Damascus Rose fragrance scents Kelaat M'Gouna streets
Rosa Damaskina, Damascus Rose, this aromatic plant of the Dades river valley, with profusely sweet smell and multiple therapeutic, cosmetic and culinary virtues, has scented, during the three-day Rose Festival, the air of the small town of Kelaat M'Gouna.
Streets and avenues, walls and paths, every part of the small town, gate to the arid Sahara, smelled Rosa Damaskina. The plant embellished, in its 43rd anniversary, the necks of youths and elderly, males and females, Moroccans and tourist, spread joy here and there, and strew a freshness that so confidently defies a looming summer.
From Friday to Sunday, Kelaat M'Gouna, vested in its most beautiful attire, seemed ready to enjoy the catchy flavour of over five thousand tons of the Damascus Rose harvested this year from an area of three thousand and two hundred linear kilometres.
Rose farmers, too, had a good reason to be jubilant this year specifically: the price of a kilogram of fresh roses was multiplied by four to reach ten Moroccan Dirhams (US$ 1.10).
Visitors and local populations had both spent a wonderful time. The Ahwach groups, performing the typical dance of the berber-speaking region, were there to herald the entrance of Miss Rose.
She was dressed in traditional clothes, making shy gestures to greet the audience that massed around the parade. To the photographs and cameramen, she was trying to draw a smile on her face that visibly failed to conceal a slight malaise.
To perpetrate and boost this festival and the production of roses in the region, and to grant further help to farmers, the Ouarzazate Regional Office of Agricultural Promotion (ORMVA) has set up a strategy aiming to develop the perfume rose of the Dades valley.
The strategy includes, particularly, promoting the value of production and improving marketing conditions. It also provides for creating of a ten-hectare vast field to cultivate biological rose, and encouraging young entrepreneurs to create small units for the distillation rose water, and, finally, the creation of a "Perfume Rose Village."