Time certainly flies on a Fulbright year and the past few months have been full of rich experiences and visits from special friends that have made this year even more memorable.

With my fieldwork coming to a close, I’m wrapping up the projects I have been working on this year. Through visiting 6 rural Amazigh (Berber) communities and interviewing women with my assistants Rokiya and Saadia, we learned firsthand about the work and challenges of women’s argan oil cooperatives that have proliferated in this region of the country where the rare argan tree species is plentiful. The oil is both edible and cosmetic and has grown in value on the international market in recent years, becoming the world’s most expensive edible oil. Rural women collect and crack the fruits to extract a nut that is pressed for oil by hand. This labor intensive process has introduced a limited source of cash income for women who remain in rural villages while many of their husbands migrate elsewhere for work.

While having this lucrative local raw material provides some new economic and social opportunities, most of the profits are not benefiting the producers once the product leaves their hands. A union of cooperatives in Agadir is working directly with 17 co-ops to promote fair trade with foreign cosmetic labs and partners. Local NGO Dar Si Hmad is also helping women gain skills in basic numeracy and math to help run their businesses.

For my other project with the Union of Feminist Action (UAF) in Agadir, my assistant Karima and I interviewed feminist activists, family lawyers, counselors, and women victims of violence who brought their cases to the listening center. We encountered a wide range of issues facing women in distress and learned about the limited options they have to seek legal and psychological assistance. Activists have recently launched a call for a new set of family law reforms to increase equity in areas such as divorce and inheritance and to better enforce the minimum age of marriage (18) and the 2016 law to combat violence against women. This is one of the top priorities of the current women’s movement in Morocco.

Meeting up with Fulbrighters in Rabat in May at the 26th annual Moroccan Studies symposium was a great way to hear about all the diverse research projects undertaken by grantees this year, from creating pottery kilns fueled by burning solid waste to tracking Barbary macaque monkeys in the Atlas Mts! It was an honor to be part of this group of scholars.

Springtime brought many fun visitors our way! I had the pleasure of meeting up with three of my USF colleagues in Marrakech, my sister who met us on spring break in Spain at my aunt’s house and traveled back to Agadir, and some of my best lifelong friends (and their kids!) from high school, college, and Peace Corps years who recently visited us in Marrakech and Agadir to experience life in Morocco.

Souk strolling and haggling, sunset camel rides in a palm grove, tagine cooking class, hammam (steam bath) scrubs, henna tattoos, and trips to beautiful Setti Fatma and Imlil in the High Atlas Mts, the coastal town of Essaouira, the walled Berber city of Tiznit known for silver jewelry, and Paradise Valley where we hiked in the Anti-Atlas Mts near Agadir were some amazing highlights of these cherished reunions. Thanks to everyone who made the Morocco trek!

One of our friends even came back for a second trip! Heide Castañeda returned in June and gave a lecture on her new book about families on the US-Mexico border, Borders of Belonging, to the new Master’s program in cross-border dynamics at Univ. Ibn Zohr. There are many similarities with the situation of sub-Saharan migrants entering Morocco en route to Europe. There are many migrants now living in the greater Agadir region and working on farms in agricultural zones nearby.

We also traveled to Oulad Teima in May to reconnect with a wonderful Sahrawi family that I lived with in Guelmim during my dissertation fieldwork in 2006. They took us to the nearby walled city of Taroudant where we rode a horse carriage around town.

During the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during daylight hours, life quieted down and we enjoyed visiting Karima’s family to break the fast with them Moroccan style, which entailed feasting on harira soup, shbakia cookies, dates, briouate dumplings, grilled fish and meat kebabs followed by mint tea.

Since the Eid-al-Fitr holiday that marked the end of Ramadan in early June, summer rolled right in with warmer weather and school coming to an end. Our kids had their last days this week and said goodbye to the teachers and friends who made this year unforgettable for them. We will have some time to unwind at the beach before preparing to head home after this year abroad in Morocco. We’re starting to miss it already!

