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!السلام عليكم

I truly met Morocco this weekend. My fellow expatriates and I were able to explore a place vastly different than anywhere we had been before.

The trip almost wasn’t a go?I was at the doctor?s office trying to remedy a nasty cold and an intestinal bug, both which had vanished by Saturday only to be replaced by the plague. I suppose it is all a lesson in causation: if you drink water out of tanks and bottles shared by all, you will likely get sick. But I started taking Cipro so hopefully my current sickness will be eradicated.

Anyway, I was heading back to my room to mope and watch French films when I pitted the rational ?rest and fluid intake? against my desires to go adventuring in Fez. Of course, twenty minutes later the hot air was blasting me in the face as seven of us?four Americans, two Italians and a taxi driver?were crammed into a small Mercedes car for the 60 km trip to the city.

Upon arrival, we hit the street walking in search of accommodations for the night. Instead of staying in the ?ville nouvelle?, which is the more modern sector of the city, we decided to go for the full cultural experience of staying within the medina?the ancient city center comprised of souks, palaces, mosques, and laissez-faire economic activity.

As we entered the medina, we were accosted by all sorts of friendly people trying to make a living. Official tour guides, ?faux? tour guides, hash dealers, ten year old shopkeepers, tannery operators and the like flocked to us immediately upon sight. We engaged in a lot of bargaining for goods. The merchants would price high, we would price low, and we sometimes settled somewhere in the middle. Every economic transaction involved bargaining to some degree, from cab rides to restaurant prices. This was exciting for me as it turned the normally mundane purchase of goods into a game and also allowed for me to practice my language skills.

The sights and smells of the market place inundated our senses. With spice markets, tanneries, musty residential areas and butcheries, the medina presented us with a different experience everywhere we turned. Eventually we navigated our way out of the labyrinth and wound up at an outdoor clothing market. ‘Olbera’, one my co-travelers, bought a few kids some food as we strolled throughout the town. When we saw a crowd gathering, we likewise followed only to see a ?medicine man? touting his favorite cure for impotence: passing mercury between his hands.

I’m not sure if playing will mercury will help with impotence..

After enjoying the evening atop the city at a restaurant terrace, we traveled back to our hotel to be greeted by the hotelier/kif connoisseur. He told us that if we do anything in Fès, we must go to the hammam. Without skepticism, we took his advice.

The next morning, we drank mint tea at an outdoors cafe and I finally started to overcome my illnesses. I am sure the caffeine helped improve my perspective on things. With such improvement, I felt that I was up for the adventure of the hammam. We found out that it was a bathhouse where you can receive massages and a relaxing spa treatment. The five of us entered the building and disrobed to our boxers and sat on the coal-heated floor. They passed out globs of animal fat for us to rub all over ourselves. I started thinking to myself, “what in the world is going on here?”. Hammam workers started filling up buckets of hot water and splashing us in the face. Our response to this awkward situation was nervous laughter. The next thing we know, we are being scrubbed down with what felt like a steel wool glove. They shampooed our hair and then splashed more buckets of hot water onto us. My eyes were burning from the combination of animal fat, soap, and sweat accumulating from the humidity in the room. I looked to my friend, Mauro, who was approached by one of the workers. Subsequently, Mauro was twisted into horrible positions?evidently, we had reached the ‘stretch’ part of the hammam, where they essentially dislocated our arms and legs and slapped us in our chests. Throughout this experience, they were making noises mimicking those of a violent storm on the ocean. After the scrub down, the stretch, and the chest slaps, they took us into another room where they dumped frigid water over our heads for the Zen-like experience. They sent us out squeaky clean!

After everyone took a nap in the afternoon, our next desire was to climb up to the ancient tombs that overlook the city. Once we arrived at the top, we enjoyed a tremendous view of the city. The calls to prayer started emanating from the mosques and the valley was alive with sounds of “Il Allah al Allah!”?”there is no God but God”. Later in the evening, we ate out and I tried a delicacy called ‘pigeon pie’, which is a cross between funnel cake and those lovely creatures that inhabit the Walnut St. PRT.

In Fès, a healthy dose of skepticism goes a long way. Whether declining newly met ‘friends’ who desire to take you to their friends’ restaurants (and ultimately rip off tourists) or following faux guides through the tanneries (of course there is a commercial tie to the tanneries: buy expensive leather goods!), one must be extremely skeptical of others’ aims. A friend and I visited a restaurant/bar in the bottom of a hotel outside Fès and upon departure, we ran into some sort of an extortion scheme. A doorman followed us out and claimed that we owed 120 DH for an ‘exit fee’. As we debated this charge, individuals started coming out of the woodwork and circling around us. One fellow had a chest three times as big as mine, so obviously I received an adrenaline overdose. I was trying to be civil at first, but then realized their aims. At this point, my friend, “Shobby”, and I were saying “nous sommes norwege! nous sommes norwege!” to state ignorance of both French and English by claiming Norwegian descent?any attempts to delay the conflict until the police were in the area. We started running from cab to cab, but the ten or so men who were part of the scheme kept slamming the doors on the taxis upon opening. They told the cabbies something in Arabic and then they drove off. We took off running, but they kept grabbing our arms. Eventually, I told them, in botched French, that I was calling the police. Their attitudes changed drastically. They started speaking with one another and then the head bartender came out and apologized to us for their ‘confusion’. I attempted to reprimand the group for attacking travelers, but French is by no means my area of specialization. They laughed and we caught a cab back to the hotel. Late nights in Fès are not for the faint of heart, but it was quite the experience. Quite fun, that is!

I used the ‘je suis norwege’ bit in bargaining as well. When a merchant was trying to sell me a pair of shoes for an exorbitant price, I told him in rough English, “In Oslo, we get shoes for 9 euro!” (Norway isn’t even a member of the EU, but it’s all the same).

This tannery had a very interesting smell, given its natural dyes and a curing process that involves pigeon excrement.

What a weekend! Fès is a beautiful city and it provided us with quite the cultural experience. And to think that I’ll have the next 14 weekends to explore the rest of the country! Now, back to studying; my desires to learn French and Arabic were intensified by my experiences in the market.

Happy Birthday, Dad!