Between Mountain and Main Road, Old and New
Bou Omrane is a mountain village in the south Tunisian governorate of Gafsa and around 40 kilometres east of its capital.
According to locals, their ancestors lead a nomadic life until the family tribes eventually started to settle down. First, they took up abode in the aligned village of Bou Saad. In the course of time, however, the families established themselves one after another permanently in the mountains of Bou Omrane. The first settler is said to be a certain Židd Bū ʕUmṛān “Grandpa Bou Omrane”, which is why some locals call their place also Awlǟd Bū ʕUmṛān “Bou Omrane’s children.” Old houses of the first settlements remain.
As the population grew, people started to colonize the foot of the mountain, too. Thus, nowadays the village abuts on the main road, which connects it to the governorate’s eponymous capital of Gafsa. Appropriately, people call this part Bū ʕUmṛān iž-Ždīda “the new Bou Omrane”, while the earlier colonized part on the mountains is called Bū ʕUmṛān li-Gdīma “the old Bou Omrane”.
Be that as it may, new and old melt together when it comes to lifestyle. While people welcome modernity, adapting their lives to changes, they keep on living their traditional life based on livestock and agriculture. Local women manufacture household textiles. According to our interviewees, the dialect of Bou Omrane also has more Berber vocabulary than that of Gafsa city.