We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time. ~T.S. Eliot

One of the best parts about being a Fulbright Scholar is the chance to explore the host country. From our home base here in Agadir, we have been on the go over the past few months and it’s time to catch up!

In early October, my mom and dad met us in Marrakech, about 3 hours north of Agadir. One of the four former imperial cities (along with Rabat, Fès and Meknès), Marrakech is the most visited destination in Morocco. You can easily spend days wandering around inside the pink city walls. The peaks of the High Atlas Mountains are visible from the city on a clear day. I’ve been to Marrakech many times and although it has gotten very touristy over time, it never loses its allure. Due to the influence of the French colonial era, the city is split into two main sections like many other cities in Morocco. The medina is the older part and the heart of it is the legendary Djemaa el Fna square with its musicians, storytellers, snake charmers, water sellers, tooth-extractors, street food, and juice stands. Beyond the square are the endless winding souks full of colorful carpets, spices, crafts, and everything you can imagine. You can stay in the numerous renovated riads (traditional homes with an open courtyard in the center and roof terraces on top) throughout the medina. Outside of the medina, the ville nouvelle is the “new city” that the French designed with its wide boulevards, modern buildings, and many cafés.

Some of my favorite must-see sights in the Marrakech are the 12th c. Koutoubia Mosque (built in the same era as La Gironda tower in Sevilla), Musée Tiksiwin (a small museum designed by Dutch anthropologist and African art collector Bert Flint that showcases artistic connections between North and sub-Saharan Africa), Ben Youssef Madrasa, one of the largest Islamic colleges in North Africa at its height, and Jardin Majorelle. This picturesque botanical garden was created by the French Orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle who lived there in a Cubist-style cobalt blue villa from the 1920s-50s. Designer Yves Saint-Laurent bought the property in the 1980s to restore it and it now houses the Islamic Art Museum, Berber Museum, and the Musée Yves Saint-Laurent that has an exhibit of the stunning photography portraits of Moroccans by the late Leila Alaoui. Our brief stay in romantic Marrakech ended with a horse-drawn carriage ride around the city at sunset and a multi-course dinner for my mom’s 70th birthday at Dar Yacout, a Marrakech culinary gem in a beautiful candlelit riad. Definitely one to remember!

Marrakech 

Right before Halloween, we had to leave Morocco over fall break to renew our visas (all foreigners on a tourist visa must leave and re-enter the country after 90 days). Although this can be a real hassle with a family of five, we took the opportunity to visit Tangier in northern Morocco for a day (in the rain!) and then headed to Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar. Our first stop was Sevilla where we somehow got all the kids to sit through an amazing flamenco show. We drove through the breathtaking Andalusian town of Ronda (a UNESCO World Heritage site) to see the famous rock bridge (built from 1751-93) 390 ft. above the canyon below. From there we visited our “home away from home” at my aunt’s house in the hills above Puerto Banús by Marbella.

Spain and Tangier

On the way back to Agadir, our flight connected overnight in Fès and we raced over to the old city before sunset to show the kids a glimpse of our favorite Moroccan city. Fès is known as the cultural capital and the old city (Fes el Bali) is a UNESCO site. It hosted the sultans of two Moroccan dynasties, including the oldest one. Fun fact: the world’s oldest functioning university, Al-Qarawiyin, was founded by a woman (Fatima al-Fihri) in Fès in 859! The medina is a truly magical place where getting lost in the hundreds of alleys is inevitable (get a guide!). Fès is known for its vibrant artisanry with the world’s oldest leather tannery (11th c.) and traditional artisan workshops for brass, weaving, pottery, tile zellij and many other decorative arts. Every June the city hosts an incredible Festival of World Sacred Music that I attended when I first studied Arabic there back in 2003.

