Berber House

The Berber people have lived in Ait Ben-Haddou for centuries. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage and a lot of the people have since moved out. After all, who wouldn’t want to live in more comfortable houses. Most of the people in the area would be living outside Ait Ben-Haddou along the main highway, there is also a city not too far away from Ait Ben-Haddou as well. These days, only a handful of families still live in the fortified village. I’m not sure what they do here but there is also a good chance they get by from the tourist trade, after all a lot of tourists do make it all the way here.

Our tour guide asked us to go all the way to the top of the hill where Ait Ben-Haddou was built. We got to see beautiful desert scenery from the top. This is probably the closest I would get to a desert for now, it only makes me want to see most of it the next time I get a chance. Our tour guide didn’t climb up with us but only gave us a few minutes to have a look around and take photos. It wasn’t very nice since we were under pressure to come back to continue the tour. I would have preferred a more relaxing schedule. Turns, out that he still has something for us. Apparently, we will be visiting a Berber house. I know that not a lot of people live here anymore but it is probably interesting to see how they live.

You won’t really know it but apparently we entered a house of a Berber resident. The house was expectedly simple. The walls were all sand colored. The rooms were small and simple as well. But they still have enough space for individual rooms. There first one we saw was the outdoor kitchen. This is where they cook stuff which can’t be cooked indoors. The following room what is the sitting room. It was another simple room which have small benches for people to sit in. To decorate the room, they have photos of people, presumably their relatives. Finally, the last room which we were allowed to see was the indoor kitchen. There was a modern gas powered stove here so they can boil water and cook other stuff. It really appears to be a very basic way of living. It made me realize how extravagantly I have been living my life all these years when people have to get by with so little. The owner of the house didn’t entertain us that much. Basically, she just let us through and that was it. I guess it is quite common for them to have these kinds of visitors. I was expecting to be asked for a donation but it never came. Maybe it is already part of the tour fee.

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