The Bouregreg river splits the cities of Rabat and Salé. It is not huge, but is certainly substantial. From the Chellah, a Middle Ages necropolis and mosque built on top of a Roman city, you can look out over the river and the bit of marshy land separating it from the city, where right now everything looks damp and alive. There is a stork nest in every dead tree, and even on the top of the mosque’s minaret. 

When I visited the Chellah, it drizzled on and off all day. In Moroccan Darija the word for winter and the word for rain are the same, shita’, which is the Modern Standard Arabic word for winter, different from MSA’s word for rain. This week especially, it has rained almost every night, though every afternoon the sun is bright and the sky is blue. Right now, I am sitting by a pond in the Rabat Botanic Gardens, listening to the wind in the bamboo and the trickle of the stream flowing into the pond. Everything is green and bright, and the ground beneath the grass is noticeably damp. From here it is hard to imagine that Morocco is struggling with a serious drought, as its arid climate has only become drier and hotter due to climate change. 

Last weekend, my program visited Ouled Ali Yousef, an Amazigh village in the Atlas Mountains. Ouled Ali is situated over a wide riverbed where there is only a trickle of water, and beneath massive mountains capped with only a dusting of snow, even in February. While there, I stayed with a host family, who showed me their farm, introduced me to their goats, and fed me enormous amounts of delicious food. The family’s young daughter, Ghizlan, patiently taught me games while I struggled to understand their dialect of Darija.

 

There are irrigation ditches criss-crossing all of Ouled Ali, and the village has to work together to water certain areas at certain times. The water comes from the river, where it is hard to imagine much water flowing during the summer. Even now, the river was small enough to jump across without getting my feet wet, and on the trip up to the village, we passed dry riverbed after dry riverbed. Outside of the mountains, people primarily use drip irrigation, a water conscious technique, but it was unclear where their water came from.

Last week the king urged Moroccans not to sacrifice a sheep for Eid al-Adha this year, an important ritual commemorating the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Ishmael, and then, when it became clear Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, allowing Abraham to instead sacrifice a sheep. Due to the drought, if every Moroccan family sacrificed a sheep, as in typical years, the sheep population would be severely threatened. Meat prices in Morocco have risen significantly due to the drought and its toll on agriculture. My host family has told me how the price of meat has almost doubled over the past few years, and how the drought has reduced Moroccan herds by more than a third. My host mom’s family has a farm, and is acutely aware of the impact of the drought on everything from the size of the date crop to the taste of almonds. 

Much of Morocco is desert, and the country has little water to spare even outside times of drought. Although Morocco is not a major emitter, it is immediately threatened by climate change. From Rabat in the winter, where the gardens and the Bouregreg are lush, it can be hard to imagine there is an issue with water in Morocco, but the Moroccan people and economy are struggling due to drought, and there is no indication that it will ease in the near future.