WSSG members visit in Feb 2023. Photo: Courtesy of Western Sahara Support Group.
How peace grows: Anne M Jones visits a vegetable project in Western Sahara
‘Hope and creativity never fail, despite politicians.’
Flying four thousand miles to visit a vegetable project in the Western Sahara might seem like a compromise of one’s eco credentials. Maybe so. But I am a gardening fanatic, and when I was offered a unique opportunity to live among the Sahrawi people for a week, and it coincided with the annual marathon there, I found it difficult to turn down.
This project offers support to a forgotten and dispossessed area, full of refugee camps, in the Sahara desert. Since 1975, an estimated 200,000 refugees have arrived. Growing Hope Sahrawi has been helping an area in El Ayoun and Smara over fifteen years. The aim is to grow vegetables that can be shared and sold among the refugees who live there. The rewarding benefits of health and useful work, in an area that is arid, geographically and politically, should not be underestimated.
The Sahrawi people are a fusion of Berber, African and Arabian. ‘Sahrawi’ literally means ‘inhabitant of the desert’. These camps, of flat-roofed mud-built houses, are a legacy of a war between Mauritania and Morocco, when refugees were expelled to this corner of Algeria, hoping one day to gain recognition for their own state of Western Sahara. The political situation is a complex one, caught between Spain, Morocco and Algeria, and other vested-interest countries. A war between Morocco and a Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement is ongoing. Each family keeps a tent as a reminder that they are not living permanently in the camps, but just waiting to return home to Western Sahara.
All goods, and many services, are provided through UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. There is no running water, and those flat-roofed houses might get washed away when the annual torrential rains arrive. Even in February, however, the sun was hot enough to cause me mild sunstroke. In summer, temperatures might reach fifty degrees.
Fatimatu Bachir was born in Smara camp in 1991. When she first visited the UK as a teenage schoolgirl, she was hosted by some members of the Woodcraft Folk (a peaceful, egalitarian alternative to the Scouts and Guides movements) who were keen to support refugees. Through them, she was inspired by the idea of growing vegetables.
Back in Smara, after becoming part of a local community group, Fatimatu approached her old friends in Manchester with a project plan, and asked if they could help. After some initial scepticism, by 2021 the Western Sahara Support Group had become a registered charity, and had raised enough money for a team to get started. In a situation like this trust is a key factor, and has worked well.
Today, in glorious shades of green, against a stark backdrop, sits a field of mixed crops, growing together for bio-diversity. I identified wheat, yarrow, dill, and carrot seedlings, all tumbled together, which I understand improves soil quality. Later there would be some planting out. Nearby is a recently-dug well. For years the water had to be piped from forty miles away, but the support group was able to raise the funds to get something built nearby.
Alongside the field is a huge polytunnel, filled with ripening tomatoes. Standing at the entrance to this structure I inhaled the heady scent of soil, saplings and abundant tomato flowers. I was transported to a world of hope and trust in the good that exists within people. It is the promise of peace in a conflicted land.
The Sahara Marathon is an international sporting event held in the Sahrawi refugee camps to raise awareness and support for the Sahrawi people’s struggle for self-determination. Runners came from all over the world, including China, Norway and the USA. It was organised by local officials with efficiency, humour and a great deal of ceremony.
‘I was transported to a world of hope and trust.’
An atmosphere of happiness and good will pervaded. Within our group one young man, a hardened marathonista, ran the entire forty-two kilometres; five did one half, four did ten kilometres. Dressed variously as tomatoes, peppers, and aubergines, the group made a colourful addition to the 200 runners. I managed a sad five kilometres, dressed as a strawberry. It was a disappointing length for a seasoned cyclist, but old age and heat are not a good combination. I was embarrassed – but a bit proud – to receive a mention in the awards ceremony, alongside the real runners, for being the oldest entrant at over eighty!
The following day a series of songs and dance went on into the night, and demonstrated the lively culture of the Sahrawi people – the music and costumes delighting us in style and versatility. It was a joyful occasion, showing that hope and creativity never fail, despite politicians.
On our final day we were taken out into the dunes, where a harsh wind blew, and sand stabbed our skin. I spotted a desert flower and a lot of fossils but notwithstanding I did wonder how the desert pilgrims survived.
We stayed with two local families, whose hospitality was wonderful. We briefly shared their lives and the uncomfortable conditions – bucket-and-water washing, and sand in everything – and a curfew when an ‘incident’ (unspecified) caused the authorities to insist that families went home early and accompany their guests everywhere, even across the yard to the hole in the ground.
Five of us shared two rooms in Najma’s house, while she, her four daughters, and grandchild, slept together in one room. All cooking was done in another room, on low gas stoves, with water brought in from the standpipe. An important feature was the offering of cups of tea, sweet mint, which took half an hour to brew via a complicated method of infusing, transferring to another pot, and back again. It was delicious and very sustaining in the heat.
By night-time the cold is sharp; by day the heat hangs heavy until around seven o’clock, when the sky begins to turn into a myriad of shades of crimson, purple and pink until the stars begin to show, a vast gleaming canopy over the stillness.
On one such dusk I took my drawing pad outside and attempted to capture something of this magic. But suddenly there were children hovering around giggling and asking for dinars. They couldn’t resist touching my arms and legs so I gave up the unequal struggle. Najma looked surprised when I went back inside so I explained, whereupon she hurried outside and shouted a rollicking telling off after them.
It is a curious adjustment, returning to the comforts I take for granted here. I am, as ever, grateful for my continuing health and strength that enabled me to make the twenty-four-hour journey, and to spread the word about this impressive project.
