A true oasis in the middle of the desert and for those who love to read, Tawarta was born from my deep love for Morocco. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, my companion in life, said: “One belongs to one’s childhood as to a country.”
My family settled in Morocco 126 years ago, following the Conference of Algeciras. Now, as a grandmother myself, I visit the tomb of my great-grandparents in Rabat every year. Six generations belong to this land, and I could adopt the motto of the ivy: I cling or I die.
After the death of my husband, Dr. Kerdoudi, founder of the Moroccan Society of Neurosurgery, I immersed myself in these Saharan territories. It was during the Green March that we lived through such exciting moments! It was 45 years ago, during the recovery of Morocco’s southern provinces.
If I look back through the kaleidoscope of my life, the defining moment is my childhood with my brother Jean Louis and someone filled with serenity, my grandmother Yvette. Her orange grove, Bouknadel, clung to a cliff overlooking the ocean, and in the summer, the family took us to cabins on the sand, Crique Roc, where we lived like little wild children, in complete freedom.
Finally, 30 years of passion made me an expert on the achievements of Aéropostale and its heroes, the first airline pilots who brought people closer and made the world smaller. Most of them died in the line of duty, ensuring that letters arrived faster and that we loved each other more!
Villa Cisneros (the name the Spanish gave to the city of Dakhla) was one of the mythical stops on the route. All the great pilots of that time crossed paths there.
The choice of Tawarta in Dakhla, on a farm by the water, is certainly the result and reminiscence of all these deep connections.
