A Month in Morocco / Un Mois en Maroc, Part 3

Cile, Ervin, and I get together for dinner in Fes.

Our last ten days in Morocco were as rich and rewarding as the first twenty. I began to realize that, even though it had not been my goal, our trip was helping me refill the well drained by my grief after the death of my son Jesse two months earlier. As much as Cecile and I delighted in getting comfortable with the habits of daily life in Rabat, we also relished our constant exposure to novelty. Every day we saw or tasted or heard something never experienced before.

Walking home one afternoon after our daycare shift, we saw a large ram being wrestled down the alley near our riad. As we got closer, we realized Ibrahim, one of the hosts at our riad, was leading the ram by a rope, followed closely by Ali, the MCAS director, who explained the animal was to be slaughtered for a feast to welcome his first child, born nine days earlier.[1]

We continued to enjoy our time with Ibran, Jena, Soultane, Amina, Khalila, Soulaimane, Doha, and all the other kids at the daycare. Knowing most of them weren’t great at sharing, we tore out the pages of sticker books we’d brought so each child could work on their own. After they finished a page, we’d put a star on it and give them another page. Soon they were asking for extra stars, which began migrating to their arms, hands, faces. Another day, when we brought rubber stamps, ink pads, and blank paper, the kids quickly realized they could use the stamps to give themselves temporary tattoos.

When our supplies began to dwindle, we stopped in a bookstore and found some alphabet books in Arabic and French, which we made trilingual so the kids could work on their English. We tried teaching them how to play Duck Duck Goose, but they just wanted to go round and round, tapping everyone on the head as they said “duck.” Seeing what was (or wasn’t) happening, the director stepped in to explain the game in Arabic. After that, they all got caught up in the excitement of “goose” and the ensuing wild chase.

Friday morning of our last weekend in Morocco, we walked to the gare and caught a train to Fes, Morocco’s spiritual and cultural center, and its political capital until 1912, when the French took control of the country and moved the capital to Rabat. Feeling chipper after the three-hour, 200-kilometer trip due east, we skipped the taxis and hiked the four kilometers to our riad in the medina, passing Dar al-Makhzen, one of Morocco’s royal palaces, its ornate gates set back from the street. 

After stopping at Cafe Cinema for bowls of harira[2] served with olives and honey-soaked chebakia, we found an inconspicuous entrance into Fes el-Bali (Old Fes), a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the oldest and largest urban pedestrian zones in the world, with over 9,000 alleyways. We trusted Google Maps to navigate the ten-minute walk to Riad Sahraui on Rue Tala’a Kebira, a main thoroughfare that leads from the gates of Bab Bou Jeloud down to the Oued Fes (Fes River) and the heart of the medina. The riad was sumptuous, four stories rising around an enclosed courtyard, breathtakingly decorated in mosaic tilework in detailed geometric patterns.

Interior courtyard of Riad Sahraui in Fes.

The downside to this place, we learned when we checked in, was that an unnamed disaster had occurred in our room the previous night. Our host, Salma, upgraded us to a fancier room for the night but told us she’d have to relocate us to a nearby dar for our second night. The room was large and lavish, three windows looking out on the courtyard, three smaller ones opening onto the street. Muted conversations from cafes and shops three stories below became a backdrop to our dreams. In the morning, we climbed a steep spiral staircase to the fifth-floor terrasse for a continental breakfast of thick slices of a baguette, two types of msemmen (one a savory flatbread, the other made with cornmeal), butter, cream cheese, jams, olives, and coffee. We savored the view of the medina, to our right the minaret of Chrabliyine Mosque, and in the distance a hillside topped by the fourteenth-century ruins of the Tombes Marinides, built for the Marinid sultans who ruled over much of North Africa for two centuries.

View from the rooftop of Riad Sahraui.

