Moroccan with a mission to transform his town

John Thorne, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 23. 2009 12:40AM UAE / November 22. 2009 8:40PM GMT

TARFAYA, Morocco // When he was a boy, falling masonry in a half-demolished church deprived Cheibata Mrebbi Rebbo of the better part of three fingers on his right hand, inspiring in him a deep sense of purpose.

“It was as if I lost them as a sign that I am the one to tell people that we must preserve our heritage,” said Mr Mrebbi Rebbo, 31, and since June a councillor in his home town of Tarfaya, in southern Morocco.

Tarfaya sits between the Sahara desert and the Atlantic, a collection of fisherman’s houses, cafes and the crenellated remains of a Spanish colonial fort. Mr Mrebbi Rebbo said he hoped plans to strengthen local government would help revive the town’s sputtering economy after years of neglect without sacrificing its historic character to the ravages of over-eager developers.

Those plans are part of Morocco’s quest to integrate Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony largely annexed in 1975 and still contested by the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed independence movement. The two sides are in UN-led peace talks, with the Polisario demanding a long-delayed referendum on independence and Morocco proposing autonomy instead.

While Tarfaya lies just outside Western Sahara, it falls within the desert regions King Mohamed VI pledged this month to make a showcase of decentralisation and state investment.

For decades, state spending in the area has focused on Laâyoune, Western Sahara’s main city, bursting with shops, cafes and fast-multiplying cinder-block houses.

“But we can also have Tarfaya as a return to heritage, the cornerstone of the urbanisation of the Sahara,” said Mr Mrebbi Rebbo, sipping a miniature glass of tea in a side-street cafe.

According to legend, there were no buildings in the region until Donald MacKenzie, an eccentric Scottish merchant, dropped anchor at Tarfaya in 1879, opened a trading post and raised a small fortress on an islet offshore. Tarfaya fell into Spanish hands in 1916, and Mackenzie’s fortress became la casa del mar, or “the house of the sea” – known today as Casamar. Spain later added a pier and fortified settlement.

In 1927, the French Aéropostale airmail company appointed a new station chief to Tarfaya: a 27-year-old pilot with literary ambitions called Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The days were long and hot. At night Saint-Exupéry heard the Spanish sentries, alert for hostile nomads, crying the quarter-hours.

“And still we loved the desert,” he wrote in his memoir Terre des Hommes.

That desert inspired Saint-Exupéry’s tale of a downed pilot and an enigmatic space traveller called the Little Prince.

In 1958, Spain ceded Tarfaya to Morocco, a prelude to its withdrawal from Western Sahara in 1975. Mr Mrebbi Rebbo’s father acquired the colonel’s residence and the town cinema, one of a handful in the country.

“It was a meeting place for the town,” Mr Mrebbi Rebbo recalled. “Every night at eight the garden was full of people waiting for the show to begin.”

Then, in 1989, the government demolished many of Tarfaya’s historic buildings, including the church where Mr Mrebbi Rebbo lost his fingers and part of the Spanish fort, to make room for a municipality office. Casamar still stands like a sentinel, a gaping hole visible where waves have bitten off a corner.

In 1993, Mr Mrebbi Rebbo’s family lost their house, now demolished, while an exodus towards jobs in Laâyoune forced the cinema to close.

Five years ago he founded the Friends of Tarfaya Association. It has raised money to begin transforming the derelict cinema into a multi-purpose venue, and runs the small Musée Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Meanwhile, they have persuaded town planners to recognise 22 historic sites, and government engineers to conduct a study of Casamar they hope will lead to its restoration.

However, Tarfaya’s roughly 5,000 inhabitants still lack paving on most streets, sewers, adequate medical facilities and enough jobs, Mr Mrebbi Rebbo said. The government puts regional unemployment at 25 per cent, more than double the official national rate.

Mr Mrebbi Rebbo said he hopes that the expected appointment of a local governor with his own budget will improve living standards and help local businesses while also attracting foreign investors.

Striking that balance is crucial to preserving Tarfaya’s character, said Fatima Nazoumi, the vice treasurer of the Women’s Co-operative of Tarfaya for Traditional Crafts, headquartered off an old Spanish courtyard.

Reed mats line the floor where 25 women make bead necklaces, rugs and baskets woven with aquamarine fishing line after the local custom.

“If we could just export what we produce, people could make money from it,” Mrs Nazoumi said, fanning the charcoal beneath a hissing teapot. “But the important thing is to recover our heritage.”

Outside, four boys were watching the sunset from the end of the pier. Casamar became a silhouette and the houses on the shore turned pastel in the fading light.

“I want to see the old buildings saved and the sand swept from the streets,” said Ibrahim Khuja, 21. “I’m planning to spend my life here.”

Tarfaya is too small for the ambitions of Mr Khuja’s friend, Othman Taiqi, 18, an aspiring agronomist. “But I want to show it to my kids.”

jthorne@thenational.ae