main local cash crop, kif, but also honey and, as I found at Dar Khizana, mushroom cultivation, produced specifically for the culinary market.
The next stop on my rural tourism tour of northern Morocco was at Gite Azilane, which is, as it says on the tin, deep in the heart of the Rif Mountains along a seasonal piste that is cleared in the winter by government owned snow plouhs with petrol paid for by the local community.
Other examples of local government and population participation are illustrated by the partially completed health clinic and school building, though currently this has slid to a halt due to a lack of government funds…so the locals claimed, leaving children to board and school in Xaouen and the sick to undertake an arduous 90 minute ride only possible in 4 x 4.
I almost literally bumped in to Abdelkarim the owner, who may look 70 but could be older, as he was returning from smoking out honey from one of his 50 beehives, from which he gains possibly 5 litres per hive a year.
He explained however that they produced 3 harvests per year; the first around April/May, the second June/July and the third, September/October and that the best was of course in June/July as t was then that the kif was flowering…interesting, I thought, as he gave a very cheeky smile.
Gite Azilane has been open for 25 years and receives a steady flow of tourists from around the world.
Abdelkarim thought he preferred the Basques and the Irish, both of whom are wet mountain people…”This is home from home for them…they’re happy here! He’s a man who’s well travelled having spent years travelling around South America in his youth and who’s also very easy to spend time with.
A stay here, is to enjoy the delights of Riffian farm life first hand and close up.
I couldn’t help but gasp as he firstly offered me a plate of “raw” honey straight from the hive he’d been to when I picked him up and then to see him transform it in to the golden nectar we know and love so much by passing it through a manual centrifugal machine made from an old 200 gallon petrol bidon with added mechanism and spout…now that’s what I call practical science..and wow does it taste good.
As if the stay at Azilane wasn’t enough of an experience of local life in the Rif, on the return I happened across this mobile “hanoute” stocked with those things you simply couldn’t grow or make at home, including bottles of gas (though most people use wood burning ovens (ferans)), Omo washing soap and sardines at 20 dhs a kilo!
