Fez

Warning: this post is really long!

16 October 2006

Fès

Yesterday and today were two of the craziest days I’ve had here in Morocco. I went to Fez yesterday, which was really cool. The city is the oldest in Morocco and if you have heard anything about the city or if you can remember the movie Aladdin, it’s everything you’ve ever imagined. I got to visit Fès el-Bali, which is the old part of the city that has the narrow streets that are crowded with people, donkeys, lots of shops, and mosques. It was a little overwhelming at times, especially when we first entered the “labyrinth” because there are these faux guides who want to show you around the medina for a fee. We had this old guy who spoke really good English start giving us this historical spiel about the medina and we just had to walk away. Later on, there were these young boys who would follow right behind you whispering in your ear about all the places they could show you. They were kind of cute and harmless, especially since they usually chose to follow my friend Heather and not me.

At one point, I really needed to use a bathroom and starting panicking about finding one in the maze. Because it’s a cultural no-no for a woman to ask a man where a restroom is, I had to have my friend Dan ask for me. This old guy pointed at the museum that we hadn’t even noticed right next to us and said we’d have to pay 20 Durham just to go inside. While we talked about how that sounded ridiculous and we’d have to ask somebody else about a bathroom, a boy nearby overheard and said he could show us to a bathroom. So, we walked through this giant warehouse where these fancy silver and gold thrones were being made for weddings (I think) and as we walked through he started talking about showing us a rooftop view of the medina. Of course, we followed him blindly and ended up at some guy’s rug shop who took us up an endless flight of the narrowest steps known to mankind. At the top was an okay view of the medina. He talked a lot about how his name was included in the last Lonely Planet guidebook and then brought us downstairs to his rug store. Inside, he insisted on showing us at least fifteen different rugs and after a while we started feeling nervous because it was a really expensive store and he was really informative and nice but none of us had any intention of buying anything. So, my friend Annie, being brave, interrupted his rug lecture and asked if he had a bathroom. It was a little embarrassing because it was pretty much five feet away from where we were standing and the door wouldn’t close, but I managed. What a hassle.

Backtracking a bit prior to the medina adventure, we went to McDonald’s for lunch and it was heaven. Since its Ramadan and taboo to eat in public, all the restaurants in Fez are closed until after l-ftur (when the fast is broken). Well, almost every restaurant… all but McDonald’s. It was so funny when we decided to go there, we got in a taxi and it turned out to be like ten blocks away. We laughed about this and then ran like a bunch of fools toward those golden arches. At first I thought maybe we shouldn’t be eating there because there were only two old American ladies binging on burgers. Well, I guess we were there kind of early at 11 am but by the time we started eating there were other people starting to filter in.

We also got a chance to check out the Walmart of Morocco, called Marjan. It was both beautiful and overwhelming at the same time. I finally got to buy a fingernail clippers (believe me, I was in need) and other stuff, including oreos. At this point, everybody was really thirsty and tired so we headed back to the hotel to chill for a while. When we got there, we found the biggest cockroach waiting for us in the room…later on, we found its life partner searching for the corpse. The really disturbing thing is that the next morning the corpse was gone…where it went, we’re not sure, but we have a few guesses. Maybe a family member carried its dead body off for proper burial, or an army of ants could have enjoyed a cockroach feast, or maybe it wasn’t really dead and dragged its broken and mangled self away. Either way, it was disturbing.

Leaving Fès:

Before I get into the craziest part of my journey from Fès, I must include our last morning there. That morning the training group visited institutions in Fès where juvenile delinquents are sent for rehabilitation. The site I visited was an all-boys facility on the outskirts of the city. Traveling to the facility was easy, but leaving proved to be much more difficult when trying to find six petit taxis in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t pan out so well for us. So, we walked down a deserted road, waiting around for a while and then walked a bit further to a dusty intersection. No taxis anywhere. Finally, we saw a bus coming down the road and all 16 of us volunteers hopped on. The driver was impatient and almost drove off with two of the volunteers on the side of the road, but we managed to grab a hold of them and away we went! The bus dropped us off only a few feet away from our hotel, so that was a bonus. With an hour for lunch break, Annie, Jen, and I hailed a petit taxi and zoomed off to the McDonald’s (yes, again). Returning to the hotel, we had a quick debriefing of our institution visits and then it was time to head back to our CBT sites.

Floyd and I got a taxi and almost lost it to a pushy little Moroccan woman, but we compromised, and the three of us all rode together. Once we got dropped off at the grand taxi stand, the fun really began. My CBT group includes Floyd, Chase, Jeff, Alicia, our facilitator Fatima and me. In the past, the six of us have traveled easily in one taxi with all of our luggage. (Don’t ask me how we’ve managed this, but cramming bodies and luggage in the trunk, on laps, and on the roof seems to work) Today was a different story. The l-Kurti (person who organizes the trips for the taxi drivers) was very stubborn and would not allow the six of us to travel together. He insisted that we had too many suitcases and would be charging us extra for the “inconvenience.” He also wanted three of us to go in one taxi with three random Moroccans also traveling to Safrou and the other three would have to wait at the taxi stand for three more random Moroccans to show up. Fatima was giving the l-Kurti a hard time and trying to convince him to let us all travel together, and at one point she had about eight angry Moroccan taxi drivers yelling and waving their arms in her face. It gets worse. After Floyd, Jeff and Chase had loaded their belongings into the trunk of one taxi and paid their fare, the driver tried to charge them 10 Durham extra for their baggage. Jeff got mad and the driver kicked the three of them out of the cab, threw their suitcases on the ground and drove off. Eventually the six of us made it to Safrou, but in separate taxis.

When we arrived in Safrou, it was nearing l-ftur (breaking of the fast) and there were no taxi drivers willing to take us to Boulmane because of the timing. Keep in mind; it is Peace Corps policy that volunteers do not travel after dark, so we basically were preparing to spend the night in Safrou. Finally, one taxi driver offered to take us to Boulmane for double the price. After a quick call to Peace Corps to see if we could get reimbursed for the extra cost, we took him up on his offer and wrapped up the final leg of our crazy journey to Boulmane. Lahumdullah! (praise allah!)