12-14 October 2009: Fes

I don’t really have much to say about Morocco. The feeling of wanting to be done with traveling ebbed and flowed, but had not passed. When confronted with the very different culture of Morocco, that feeling only intensified.

Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Morocco. I did. But, for the first time ever in my travels, I thought my trip would be massively improved by having someone else to help me interpret what I was seeing and hearing and feeling. I know part of it was that, in the Peace Corps, I had finally traveled with people who travel like I do. People who know how to change plans when things aren’t working. People who don’t get so hung up about what they should do that they don’t see opportunities in front of them.

But part of it was just that I never was able to find my footing. My entire time in Morocco, I was worried—is this person really a good person, are they trying to scam me? And I don’t like myself when I think that way, nor do I like the world when viewed through that lens. So, a second voice, whether of agreement or disagreement, would have been helpful.
But I don’t want to solidify my discomfort by describing it too much; I feel like it would be easy to convince myself (or anyone else) that Morocco sucked, and I just think it was more me than anything else. I’d like to give it another shot—if I were traveling with the right person.

The morning after I arrived in Morocco, I headed straight for Fes on the train. The guy at the cell phone kiosk tried to get my number, but he must have been somewhat honorable, because he was giving me my number, and yet he didn’t sneak a peak.

The train ride was more comfortable than others I had in Africa. And it was entertaining, to boot. A Moroccan couple sat down in my car, across from me. We chatted a bit: the husband spoke English, the wife didn’t. They then proceeded to pay attention to each other. They did nothing that wouldn’t be PG rated, at the worst, but for Africa, they were awfully racy. At one point the husband had his thumb looped in his wife’s pocket, they nuzzled a bit. They seemed to have recently discovered how much enjoyment they could get from each other, and they were just trying to hold out til they could get home.

Then, his phone rang. He spoke in English. Here are some snippets of what I heard him say over the next hour or so, as the woman on the other line called, over and over again.

“Why are you calling me?”
“You should have some pride”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m married now . . . yes, I am. . . would you like to speak with her? (to his wife)Can you tell her who you are? (to the caller) she doesn’t wish to speak to you.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“We weren’t good for each other . . . you know what you . . . .we weren’t good for each . . . I’m hanging up now.”
“No, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Yes, she exists.”
“Yes, she does.”
“Yes, she does, and I love her.”
(I almost took the phone to confirm the existence of the wife, at this point.)
“I met her in Germany. . . . Three months ago . . . .Why does that . . . .Yes, it was arranged. . . . I love her. . . I’m not speaking to you anymore.”

Etc.

Fes was interesting. It’s old, and it feels old. But then, popped in the middle of this old town is a swathe of modern shops and a huge McDonald’s that is amazingly popular and is used as a landmark even by those people who don’t eat there. At one point I was waiting there and a woman, walking by with her father and her son, stopped to make sure I was ok. They invited me over to their house. They spoke no English, and I spoke basically no Arabic and no French. Her father knew some pickup lines of varying levels of appropriateness in Spanish, but after he said them, he laughed at himself, making it clear he really didn’t mean them.

The Medina in Fes is amazing, especially from a rooftop. There are these old, adobe looking walls, and then there are all these satellite dishes, porcupining out of all the other roofs. And every single one of them is pointed to Mecca, so as to avoid Western TV. I asked someone if someone could change the satellite to get unapproved TV, and he said no. The neighbours would notice, and they would judge.

The leather tannery reeks from far away, and nothing distracts you from it when you’re on the balcony above, staring down. Not even the fistful of mint, picked on the way up the stairway, and held fisted in front of your nose and mouth. I thought of how the tanners worked in Elfquest, and realized that smell really doesn’t travel through books. Urine, putrefaction, and skin. There, see if that works.

The tile makers do this incredibly finely detailed work, and they work so fast I was waiting for a chisel to slice open a finger. I’m sure it happens sometimes, but not this day.