Culture in Motion: A Man, a Cart, and the Weight of Tradition

While traveling through Morocco these first few days, I was struck by the diversity of transportation methods; sleek and shiny cars, crowded buses, horse-drawn carriages all used to transport goods and people. Among the hum of engines and hooves, a scene stood out to me as we drove in a rural village to our fruit tour to iberry : a man slowly pushing a wooden cart piled high with colorful rugs. No horse, no van,...just a man. At first, it seemed like a simple question of access. Why didn’t he have a car? Or even a horse like others in the area? But those questions quickly pointed to deeper issues…about inequality, mobility, and the weight of preserving tradition. According to the United Nations Development Programme (2020), Morocco has made notable strides in reducing poverty, cutting the rate from 16.2% to under 9% over the past decade. For a country that lacks abundant natural resources, this is a significant achievement (Worldbank, 2018). As we heard from our Casablanca t...