In a Moroccan oasis town on the edge of the Sahara, nomads in turbans and tunics are thwacking a camel-wool ball across the desert in a traditional pastime: sand hockey.
Similar in many ways to field and ice hockey, but played barefoot and with palm wood sticks, the ancient game is called “mokhacha” in the local Hassani Arabic dialect.
“We play mokhacha in our spare time,” said one participant, Hamadi Boudani, at the recent International Nomads Festival in the southern town of M’hamid El Ghizlane.
“Our ancestors were nomads and as soon as they pitched their camp somewhere they would first rest and then, to pass the time, they would start a game,” he said.
“This game is part of the Saharan tradi-tion.” The players were cheered on by enthusi-astic fans as they churned up the sand in what was once a stop on the storied caravan route to Timbuktu.
They were wearing the daraa, an ample tunic favoured by nomadic tribes, and the cheche cloth turban to cover their heads and faces from the desert sun. The two teams, one in white and the other in blue, had a go at it on May 1, during the annual Nomads Festival which also celebrates song and dance and other desert traditions.
Each team is made up of at least seven players, the outline of the pitch is crudely traced by hand in the sand, and the referee is simply known as the sheikh. Sand hockey “is part of our ancestral heritage”, said Rachid Laghouanm who heads an association that promotes traditional sports and games in M’hamid El Ghizlane.—APP
