Wednesday 1 February 2017

Houara


Oulad Teima is the second city of Taroudant Province. It is 35km west of Taroudant town on the N10. Taroudant avoided the French building a new town during the protectorate but this late 20C town with its broad avenues, in sharp contrast to Taroudant medina, fulfils many functions which a new town does. It has taken over some of the administrative functions of the province and most notably hosts the prison and main criminal court.



We were somewhat confused when our friend told us we needed to go to Houara for a handball match. We could find no such town on our map. A search of google maps for homophones turned up only Hawara at the Fayoum Oasis in Egypt's western desert, famous for its pyramid and underground labyrinth. It was only in the car when he saw the sign for Ouled Teima the he said "Oh yes, it has another name".
Apparently the new town of Ouled Teima is built over the site of a longstanding small village of Houara. The connection with Hawara is this. Houara is a village of people of the Berber Houara tribe. They are noticeably different in their speech from the surrounding Berbers in the province. In Egypt members of the same tribe live in Hawara, hence the link. They too speak a language distinct from standard egyptian arabic but similar to the moroccan Houarans. The tribe is highly dispersed with settlements across the whole of the Mahgreb and sites named after them such as Bou Houara in Algeria. They are now fragmented by 20C borders. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dh1te4JcJg




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