Merzouga floods.

Merzouga. Morocco. floods. Who talks.

This is te updates from Mrezouga.
Youssef was there last night and he is editing some video footage to put in dailymotion.com. but for those of us who now Merzouga, it is almost no more there. The old village has all gone. It all melted under the heavy rains this past week. Youssef says it is really hard for anyone to see the village becoming just piles and piles of adobe and bricks. Merzouga has gone.
Every summer there are thousands of people who visit Merzouga for therapy. They take sand baths. Villagers rent rooms and provide shelter and service for these people. Their houses are their only source of revenue. Now all gone.
People are lost and nobody really knows what to do now. What direction to take. Said youssef. The village is no-more the village.
It is really a serious situation out there. Families that have been there have never seen this before. Even in the floods of 1965.
(photo cortesey of i-cias.com)

3 days of rain. 100 mm in 4 hours. 6 dead.

Result: 6 people died. 600 families out in the camps.

In the Merzouga region. Errachidia. South east Morocco.

Six people at least died in the flooding . 600 families lost their homes. according to the Moroccan Press agency MAP.

335 building fell down under the heavy rains and more than 114 homes were totally demolished.

The Moroccan government is sending government people to “fly over” the area and see how it looks like. this is not really a time to look at what the gov is doing. people need shelter and food before all sorts of diseases start again in an area that has been isolated for a long time.

Video. Errachidia.org

who owns tamazight

Well fin Global Voices gets interested in Tamazight (known as Berber) (an inerest signed Foula) in her weekly updates about morocco.

here is a little more staff...

I gave a presentation last week about Amazigh Cyber activism in my school and i was amazed at how little the tribe of blogers know about Imazighen, a people that shaped the history of north Africa and the Mediterranean region as a whole for more than 40 centuries. well accademicians, the craftsmen of common knowledge have never cared...

Imazighen suffered from persecution every where even in the academic sphere, tall the way. Now Who cares about the Berbers/ Amazigh people?.

In the cyber space, an area where google tries to create a “to-go” sort of knowledge (savoire a emporte); well packaged to fit the needs of a buzy consumer. If you "google" the word Berber, which stands for amazigh, you will get websites about carpets and if you search Touareg, imazighen of the great sahara, you will probably get about 40 entries about cars and SUVs. What kind of knowledge is this.

They have patented indigenous knowledge and they are patenting our names. Patentscope website has all the information about patents. Who “owns” names like: Berber, Amazigh, Touareg, morocco (there are 67 records of morocco patents. ie they own the name morocco). sahara is owned by 86 people or firms or i do not know what.

It is very ironical that the Moroccan government does not allow people to give Amazigh names. At the same time others are patenting Amazigh names, peoples’ manes, areas, countries ….etc

Chikha Rimiti dies ....

Chikha Rimiti has gone for ever.
She died of a heart attack in a Paris Hospital after 83. a very strong woman who struggled in many ways in an Islam-inspired patriarchal society. she sang and made her voice heard all over the world.
two days before she died, a big crwd of people wer enjoying her sound in Zineth, Paris. Di scribed as the God-mother of modern rai music, she never stopped giving these young artists the energy and inspiration to go on and say their word.
visit her web site. rimitti.com and listen to her latest albom Nta Gessami.
click play for a sample... a taste of this beautiful voice we just lost >>>

Blogers in Prison

Allaa Egyptian social change activist arrested in a peaceful demonstration. Blogs from prison today.

“oday it hit me, I am really in prison. I'm not sure how I feel. I thought I was OK but I took forever to wake up. The way fellow prisoners look at me tells me I do not feel well but I can't really feel it.” he says and more.

All the community of cyber activist round the world are supporting Alaa and all the others who fight for freedom of speech. It is really urgent that the Egyptian government frees Alaa NOW.

( some time ago in RSF)

Good times and poetry ....

Things are going well the ones high up there. They spend time, good times deigning and strategizing for good times. Wars, famine, AIDS, and global warning. Global cozy staff. this earth has been very cold. The cold planet as they call it in Iraq.
They have their nose every where they are building some prisons in Morocco. they do it secretly. Like Moroccan generosity. How culturally sensitive. If you give sadaqa with your right hand, your left hand should not know about it. it is all for allah. sadaqa for allah.
Another nose of the people high up got stuck in the dunes of the western sahara. Deep in the sand. Too much for comfortable high up good times people. But they can do it and they will do it for us. Bringing peace and lining us up. Ready for whatever a bright future might bring.
We will wait but on the way there, we are being patient. We do not kill each other, we do not “hunt” people. we read poetry poetry,
poetry Rumsfeld has filled space wih great wisdom.

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
Read more poetry?