Photo: Ashton Songer

In the morning, women work to prepare breakfast and the men set out to tend the livestock. Fresh milk is poured through a cloth filter into a bucket. Six-year-old Marwane Bouchikhi brings her mother a tiny black-and-white lamb. The lamb, whose mother has died, is well aware of the routine and drops to its knees while Marwane’s mother feeds it using a soda bottle topped with a nipple.  The lamb suckles furiously at the warm milk.  Soon the milkman arrives to pick up three large containers of milk to sell in Fez.    Ashton Songer

Photo: Vemo Hang

The village of Sbaa Roudi consists of twenty-three different douars, each like its own small village and comprising a collection of farmhouses. Ain

Allah, where villagers go to buy or sell land and to retrieve birth certificates, is the administrative center. Hot springs were discovered here in 1979 and attract tourists to what are said to be healing mineral-laden waters. Despite the abundance of hydraulic resources, many houses in the village still do not have potable water, including the house of the head of the “Potable Water Association,” a local NGO. Farmers grow a variety of crops from wheat, lentils, and chickpeas to tomatoes, onions, and fruit. Sbaa Rouadi claims to have the best milk and yogurt in Morocco. The royal family owns an almost eight mile square farm in the area. But for the 20 thousand common people living in Sbaa Rouadi, life isn’t easy. Villagers, especially the women, are angry and want to see change. Veronica Jean Seltzer MORE