Friday, March 5, 2021

birta

The Sun Messenger

By

By Lauren Kopchik

Photos by Rachel Woolf

Ahmed Lazar wears a suit to work, but he has no desk job.

Without even rolling up the sleeves of his dark brown jacket, he grabs a rusted shovel and forces it into the ground with wrinkled and hard-worked, yet startlingly clean hands.

“Bssla,” he says softly, pointing to the light green shoots sprouting about two inches from the soil, using the Darija term for chives. He smiles when he speaks directly to you, as if the warmth of the sun he works under each day uses him as a personal messenger.

The Generations of Lazar

By

By Rachel Woolf

A pair of wrinkled hands snapped open lima beans. One empty pod quickly joined a small mountain of peels, tossed next to a bright purple bag of lima beans.

Khayra Lafkire, rested her hands on top of the small white fur carpet before playfully hitting her great grandson, Mouad Lazar, with a pod.

Lafkire was sitting cross-legged in the center of a colorful chaos. Dim light spilt into the room from the kitchen, painting the orange and purple rugs with a yellow tint. As Lafkire continued her work, Mouad ran in circles, his feet slapping the rugs with each step.

Planting Season in a Drought-Affected Country

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By: SUSAN SKAZA

BIRTA, Morocco –

As the sun shone out of the clear blue sky and a cold breeze blew, Baba and Amina planted bsla, chives, one by one by one. In the arid, rocky, red soil, they planted the chives evenly at a relaxed speed. They moved with a sense of duty as well as harmony with their surroundings.

Baba turned up the cracked dirt with his hoe, while Amina pressed the chives into the ground, following the twists and turns of the prepared field. Using her index finger, she pushed the blades gently into the soil, highlighting the maze of rows.

Contagious Energy

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By: SUSAN SKAZA

BIRTA, Morocco – Young Simo Mohammed likes to hang out along the main road of Sbaa Roudi, a rural village outside of Fez, Morocco. Wearing a red sweater and jeans, Mohammed wrestles with his friends and engages in conversations with neighbors along the street, who seem to know him well.

He stands about four feet tall and has dark skin and black hair that rests calmly on his head, at odds with his rambunctious character. Mohammed is as energetic as any young boy his age and just as khamak, or crazy, as a neighbor calls him.

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