Hard Driving Sisterhood

This rally tests drivers’ skills and builds lasting friendships

 

- Lia Grainger

THE WOMEN DANCE with abandon under a star-filled sky, the desert forgotten. After eight grueling days driving Morocco’s sun-scarred landscape, these 316 women have completed the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc— an all-terrain, all-female automobile competition in the Sahara Desert.

The women are from 15 different countries, but tonight they are as one, some dancing on colorful Moroccan carpets covering the golden sand, others gathered in clusters around candlelit lanterns.

Julie Dufour and Genevieve MacEachern, a pair of Canadians, are among the revelers. At home in Gatineau, Quebec, Julie is a 41-year-old lawyer and mom. Geneviève, a 49-year-old mother of two, is an insurance claims analyst in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tonight, though, they are Team 187, Julie the driver and Geneviève the navigator.

In the mid-90s, Geneviève had read about the Rallye and fell in love with the idea of being at the mercy of the desert with nothing but her vehicle, her teammate, and her wits to guide her. In 2007, she asked her friend Julie to join her. The rally would cost them around 40,000 CAD, and while many teams are sponsored, Julie and Geneviève spent a decade raising money to participate.

Now, dancing among new friends, they agree that finding their way across the desert together is the hardest thing they’ve ever done.

“I feel like superwoman!” exclaims Geneviève, throwing her arms around a grinning Julie. “Like I can do anything!”