The Miracle Women

The drive from Marrakesh to the Atlantic Coast is a desolate grumble through a dry land. But there is a spidery tree with a short, gnarled trunk and holly-green leaves that we see in ever larger numbers — some even harbor goats that have climbed into the branches and are munching the thorny leaves.

“Flying goats,” my driver calls them. He says the trees are argans, the Berber gold, exclusive to this region of southwest Morocco.

We pull over at wide spot in the road called Tidzi, and steer into the walls of the Coopérative Ajddigue (“argan blossom”), a woman's collective that produces and distributes something promoted as “the miracle oil”: Argan. "The future of Morocco is its past,” Hamza, my guide, says, “and reviving its traditions — and this is proof.”

Outside the compound bamboo blankets spread over the ground with argan nuts drying in the sun. Through a dark doorway comes an arrhythmic beat that sounds like Moroccan maracas gone wild. The source: a half-dozen Berber women in ktibs, traditional head scarves, squatting against the walls in a long room of Amish simplicity. They are cracking the oblong fruit with sharp stones, and sorting the shells and the nuts in metal pans and colorful baskets. It takes about 70 pounds of nuts to create one quart of the oil, about two days' labor. It’s not all work, though, as the women swill the nectar of gossip and enjoy the company of friends outside the home. Some walk long distances to come here, and consider it a second home.

In an adjacent room a head-dressed woman feeds the shucked nuts into a pair of metal blenders, which then ooze out the oil. And of course there is a little shop where visitors can buy what is now marketed as “the miracle oil,” not just for its qualities, but because it is helping to make life for these women better.

Past, present treasure

I sit and crack a few nuts to get the feeling of this work, and must admit there is something vital and satisfying about using hands and rocks and human power — nothing electric — to unearth a little treasure. I then buy a bottle of the cooking oil, and dip a piece of pita into the liquid, which is slightly darker yet thinner than olive oil. It has a hazelnut taste; there is a faintly erotic buzz.

Baba Mina, the vice-president of these Arganauts, says the nut has been used for hundreds of years as a food source. It is high in vitamin E, antioxidants and essential fatty acids. But recently new uses have emerged: It is now an anti-wrinkle cream, supposedly moisturizing and making the skin supple (and it’s true that these women have smooth skin); it strengthens nails, and can turn dry hair smooth and shiny. It is becoming a popular massage oil. Some use it as baby oil.

Traditionally it was used as a cure for chickenpox, acne and rheumatism, but Baba Mina says it is now even used to treat cancer. Like olive oil, it is recommended for its anti-cholesterol properties. It is used in salads, soups, tajines and couscous, even for frying eggs. And, of course, it is an aphrodisiac.

“It is important that foreigners buy argan," Baba Mina said, “as it makes these cooperatives possible.”

No twig goes unused. Beyond what foreigners buy and employ, a pressed cake from the shells is used to feed cattle; the wood is used for furniture; and the pulp is used to feed goats. Goats, Hamza says, have a craving for the seed, though their stomachs can't crack its hard casing if swallowed un-crunched. Enterprising Moroccans recover the whole seeds from goats' droppings, and sell them as the premium version, just like Kopi Luwak, the undigested coffee beans that are shat by Sumatran civet cats and then sold in the West for up to $600 a pound.

Work is freedom

What makes this all unusual and exciting is that Morocco is primarily an Arab culture, and in much of the Arab world women are not permitted to work, sometimes not even to leave the home. But here the King has endorsed these cooperatives, and the work not only gives the women a measure of economic freedom, but also a sense of identity, of comradeship, and pride.

And Baba Mina says even the husbands are pleased, as the wives no longer have to ask them for monies for shopping — they have their own. It has created a new kind of tolerance between the sexes.

“It’s the miracle oil ...” she asserts “... because it is a miracle these women are now working and owning their own lives.”

Plus, it turns out this initiative is good for the continuation of a culture, and for the environment. The localized economics help to halt the rural exodus. The trees were traditionally cut as firewood and to make charcoal, and for a time it looked as though they might be cut to oblivion. In less than a decade more than a third of the argan forest had disappeared. But with the new economics the argans are worth more in the ground, and are proliferating. And it turns out their profuse roots seek out water even in high temperatures, and stabilize the soil and fight erosion, doing a part to keep the advancing Sahara desert at bay.

Back in the car we thunder the open country, and rise over a small hill to see the sheen of the Atlantic. During the mega-continent epoch of Gondwanaland this part of Morocco was attached to Pennsylvania. Now some 3,600 miles separates the shores.

Land of diverse influences

We wind down a narrow road into Essaouira, to the sound of gulls squawking and children rollicking. We park, and I step over dunes thick with marram grass, and down to the line where light sand meets the dark. Here at my feet is bahr-al-zhulumat, the Sea of Darkness, as the Arabs once called the Atlantic. When Uqba bin Nafi, the 7th century Arab general who set out to conquer North Africa, reached the bahr-al-zhulumat, he crashed into the thrashing surf and pointed his sword to the west. Neither he nor anyone with him knew what lay beyond. Morocco would later become known to the Arabs as al-Maghreb, the Land of Sunset.

Two hundred years ago Essaouira had the largest Jewish population in the Muslim world, almost half the town’s population. It for a time had more synagogues than mosques. And it was here in 1941 that Andre Azoulay was born, who is today a senior advisor to King Mohammed VI, the only Jewish counselor to a modern Arab leader. In fact, the first Jew elected to the U.S. Senate was Florida Democrat David Levy Yulee, in 1845, and his family had come from Essaouira.

Artistry in this town is an organ, like the heart, and to remove it would kill the host. It was for many years a kind of hippie haven. Bob Marley and Cat Stevens made pilgrimages here. Legend has it Jimmy Hendrix was attracted to its mystical qualities and tried purchasing the entire nearby village of Diabat, and the Portuguese ruins led him to write his song, “Castles in the Sand.” There is truth in ruins, but not in this case. In truth Hendrix wrote the song well before his long summer weekend in 1969 in Essaouira, but the artistic license fits right in.

Essaouira's medina has a worn-in appearance, old but light. The Portuguese influence imbues, with light brown stone and white houses with crisp blue shutters. The so-called Portuguese fort, a ruined watchtower, stands guard at the far end of the beach, an eerie pile of stones beaten by the waves and wind. On the ramparts of the Kasbah spread the canons of Essaouira. Orson Wells picked this spot for key outside shots when he filmed Othello here in 1949; it cursed the production with its winds, and even now as I stand in Shakespearean pose it whips up a powerful thirst and hunger.

So, I head to The Orson Welles Bar in l’Hôtel des Îles, and order up a beer and a fresh salad, which is drizzled with the tastiest dressing I believe I have ever enjoyed.

“What is this?” I ask the waiter.

“Argan oil … my wife makes it.”

Richard Bangs’ latest book, “Quest for the Kasbah,” is available from Simon & Schuster/Open Road Publishing, and the companion television special is airing on PBS stations nationally now.