TRAVEL THE WORLD - ERFOUD, MOROCCO

In 2002 we spent a day with this handsome young Berber tour guide who took us to see a kasbah - a walled, older part of a north African city. His story is a remarkable one. When he was a boy of about eight, he was befriended by a man from Spain who took a great interest in him and encouraged him in his schooling. Every year he would bring books from Spain for the boy. When we were introduced to him, he had just completed a Ph.D. in social anthropology and was fluent in eight languages. I have often wondered what became of him, if he remained in the desert or if he took a job in one of Morocco's cities. He told us that the aquifers near Erfoud - the only source of water for the area - were being depleted. I have also wondered what if anything has been done or could be done about that.

TRAVEL THE WORLD, ERFOUND OASIS, MOROCCO

In 2002, we travelled through the desert to the Erfound Oasis and walked through the kasbah that you can see in the second photo. In the first photo, our tour group are waiting for lunch to be served inside the kasbah.

Wikipedia says this about a kasbah: "

"A kasbah is a .... type of Islamic city or fortress ... It was a place for the local leader to live and (use) as a defense when the city was under attack. A kasbah has high walls which usually have no windows. Sometimes, they were built on the top of a hill to make them easier to defend... Having a kasbah built was a sign of wealth ..."

My main memory of that day is that the heat was stifling, yet we walked and walked, drinking lots of water from our indispensable bottles of water. Paul remembers it as having been at least 42 degrees Centigrade. In the desert, fortunately, the lack of humidity makes the heat bearable.