Kadijha is twenty years old and has a doll's face. She is the daughter of the last family still living in the ksar. She feels good in Tizkmoudine, but knows she will have to leave to study. Everyone is so nice here. She takes me to visit the palm grove.

I walk awkwardly behind his cloth-covered figure as it slips between the palm trees. We walk on a narrow path, alongside small canals dug in the loose earth to water the trees. The water from the spring leaves a white limestone deposit on the sand which brings out its turquoise reflections.

Kadijha knows every corner of the palm grove. Arriving near the water reserve, she sits at the top of a mound and slides, laughing, down a wet slope, as if on a slide. I imagine the excitement that must have reigned in the oasis when five hundred large families populated it.