Fez Redux

A fellow student was hosting a birthday in Fez this weekend, it was a large gathering of international students, with everyone migrating to the city for the same few days. I went with Rachid, a Moroccan student here at AUI;and  Shing, a hong-kongian Chicagoite. Basically our time was spent exploring the medina a little further then in the previous visit. I’m starting to feel like I know the area a little better, I can now recognize streets and alleyways pretty well. My goal is to be able to confidently navigate the Fez Medina as well as a local by the end of this trip, maybe make some money hasseling tourists as much as the Fezis.

The first night we went to a restaurant by the name of Mezzanine, it’s very close to the Blue Gate (Bouj Loud in Arabic). It was a nice place, but at the end of the night when we went to settle our bill the serving staff informed us that instead of charging the 15DH per drink on the menu, they were actually going to charge us 50DH! The bill was going to be over 2000DH! Luckily we had Rachid with us to argue with them in Arabic, otherwise we’d have been up a creek without a paddle. That little skirmish cast a pall over the night, but overall it was a fun time had by all.

The next day I branched out on my own. Travelling with people is ok, you always have company and there’s more people to watch your stuff, but it takes away on your ability to really observe what you see. The Fez medina really is amazing, the sounds and smells of the dusty alleyways is more than my descriptive abilities can handle.

It’s mysterious, hot, crowded, and confusing; but it’s also magical. One moment I wish I could fix in my mind forever is entering the walls of a guesthouse, scrambling up a trilayered staircase that is basically carved into the walls, to emerged on a rooftop terrace covered by a tarp and layered with a daybed, moroccan rugs, and pillows in all shapes, sizes, and colors. It starts raining, and thunder rolls over the horizon. Swallows are emerging from their secret roosts to swoop and dive over the city, consuming the new-born insect life of the day. Just as the host family settles down for F’tour, the call to prayer starts to wail from a near-by minaret. Soon, the call is joined as mosque after mosque sends out their evening calls, a chorus of modern yet ancient voices. The smell of mint wafts in the air from a glass of tea that the family insists you drink, and the heaviness of the atmosphere and moisture in the air mix to create a blanket of smell and feeling that wraps you in its’ embrace. Looking out over the rain-drenched city, you realize that this scene hasn’t changed much in the past hundred years, except for the people; acting as the lifeblood of this old city, bringing modernity and satellite tv.  It’s just amazing; if you look in the houses stairways, you can see the ridges where the original buildings’ roof was, and how there was another mudbrick layer added on top of it, then another and another, to create a mixed layer cake of dwellings, all tunneled through by the families that inhabit them. The tiles that decorate these passages are intricate and busy, sparkling and twirly, so far removed from the egalitarian and clean style of northern climes.

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