The Hamadcha of Fez: Transmission of a Precious Heritage

They are between ten and sixteen years-old.
They live in Fez.
Their grand-fathers, and their great-grand-fathers before them were Hamadcha, Moroccan sufis.
Their fathers too.

But their parents never encouraged them to take this road. That is, to become Hamadchas. Because it doesn't pay well, because it's not prestigious.

It was without counting on the passion of one man, Abderrahim Amrani Marrakchi, and on the energy of those kids.


So, are you wearing your djellaba and your babouches? Yes? Let's enter this mysterious house in the medina of Fez.




And let's get carried away by the music of the Hamadcha. (by the way, I hope you like to dance)













(in case you don't know, Fred has been working with the brotherhood for several years. If you want to know more about it, go on his website).

Back to Ouled Mgatel, and a Goodbye

After a busy month in Fez, we finally came back to Ouled Mgatel.

Where we saw that it hadn't rained that much there - when there had been floods again in other areas of Morocco -, and that everything is fine in our house, for the moment anyway. Heavy rains will be back in a month or two, which give us the time to do the work the house needs.



And we said goodbye to our cat Mioche. He had survived two food poisonings, a fall from the window of our appartement in Fez, and an attack by our neighbors' dog.
But he didn't survive to the negligence of a vet, and died very stupidly.



We buried him under an olive tree.

But our day couldn't end on this sad note.

In our mudbrick house, Abdelali was getting ready for his wedding, that very afternoon.

And a half-hour later, we were stuck in the middle of the craziness of a Moroccan wedding of the countryside.

You'll know all about it in a couple of days...