Discover the floating marsh homes of the Ma’dan people of Iraq.
Also known as the ‘Marsh Arabs’, the Ma’dan people have a really unique form of architecture and way of life. They live on over 9,000 square miles of marshland, and have managed to use all those resources to create floating houses made entirely out of reeds harvested from open water.
Called ‘mudhif’, the temporary structures take only three days to build, and don’t use any nails or wood. Even the mini-islands that hold the houses are made of nothing but mud and rushes. The marshlands were a refuge for slaves for centuries, until Saddam Hussein came in and screwed everything up.
He punished the Marsh Arabs for harboring his refugees by draining the wetlands, causing many of the people to have to pack up and move.
READ MORE: Lets All Take a Trip to Dildo Island
Since then, there have been some concerted efforts to bring back the marsh way of life, but it’s a tough sell since less than 1,500 Marsh Arabs are left.
The moral of the story is, if you want to experience this really beautiful culture, you are probably running out of time, so you should book your ticket to Iraq tout suite.
