We spent a full day seeing 3 of the 5 ksour (fortified towns) of the UNESCO-listed M’Zab Valley. An intriguing mixture of markets, medinas, and mosques that in some ways seemed to have not changed in 900 years since the valley was settled by the Mozabite people in the 11th century.
When we first decided to fly into Ghardaia in south-central Algeria, we read about the Mozabite women whose traditional dress is a long, white robe that covers everything except a single eye. We hoped that we might catch a glimpse of one of the wives in their traditional garb. What we didn’t realize was that the entire M’Zab Valley is extremely conservative, and that dress and customs are simply a way of life that has worked for a thousand years so no changes are required. As the pictures below show, shopping is still done in the local markets, the mosque is central to the community, and administration by a clan system is still in place.
Not too much has changed in the residences either (except the introduction of air conditioning and metered water). Each town is a maze of alleyways, and deliveries are still by donkey because cars cannot go up and down the steps! We’re pretty sure that the interior of the “traditional Mozabite house” that we visited wouldn’t be radically different from today’s homes.
We also got to see an old tradition that still survives, a regular auction of household goods that takes place in the main square of Beni Isguen five days a week. The Mozabite people figured out “reduce, reuse, recyle” out of necessity, hundreds of years before it became a modern day mantra.
See post images directly on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720325859210
