Meals Support Sustains Quake-Hit Villages in Morocco, for Now

After years of drought, water lastly got here to at least one parched area of the Atlas Mountains in northern Morocco final month, free of the bottom by the earthquake that killed hundreds and devastated entire villages.

Within the days following the catastrophe, it bubbled up by way of cracks within the earth and flowed down arid stream beds to long-desiccated fields.

Within the mountain village of Douar Tighitcht, the looks of the water was seen as one thing of a miracle. Villagers hurried to their fields, plowing the damp earth and planting crops — peppers, eggplants, potatoes and carrots — that they hoped would assist enhance the dire meals state of affairs within the quake-hit area.

Mohamed Tamim, a university professor primarily based within the capital metropolis of Rabat who’s a local of the village, had combined emotions concerning the water rising in Tighitcht’s reservoir, conscious that the laborious earth and sudden circulate might lead to undesirable flooding.

“All people is plowing to benefit from this God-sent water,” he stated. “It’s good however on the similar time it’s scary.”

The earthquake that struck Morocco on Sept. 8 killed about 3,000 individuals and left hundreds homeless and in want of assist in areas which have lengthy been topic to the vagaries of fickle seasons.

In response, individuals from faraway cities have emptied grocery store cabinets to deliver meals to remoted villages. Cooks from world wide have traveled to distant areas to feed those that misplaced every part. And native ladies have organized cooking shifts utilizing no matter gear they might get well from their destroyed kitchens.

That has helped complement the federal government assist that will get by way of. However the individuals who inhabit the distant mountain areas are nonetheless conscious of their precarious state of affairs.

Kebira Aznag, a 50-year-old mom of six who has been tenting outdoors her rickety two-story home in Tighitcht, too scared to remain inside because the earthquake, stated individuals from distant cities had introduced her household bread, sardines, milk and water, amongst different provisions. It was sufficient to outlive on till some sense of normality returned, she stated.

“With out assist, we’d have died,” Ms. Aznag stated. She didn’t really feel it was secure to prepare dinner with fuel underneath the tent the place she had been residing along with her household, she stated, and it took a while earlier than she dared enterprise into the home to make use of her kitchen once more.

On a current afternoon, she was feeding a small group of individuals, together with Mr. Tamim, the faculty professor and her distant cousin. She had cobbled collectively a lunch of tagine — a stew with meat, potatoes, carrots and zucchini.

Residing outdoors, Ms. Aznag stated she was terrified of the canines she hears barking at evening, and needed to work up the vitality wanted to stroll as much as one other village to get meals for the 30 chickens, six sheep and three goats that represent her household’s livelihood.

She stated the land her household owns had been dry for years, and that manufacturing from the olive and almond bushes they tried to domesticate had dwindled to almost nothing. As an alternative, that they had invested within the livestock now penned up close to her home.

Mr. Tamim was within the village when the earthquake struck, and was now doing sociological analysis on its aftermath. Meals was so essential for the victims of the catastrophe, past the necessity for survival, he stated.

“It’s therapeutic for individuals to eat,” Mr. Tamim, 70, stated as he ate his tagine at a small desk inside Ms. Aznag’s residence, carrying his bike helmet for cover in case components of the home collapsed on him. “It retains their minds off what they’re going by way of.”

In a city lower than two hours’ drive away, Oulad Berhil, the odor of couscous wafted by way of the air on a scorching morning. Cooks and volunteers from Morocco and internationally — Peru, Spain, Poland, the USA and Australia — have been laborious at work making ready hundreds of meals to dispatch to villages the place individuals had no means of reaching a market or have been with out working kitchens.

“I felt it was essential to contribute,” stated Taki Kabbaj, 42, a local of Marrakesh who educated on the elite Paul Bocuse culinary college in France and now works as a chef on the upscale restaurant Cabestan in Casablanca. “We despatched cash to organizations however I actually wished to assist with my arms,” stated Mr. Kabbaj, who spent the primary days after the quake cooking up giant vats of meat and vegetable stews. “It was essential for me to make use of my experience.”

The cooking operation, arrange in a processing plant for olives in Oulad Berhil and one other location within the city of Asni, is run by the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which was created by the Spanish-American chef José Andrés within the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. It introduced collectively about 20 aid employees from overseas and dozens from round Morocco to prepare dinner hundreds of meals. On a current Friday, 12,000 meals have been cooked in Oulad Berhil and 30,000 in Asni, the group stated.

The primary volunteer cooks dispatched by World Central Kitchen arrived in Marrakesh, about 50 miles northeast of the epicenter, the day after the catastrophe. They labored with native eating places to distribute sandwiches to individuals tenting outdoors within the metropolis heart. They then scouted for a base greater up within the mountains the place they might park their rented refrigerated vans, and arrange a cooking station utilizing giant pots introduced in from Spain. Working with a community of native drivers, and even renting private helicopters or utilizing mules, they’ve been delivering meals to essentially the most distant components of the Atlas Mountains.

On the kitchen in Oulad Berhil, two Moroccan cooks from Agadir helped the opposite volunteer cooks make couscous, a staple of Moroccan delicacies that’s nearly all the time served on Fridays, typically eaten throughout household gatherings and at occasions like funerals.

“They’ve their tips and we’ve got our personal,” stated Olivier de Belleroche, a chef from Madrid who additionally labored with World Central Kitchen in Ukraine this 12 months, as he gave instructions to staff members cooking the meal. “You give loads however you get much more again.”

The Moroccans helped the opposite cooks adapt the meals for native tastes, including bouillon and domestically produced saffron (their “little secret,” they stated) to the stew, earlier than packing every part in containers for supply. One smaller truck carried kitchen kits with pots, small stoves and different gear up a steep, slim and sinuous street, lately cleared of rubble by the individuals of Tizirt, a village greater up, with their very own arms.

The concept is to equip villages with the fundamentals earlier than pulling out, aiming to provide individuals sufficient hope and power to proceed rebuilding.

“It’s robust right here. In some areas, we have been the primary individuals they noticed,” stated Jason Collis, the chief aid officer on the World Central Kitchen, who traveled from California. He stated the group would keep in Morocco till it was not wanted.

Even when their quick meals wants are met, the individuals of the Atlas Mountains nonetheless face long-term challenges.

Extended droughts have dried up water sources, exacerbating meals shortage within the area, stated Najib Akesbi, a Moroccan economist who focuses on agriculture and meals safety.

“These areas prior to now engaged in subsistence agriculture,” he stated. “There was a time when these areas might reside in self-sufficiency, however agriculture not supplies a residing for farmers.” He added that some water sources had run dry 30 years earlier than the earthquake.

Soufiane Ait Ben Ahmed, 44, a volunteer with the Youth of the Atlas, a Moroccan nonprofit, who additionally helped take every kind of assist to villagers, stated individuals have been operating out of the help they obtained within the first days after the catastrophe.

“Now individuals are simply realizing how individuals have been residing for years,” he stated. “As if the earthquake occurred to indicate the truth. You possibly can’t look away anymore.”