Meeting Slama was an important moment during my first visit to Tighmart in 2018. I wondered about my place as an artist in this residency. What could I possibly bring to the people of the palm grove? My research focused on the question of trans-Saharan slavery, a subject that remained sensitive. I wanted to observe and conduct interviews based on meetings with the oasis inhabitants. We were introduced to a group of young men who would accompany all the artists in the residency in their research and facilitate access to the various sites in the palm grove and to the oases.
But also to enable us to set up workshops. Ahmed, Abderrahmane, Hamza, Slama and others were with us from the moment we arrived. During one of our conversations, Slama told me that he wanted to leave his home town of Guelmim to go to Europe. It was the first time I'd come face-to-face with someone so determined and willing to risk his life.
“Why do you want to leave, when I've seen you share with us such a great knowledge of your environment and a great pleasure in living in these places? “I had had the opportunity to observe him at various times during this residency. He replied: “I want to go to Europe to make my dream come true. My father has land near here. And I'd like to farm it. And to do that, I need money to dig a well. We talked at length about his dream. After a few days, I came back to him with a proposal. I was willing to lend him the money to find water for his cultivation project. In exchange, he had to promise to give up his departure. So as not to put him into debt, I offered to repay me if he succeeded in realizing his dream. But I was aware that if he didn't find water, his dream would be shattered with a non-repayable debt.
To avoid the feeling of failure and seeing him perish at sea, I offered him the chance to come and work in Fez for a few months. I didn't really have a job for him, but I didn't want to leave him without recourse in the face of failure. As he lived in Guelmim, I also wanted him to discover another city, and to be able to modify his relationship with its inhabitants through real-life experience. That's how our agreement came about. We continued our exchanges via audio messages. Until the day of the 1st drilling, which enabled him to find water.
Unfortunately, the 20m-deep borehole didn't reach the water table. He had to look for other sources of financing to pursue his dream. His energy to realize his project was incredible...
Aware of the ecological importance of the water issue in a semi-desert environment, I invited Slama to join me at the M'Hamid Rislan festival, another palm grove where I had spotted Madani Hanana's work on organic farming in relation to the fight against desertification (see here: https://www.facebook.com/osvchezmadani/).
This adventure was so remarkable that I wanted to continue it with others. I suggested to the caravan organizers that they think about a possible follow-up. If Slama succeeded in repaying his debt, he could in turn make the money available to other local people to support their projects in their regions.
During this residency, I conducted interviews with the inhabitants of Tighmart. I had to return to continue my research the following year.
