I spent the last week of October in a small town near the edge of the Sahara attending a pottery workshop organized by two fellow Volunteers. As the tentative schedule had indicated that we would be learning intricate design and traditional decorative methods, I was initially hesitant to make the trip, thinking that I wouldn't be learning anything applicable to my own group of potters, whose work involves no sort of decoration at all. I quickly reconsidered, however, after considering the potential connections to be made, the opportunity to travel to a new area of the country as well as see some friends, and hey, it just might be fun after all. Having come to a head with my work situation at site and with no clear direction or new ideas to pursue, I bought a bus ticket, and off I went through twisting mountain passes and plateaued Martian expanses to the softly sculpted dunes and wild palmeries of the southeastern country.
The majority of our time was spent at a local pottery cooperative under the guidance of a very talented artisan, practicing a variety of techniques-- from throwing the pottery from raw clay on wooden kick wheels to cleaning and designing our pieces. We did small relief carvings on tiles, henna decorating, cloth bleaching, painting, and glazing. We saw their methods of clay gathering (they dig deep tunnels and mine it from under a dry river bed... I crawled down in one and had a look), preparation, and firing in the kilns. A good week, overall, despite a brief-but-violent mysterious illness during which I could not stand without throwing up, and vivid colors pulsed across my fevered vision. (Perhaps someone slipped some "Saharan Special" into my tea...) And I'll tell you, it's quite a feeling to stare up at the night sky knowing you're at the edge of an ocean of sand so vast it's near impossible to contemplate.
What I had not initially realized was that our group, a collection of PCVs, was in fact a group of guinea pigs-- a test group for a tourism project being implemented at the local pottery co-op. We were given the opportunity to come learn some new methods of the craft while simultaneously going through the motions of the workshop to help work out the kinks for future groups. It was this realization that sparked an idea-- I should do this in my town.
Working to establish such a system would be a matter of connecting the right elements and people, most of which are already present and available in my area. If anything, I could work to build a framework for these kinds of visits to take place in a self-sustaining manner after my departure-- tours of the pottery production as well as connecting tourists with local hotels, trekking guides, the couscous co-op, and any other points of interest I can think to incorporate wherein the community would benefit. There have already been "guinea pigs" for a test run, too: a group of American college-age students came to town about a month a go with a program called Morocco Exchange, and we did an abbreviated version that went really well. My biggest concern would be to develop the tours in such a way that visitors would truly be beneficial to the potters' business, not invasive or burdensome.
I don't know if I've ever explained this before, but as SBD Volunteers we work with the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism, Artisans, and Social Economy via artisans and entrepreneurs on a grassroots level as part of an initiative to "build capacity through skills training and limited logistical support in areas of product quality and service, business planning and management, organizational development, and individual empowerment/community leadership." In this scenario I would not be working literally side-by-side with the potters, as I initially attempted, but would yet be working to boost their economic opportunity as well as that of others. Who knows what kinds of developments, product-wise, business-wise or otherwise, could take place as a result.
Truthfully, it's an idea I am a tad reluctant to mention at such an early stage, but it seems appropriate to record here. The majority of this experience involves figuring things out (or not) as I go, and I wouldn't want to give the impression that I knew what I was doing all along.............HAH
The majority of our time was spent at a local pottery cooperative under the guidance of a very talented artisan, practicing a variety of techniques-- from throwing the pottery from raw clay on wooden kick wheels to cleaning and designing our pieces. We did small relief carvings on tiles, henna decorating, cloth bleaching, painting, and glazing. We saw their methods of clay gathering (they dig deep tunnels and mine it from under a dry river bed... I crawled down in one and had a look), preparation, and firing in the kilns. A good week, overall, despite a brief-but-violent mysterious illness during which I could not stand without throwing up, and vivid colors pulsed across my fevered vision. (Perhaps someone slipped some "Saharan Special" into my tea...) And I'll tell you, it's quite a feeling to stare up at the night sky knowing you're at the edge of an ocean of sand so vast it's near impossible to contemplate.
What I had not initially realized was that our group, a collection of PCVs, was in fact a group of guinea pigs-- a test group for a tourism project being implemented at the local pottery co-op. We were given the opportunity to come learn some new methods of the craft while simultaneously going through the motions of the workshop to help work out the kinks for future groups. It was this realization that sparked an idea-- I should do this in my town.
Working to establish such a system would be a matter of connecting the right elements and people, most of which are already present and available in my area. If anything, I could work to build a framework for these kinds of visits to take place in a self-sustaining manner after my departure-- tours of the pottery production as well as connecting tourists with local hotels, trekking guides, the couscous co-op, and any other points of interest I can think to incorporate wherein the community would benefit. There have already been "guinea pigs" for a test run, too: a group of American college-age students came to town about a month a go with a program called Morocco Exchange, and we did an abbreviated version that went really well. My biggest concern would be to develop the tours in such a way that visitors would truly be beneficial to the potters' business, not invasive or burdensome.
I don't know if I've ever explained this before, but as SBD Volunteers we work with the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism, Artisans, and Social Economy via artisans and entrepreneurs on a grassroots level as part of an initiative to "build capacity through skills training and limited logistical support in areas of product quality and service, business planning and management, organizational development, and individual empowerment/community leadership." In this scenario I would not be working literally side-by-side with the potters, as I initially attempted, but would yet be working to boost their economic opportunity as well as that of others. Who knows what kinds of developments, product-wise, business-wise or otherwise, could take place as a result.
Truthfully, it's an idea I am a tad reluctant to mention at such an early stage, but it seems appropriate to record here. The majority of this experience involves figuring things out (or not) as I go, and I wouldn't want to give the impression that I knew what I was doing all along.............HAH
2 comments:
N - Love the photo at the top. Looks like Mars :-)
I want to go! What a great idea. Best of luck organizing. Maybe when you return, you could organize a couscous co-op here.
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