Ait M'hamed Day 20
A long hike and sun made a beautiful final day in Ait M’hamed. Its sad to leave the High Atlas- had been my home for the past 7 weeks, feels to sudden and jarring to leave. In the morning Abdellatif and I met Touda and examined some of the herbarium specimens she had made in the office. They had stored the pressed herbarium specimens for both Imegdale and Ait M’hamed. After we interviewed her for a while, which revealed some very interesting information about animals as cultural animals and also her background and role in the commune. We spent the rest of the day hiking in an around the hills in the river valley I went to alone two days ago. I was able to finish taking wild fodder plant pictures and getting GPS coordinate as well as do some informal interviews and plant naming with grazers. But I will admit half the motivation was to take in the landscape and get some more pictures one last time since I had so much data already.
We ran into Malika on the way and said goodbye- I took her address and tried to express how sad but also grateful I was for having such a welcoming place to stay. After returning to the house to get my bags we said goodbye to Fatima, and she was crying and saying she hoped I would come back again. It was emotional and made the transience and difficultly of research work even more real. You enter these communities to live with and learn from these people, but are destined to leave- just a brief blink in their lives. Though my work and findings will hopefully help the GDF in future project aiding the community, as all their ecological and social research does, its hard knowing that it may be a long period before it really has impact. When the environments and some of the people are suffering and you have to see that everyday it takes a toll and really makes you depressed, but also motivated to help, but in such a short stay that’s not really possible.
The rest of the afternoon we waited for a taxi, and witnessed a few skirmishes and play fights with the transit agent since he had over seated a taxi. After getting back to Azilal I waited for another grand taxi back to Marrakech. Apparently it’s called the cleanest city in Morocco according to Abdellatif, and the centre and parks seem quite nice. When we finally left, the drive back was beautiful. The mountains and hills stretch over such vast expanses of the land. You can really imagine such colossal forms were formed by the powerful collision and uplift of massive continental plates. Probably why the province of Azilal is so full of fossils and rich geology- the geology park region. The colours and rock formations are so striking and enhanced by the blankets of spring blooms and new flora growth.