Hoping to impress fellow travellers people often give out
warnings about Morocco, they say that it is full of scams and that the vendors
at the souks are foremost after your money. They are all cheats, right? The
World Wide Web is full of articles of how to avoid travels scams in Morocco.
Visitors sadly often forget that there are real human individuals at these
markets who try to make a living from crafting and selling wares. How do you
feel if someone generalises everything about your home country? Read this about
Morocco, it will change your perception.
On my recent visit to Marrakech I heard about the ABURY
project. The founder and owner of the culturally sustainable riad AnaYela in the medina of Marrakech Andrea Kolb works together with a team of local Moroccan
craftspeople, who design quality goods in a contemporary way. All products are 100%
handmade, and produced under fair conditions and with the best materials.
Crafts, fashion, and education- and community-projects all in one? I visit the ABURY
store on the famous Kastanienallee in Berlin Mitte.
Together with the chance to buy wonderful handcrafted products, it is also an excellent opportunity for everyone planning to visit Morocco to get a first glimpse of this magical country. It is wonderful to see the good people create and not to focus on worst case scenarios. Moroccans deserve all our respect as well as everybody else does. This store will certainly take away the fear of a trip to Morocco, and encourage you to visit and see it for yourself.
Together with the chance to buy wonderful handcrafted products, it is also an excellent opportunity for everyone planning to visit Morocco to get a first glimpse of this magical country. It is wonderful to see the good people create and not to focus on worst case scenarios. Moroccans deserve all our respect as well as everybody else does. This store will certainly take away the fear of a trip to Morocco, and encourage you to visit and see it for yourself.
You can have a browse for as long as you like in this
light and airy store to inspect everything on offer in detail. Attached to all
products are tags that tell you how long it took to create that piece you are
holding in your hand. That changes everything. Out of a sudden it does make
complete sense why you need to spend EUR 250 on a handbag. That is a fair price
for a Berber handbag, which took 16 hours to make, tanning the leather
naturally and embroidering it with cactus silk. In return for each product sold
the foundation supports training for the local artisans, so that they can keep
on creating products with pride. Their earned salary empowers them to live a
life.
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| This is the place in Berlin to buy Kilim boots |
Life should be more about quality and not so much quantity, rather buy one timeless piece of amazing quality that brings sheer pleasure every time you look at it than ten mediocre ones that make you feel dreary. When running after all these cheap things, we should not forget at what price that comes.
I bought a handbag at ABURY and I know I bought something special. As someone who loves to travel, I admire projects like these that bring the world closer together with taking away the fear of the unknown. It also makes you want to go out more (to show the world your new bag).
Info: ABURY Collection GmbH, Helmstedter Strasse 29, 10717 Berlin. Please visit the website before you visit.
From Berlin with love