Text and photos by Mary L. Peachin
August/September, 2011
Vol. 15, No. 10
Tentatively reaching for my offer of a navel orange, she realized that her head was uncovered. Quickly she grasped her brother’s hand as she pulled a veil across her youthful face. Curious about us, the two teenage Berbers had wandered from their goat herd to peer into our Land Rover.
As we would discover, today’s Berbers are not fictionalized nomadic people pictured crossing the Desert in camel caravans. Most of them are sedentary farmers or herders who tend flocks of sheep and goats. We may call them Berbers, but they refer to themselves as Amazigh, a generic name that includes many ethnic groups sharing a similar culture.