Last week here in Ain Leuh has been pretty intense. The women at the cooperative have been taking the first steps towards the constitution of an association aimed at preserving and perpetuating their cultural heritage.

The first meeting has been a pretty interesting one, where they had the chance to go through a number of issues of internal organization: some of them highlighted their desire to become more involved in the administration and running of the future jama’iyah; questions about what name they would choose and how the new board of directors would be selected started to pop up. Activities have been an important point of discussion, although these ladies are so resourceful that we will soon be able to finalize them.

The cooperative has been offered support by the director of a non profit in the nearby village of Toufselt – where my host, Khadija, acts as treasurer – in order to help them to navigate the Moroccan bureaucracy in matters of registration with the authorities and the likes. Obtaining non profit status might take up to five months in Morocco and requires a remarkable commitment.

Needless to say, political parties have started to materialize immediately, and we have been receiving the first of a probably long series of would-be patrons on Friday – cous cous day – at lunch!

On a lighter note, Ramadan has finally arrived and I have been asked the inevitable question: “Are you fasting?”. Well, I could have said no, but after seeing all the women today – the first day of Ramadan – waking up early in order to start collecting material to upload on the website, standing  outside under the burning sun, and then patiently sitting with me at the new PC to learn how to upload the pics online, I could not but reply: I am fasting too. Stay tuned.