The road from Amizmiz to Imi-N-Tanoute is dry, rocky, without any names. The views are so beautiful!!! We passed lots of beautiful Ksar villages, Tamazirght ladies wearing unbelievably clashy colorful clothing, lots of small towns with hardly a name and lots of great friendly folks.
We rode into the night, skidding on and off the rocky shoulder of our choppy, tarmacked little road to make room for the speeding busses, topheavy trucks stacked so high they can hardly afford to turn without tipping, and donkey carts with colorful produce. People waved and waved, and the kids became intense. By the end of the day Lucie was losing her patience, cursing some kids who accompanied us up an incredibly steep 3 mile hill leading into Imi-N-Tanoute who intermittantly said inappropriate things in French and asked us for our hats, or other 'gifts'.
It seems that many a tourist Western website recommend that as Westerners, people travelling here should innately feel guilty, and bring 'gifts' for the kids, thusly conditioning them into expectant 'gift receivers'. Sharing and giving is one thing, but when a little kid rides up to you out of nowhere, and abrasively demands 'give me gifts' in French- well, it's a little strange and off-putting. It seems that in certain areas with high tourist concentrations this is sort of sadly the norm.
Imintanoute is a great Berber community, situated in the Atlas mtns. Split by a dry river, with traditional berber houses in mostly pink and red, sitting cozy high in the hillsides. The town recently had a Arts and Music festival celebrating Tamazirght- which is one of the many 'Berber' languages spoken in Northern Africa. The people here were really interested in us and why we chose to come here, and were happy to discuss the complicated political situation between the Arabic minority in power, and the Berber majority- which has been supressed through lack of government funding and racist legislation barring the Berber languages to be used in schools or anywhere for that matter, resulting in high illiteracy rates and poverty.
We made instant friends with a group of really excited and curious tri-lingual school boys, who were really happy to teach us Tamazirght. They were thrilled that someone wanted to learn this language, which is actually quite difficult to find translations for over the internet despite our scouring. We suggested they put their heads together and make a website with Berber Tamazirght translations in French, English and Arabic, to help folks visiting this place to learn! They took a liking to the idea and said they would discuss it with their professor, who was passionate about preserving this ancient culture despite the racism and Arabization of the country.
We saw some Berber boys break dancing in the space by our hotel at night- they had some impresisve moves and looked to be just as surprised at seeing us walk by as we were to see them in the middle of a headspin move.
We found a favorite coffe spot right way, where Anna enjoyed instant coffe made using the famous 'frothing' method (placing a piece of plastic over the glass and shaking vigorously). Food stalls and vendors aplenty in this thriving market community: nobody asked us for 'gifts', nobody asked to be our 'guide', and nobody heckled us. The Berber communities seem really self sustaining and self sufficient. The prices and experiences at the local shops in this small town were really honest- treating us as if we were anyone else, which is greatly appreciated. Another interesting thing to mention is that no matter how remote a town, or how small, there is usually no difficulty of information sharing, and of Internet access. Each town has excellent and usually speedy internet connections as well as satellite TV and cell phone coverage. The internet cafes constantly remind us of how small the world has become, especially when you see a Tamazirght guy chat-rooming and dirty-talking with a Canadian lady for hours on end. It's really funny and odd. Sometimes the chat room talk can be really gross and dirty sounding, which is when you are glad you don't speak the language so well.
OH! Also, a funny thing happened as Anna was feeling kinda sick and needed to leave the internet cafe NOW. While trying to pay, the two slick dudes working there decided to start chatting her up.
I walked up as Anna fidgeted anxiously and tried politely to just pay, and they kept inviting us to come back at midnight, to eat with them.
Anna: 'um, how much do i owe you?'
guy: 'so, you like to come back, to eat with us, yes? our guest yes? i am a good cook!' anna: ' no, i um feel sick, i have to go'
guy: 'oh, so you want to sit down?'
lucie intejects and explains anna is too sick to stay, and then anna (desperately in english) explains she really IS sick, and they stare at her, and say
'we don't speak english, sorry, ha ha ha'.
Lucie explained that we had ridden a 100 kms that day and that we are tired and need to go, and they said:
'oh, you are sporteeee, yes? one time, i went for 22 kilometers, by zeee donkey!!! i like basketball, do you like zee basketball?'
Poor Anna, she was really at the end of the rope. Truth is, there was a bathroom emergency, the 'sickness' at hand was urgent!
in the end, they decided that despite anna's sickness, lucie should come back ALONE at midnight -or later- for dinner.
Well,
so we give Imi-N-Tanoute a big recommendation... a great place with great people!
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