ACTIVITIES: Listen to the Gnawa Musicians at Khamlia

Khamlia is a unique village built of the traditional adobe and straw located a few kilometres south of Merzouga at the foot of the Erg Chebbi Dunes. The inhabitants make this place unique as they are the black descendants of the slaves that came originally from Sudan, Mali and other African nations in a time when slavery was a busy trade in Morocco. It was outlawed in the 1920´s but in this region it continued another ten years.

Many of the slaves when they were freed and left the fields and oases, having nowhere to go and no resources, went to work in the mines and moved to the surrounding villages of Taouz and Khamlia. They have their own Gnawa Music group, the Bambaras or Les Pigeons du Sable as they are known. They perform at many events and have a pure form of African rhythmical music and dance that is well worth encountering.