In early December, one of my PhD students from USF, Clarisse, visited us in Agadir after completing her Fulbright year of dissertation research in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso where she worked in shelters with Mossi women accused of witchcraft and banished from their villages. Clarisse presented her findings to sociology and English students and faculty at two campuses of Université Ibn Zohr.

We traveled with Clarisse for a weekend visit to Essaouira, a former Portuguese port city on the Atlantic Coast 2 hours north of Agadir in a region full of argan, olive, and thuya (a type of cypress) trees that are used to make wood sculptures. Essaouira has a small medina and is known for artists and Gnawa musicians, especially during the annual Gnawa World Music Festival in June. The Gnawa have an intriguing history as the descendants of former slaves from sub-Saharan Africa who developed their own unique musical style.

Essaouira

Over the winter break, we had the chance to visit our good friend Marie from grad school and her family in rural Auvergne, the agricultural heart of France. We had a wonderful Christmas in an old farm house (without TV or internet!) where Père Noël left gifts in our shoes and we shared a holiday feast of homemade foie gras, roasted goose, chestnuts, and cabbage, and many fine wines and cheeses of the region. We had fun making fires, taking walks in nature, trekking by a lake, and visiting the pretty Romanesque basilica of Notre Dame in the nearby town of Orcival.

Auvergne

From Auvergne, we headed north to Paris and stopped overnight at La Ferme de la Maugarie (a mohair goat farm) and visited the impressive Renaissance château of Chambord (built 1547). In Paris, we stayed in the 12th arr. near the Place de la Bastille and met up with my sister Heather to ring in the new year Parisian style. We kept warm with many hot chocolates and crêpes while seeing the city by foot and riverboat on the Seine.

A highlight for us in Paris was finding the Église Saint Étienne sur Mont in the Latin Quarter right next to the Panthéon. This church has a statue and shrine to Saint Geneviève, the patroness of Paris who saved the city from an invasion by Attila the Hun in 451. We happened to visit the church on her feast day with our little Genevieve in tow. Later we came across another saint statue in the Jardin du Luxembourg for more photo opps. Vive Sainte Geneviève!

It’s been a full few months of life over here with lots of exploration in every direction! Back here in Agadir, 2019 is off to a good start and we are back into our daily routines of school, work, and research. Genevieve is now walking everywhere and keeping us on our toes! Our time in Morocco is already halfway over and we are trying to savor it. Close to home, we recently discovered great hiking and picnic areas in Paradise Valley and Souss-Massa Park, a large nature reserve along the Massa River and home to many bird species including the bald ibis. Tomorrow the boys are having their joint Moroccan birthday party with their school friends to celebrate turning 7 and 5 during their year abroad! I have been busy working on my project with the Union de l’Action Féministe in Agadir and getting out into the field to meet with women’s argan cooperatives in Berber villages throughout the region with my research assistants. More on this next…

Wishing you a belated Happy New Year and early Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”
– Ibn Battuta (14th century Moroccan scholar who traveled the medieval world for 30 years)

Marhaban (welcome) and thanks for joining me (Tara) and my family on our adventures abroad in Morocco this year!

I’m a cultural anthropologist, professor at University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, lifelong traveler, and mom currently living in Agadir, Morocco with my husband Micah and our three children, Gabriel (6), Luca (4), & Genevieve (almost 1!).

Sharing tea in Morocco, as in many parts of the world, is an essential daily ritual that allows people to take time out of their day to sit, relax, reflect, and converse. It’s a celebrated custom and a sign of hospitality, generosity, and enjoyment of life. Some of my fondest travel memories include savoring cups of hot tea with friends while camping under starry skies in the Sahara, hiking through the Himalayas in Nepal, riding bumpy trains across India, and watching the sunrise over the Incan ruins of Macchu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. This is the inspiration behind Tea with Tara, where I hope to find some moments to step back and reflect on life as an anthropologist mom during our time abroad as a family of five.

