Travels of a Gnawa Drum from Merzouga, Morocco

By Cheri Varnadoe

I was minding my own business, hanging on the wall of the Gnawa House in Merzouga, Morocco, when this group wandered in to see our show. For those of you not familiar with this music:

Gnawa is the music of formerly enslaved black Africans who integrated into the Moroccan cultural and social landscape, and founded a model to preserve the traditions and folkloric music of their ancestors. Rising to prominence from a marginalised practice to heal people possessed by genie spirits, it is one of the most popular styles of North African music. The roots of the music are recognisably African in the drumming, the unique metallic castanets, the three-stringed bass lute (guembri), as well as the mosaic gowns and caps worn by musicians mostly decorated with cowry shells. (Al Jazeera, 2015)

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Lessons on Sustainability from a Remote Mountain Village in Morocco

By Cheri Varnadoe

As we go deeper into the country, we also move deeper into the cultural iceberg. We drag our bags through the central square of Marrakesh in the dark, accompanied by the call to morning prayers. Two hours later we arrive at a little village where we leave our bus and board a ‘renovated’ 9 passenger van for the unpaved, rocky road to a remote rural Berber village.

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Women Contribute to Sustainability Discourse in Morocco

By Cheri Varnadoe

A week into our program, I am pleasantly surprised to see women well represented in the sustainability discourse in Morocco. I came to Morocco with the ASU Sustainability Across Morocco Study Abroad program to build on gender equality work I did in Peru as an ASU Thunderbird for Good Fellow. I hope to gain an understanding of the cultural similarities and differences between Peru and Morocco to compare how these factors impact the results of development programs. Based on my previous research of women’s roles in developing countries, I came here expecting to see fewer women influencing the dialogue, especially considering how gender inequality is compounded in patriarchal societies, even more so in the traditionally ‘male’ dominated areas of science, technology and engineering which are most connected with the sustainability theme.
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