Western Sahara
Sand Origin
Laayoune
Western Sahara, a sovereign state or a part of Morocco, depending on who you ask. Regardless, it is included in the OUAW sand in the AKIN collection as a part in “the secret ingredient mix”.
Random Sand Fact
In Western Sahara, a skilled tracker could read sand almost like a text.
In Sahrawi nomadic culture, specialists followed stray camels through the desert. They studied the shape, depth and direction of the tracks and could tell which animal had passed, where it was heading and how long ago.
The sand tracks could disappear with the next wind. The knowledge had to remain with the person reading them.
Today, fewer sand trackers remain, but they still appear in Sahrawi poetry and stories as symbols of knowledge of the land.