For a long time I’ve been drawn to the cultures, arts, languages, and livelihoods of people in the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa. I first set foot on the continent as a 19 year-old college student on a semester abroad program in Niamey, Niger. For two years after my college graduation, I taught middle school English in a Gourmantché village in rural Burkina Faso as a Peace Corps volunteer. In my work as an anthropologist, I have spent time living with several nomadic, rural, and urban communities in West and North Africa during fieldwork trips since 2002 to Mali, Niger, Chad, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, and Algeria. In my free-range days traveling as a backpacker, I’ve also enjoyed getting to know parts of Europe, the Middle East, South America, and South Asia.

While becoming both a professor and parent has brought with it a more sedentary lifestyle than I had before, I remain a nomad at heart and continue to seek opportunities to leave my comfort zone and venture abroad. Bringing our children along has allowed us to see everything anew from their point of view. It requires a tricky balancing act to manage parenting, traveling with new constraints, and doing fieldwork. But it is possible and we are so grateful to be doing it!

So what’s the story with Morocco and how did we land here? My first encounter with Morocco took place in November 1999 during my travels home from the Peace Corps. I met two close friends in Casablanca and we headed to Marrakech. We teamed up with two Dutch backpackers that we met at a taxi station and traveled with them around southern Morocco where we drove across the snowy Atlas Mountains, rode camels into the Sahara, ate couscous in a Moroccan family’s mud kasbah, and found our way to a traditional local hammam in the Marrakech medina (old city). Morocco made a lasting impression 19 years ago and continues to lure me back. Over the years I have cultivated a long-term affinity for this vibrant place and the many wonderful people I have met along the way.

During my graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Arizona, I began studying Arabic in the historic city of Fès in the summer of 2003, followed by another summer study program in Tangier in 2004. For my doctoral dissertation research, I spent a year and a half living with families in different parts of southern Morocco in 2006-2007 as a Fulbright-Hays and AIMS fellow. My project focused on efforts to conserve oral traditions and cultural identity in Sahrawi Arab communities that have undergone a rapid transition from nomadic to urban livelihoods since the 1970s.

I came back to Morocco on shorter visits in 2009 while writing my dissertation and in 2010 to lead a group of K-12 teachers from the US on a Fulbright-Hays study tour through the country for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at University of Arizona.

In 2014, my husband and I first brought our two sons (ages 2 and 6 mos.) here for 3 months during my parental leave. Fortunately, Morocco is a very safe and super child-friendly country with abundant access to good food, health care, and amazing places to discover. That trial run went well and we all came back for another month in July 2015 to start planning my next research project.

Fast forward three years and one more child later…in April 2018, we received the exciting news that I was awarded a Fulbright Scholar Grant to pursue research with women’s rights associations in Agadir, Morocco for the 2018-2019 academic year in collaboration with Université Ibn Zohr. Agadir is a large coastal city of over 340,000 near the Atlas Mountains in the Souss region of southern Morocco that is a major agricultural hub for the country. The city’s ethnic population is varied but surrounding rural areas are predominantly Amazigh (Berber) communities that speak Tashelhit.

We quickly got in gear to relocate to Morocco! Figuring out how to make this happen in just 4 months with our 2 boys and new baby girl was a daunting feat. A flurry of activity followed… passport applications, plane tickets, researching schools, French day camp for the boys to begin learning the language, selling our home of 5 years, packing, and many goodbyes to our family and friends in Florida, New Jersey, and New York. Complete whirlwind!

We set off on our big adventure on August 27, 2018 with an overnight flight on Royal Air Maroc from New York to Casablanca. Luckily our tiny 9 month old traveler slept most of the way, tucked into a bassinet attached to the bulkhead. After a brief stop in Casablanca airport, we connected to Agadir and finally arrived at our destination to settle in.

We found an apartment to rent within walking distance of the boys’ new schools and began getting reacquainted with Moroccan ways of life. We’re so thrilled to be back and see what adventures this year holds in store. And ready for some delicious mint tea, of course!

Photo by Maya Cotton, 2018 (tea time in Meknès, Morocco)