Hard but sweet-smelling slog in Morocco”s Valley of the Roses – MENAFN.COM

Hard but sweet-smelling slog in Morocco”s Valley of the Roses – MENAFN.COM

File photo shows a worker harvest roses in a field by the city of Kelaat Mgouna in Morocco's central Tinghir Province in the Atlas Mountains. (MENAFN - Gulf Times) To earn a dollar, rose picker Izza in Morocco's Atlas Mountains wakes up at dawn to collect three kilos of flowers — eventually distilled into precious oil costing $18, 000 per kilo. ''We earn just enough to live on," she says, her hands gloved against the thorns and her head covered against the hot sun bearing down on the Valley of the Roses in the kingdom's south. The harvest begins at dawn, and it takes about six hours — before the sunshine damages the shocking pink petals — to fill the big bags that the women carry on their heads to the weighing station. Izza Ait Ammi Mouh, a Berber woman of ''about 40" — she doesn't know her exact age and can't spell her name — doesn't complain. The work allows her to feed her family of five, picking 20 kilos to take home just under $7 a day during the short April-May season. A kilo of essential oils requires between four and five tons of flowers. The heady aroma