We lounged on the terrasse, reading chapters of Paul Bowles’ The Spider House to each other. The novel was particularly apt because it’s set in Fes during the nationalist uprisings of 1954, and many of the places named were now familiar to us. We packed up later that morning, and then Salma led us on a brisk five-minute walk – a labyrinthine route that reminded me of the Copacabana scene in Goodfellas – to our digs for the second night, Dar Arsama, located on an alley off Rue Tala’a Sghira. After the young owner, Adil, welcomed us and showed us to our room, we headed out for lunch at Cafe Clock, recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook, sharing a bowl of pumpkin bissara topped with halved walnuts and a drizzle of olive oil.[3]

At the end of the alley near the entrance to the cafe, we discovered The Anou Cooperative Artisan Store, owned and managed by Moroccan artisans who set their own prices for the goods they produce. Rather than netting only 4 percent of what is paid for handcrafted items in the souk, they earn 80 percent, the remainder being recycled back into the artisan communities through training and building collective power. The QR code on the price tag provides a link that introduces the artisan and their community. This great project, by the way, was started with the help of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers.

Cile stopped in a curio shop jam-packed with African antiquities – masks, figurines, objets d’art, bijouterie. While she was trying on a lovely turquoise and red agate bracelet, I browsed the shelves, happening upon a container full of long-stemmed smoking pipes with tiny silver bowls. When the owner approached, I asked, “Est-ce que c’est pour le kef?” He replied, “Oui, tu veux du kef?”[4] We both laughed, but I have a hunch if I’d said yes, he would’ve happily obliged me on the spot.

We wandered into the depths of the medina, at one point arriving at Place Seffarine, rimmed by coppersmith shops, the bright sound of hammers on copper and bronze filling the air. Later, we passed a string of leather workshops, the craftsmen cutting and sewing the tanned hides of sheep, goats, and cows, the pungent odor informing us we were near the Chouara Tannery, one of the oldest in the world. We refused numerous offers to be given a tour. We’d been there, done that.

We had made plans to have dinner with Ervin, one of our MCAS friends from Rabat, who was also in Fes. After we got back to our dar, we got a text from him: “Want to walk to the Marinid Tombs before dinner?” We’d seen them from afar that morning and considered visiting them, so we were delighted by his offer. After meeting up, we walked out of the medina, along a busy street, and up a long crumbling stairway toward the ruins, on our right a herd of grazing sheep and on our left the Hôtel des Mérinides (featured prominently in The Spider House). From that height, we could see the entire medina, or look to the north for a panorama of farms and olive groves dotting the hillsides. I was approached by a young teenager, Yusef, who politely asked if I’d take photos of him and his friends. They stood with Fes in the background – one made a hand-heart gesture, another gave the number-one sign, the third held a peace sign over his heart – and Yusef gave me his WhatsApp number so I could send the photos. When he got them later, he replied, “Merci beaucoup, monsieur. Si vous avez besoin de quelque chose, je suis là pour vous aider.”[5]

The next morning, Violeta, the wife of Adil, served us breakfast on the rooftop and shared the story of how they had joined forces – her artistic vision and his carpentry skills – to convert this 400-year-old house into a dar. At midday, we met up with Ervin again as we walked to catch our train, out Bab Bou Jeloud and down streets outside the medina’s crenelated walls and then through Bab Semmarine into the Mellah, the historic Jewish quarter. Living side by side with Muslims since the founding of Fes, Jews resettled in their own section of the city near the Palais Royal in the fifteenth century. But by the mid-twentieth century, nearly all Jewish residents had emigrated to other cities and countries, including Israel, and the surviving synagogues in the Mellah are now tourist sites.

On the train ride back to Rabat, we were able to get facing seats by the window. Cile befriended the Moroccan woman sitting beside her, offering her throat lozenges after she had a coughing fit. When Cile pulled out a deck of cards so she and I could play gin rummy, the woman took great interest in our game, and was highly amused when Cile skunked me, winning all three games.

Our last week in Rabat, our language instructors graciously doubled up classes so we could get a full week of instruction – four hours each on Monday and Tuesday. While taking a short walk for a mid-class break, I noticed some plastic bags falling out of the shoulder bag of a woman in front of me. I picked them up to give them back to her. “Madame! Madame!” I called to get her attention. She turned to look at me and the bags in my hand, confused. But her daughter understood, saying something to her in Arabic. The woman’s face brightened as she accepted the bags, saying, “Shukran!” A taxi driver standing nearby caught my eye and put his right palm over his heart in recognition of my good deed.

After class, as we walked back to our riad, I stopped at a fast food stand for a sandwich. I watched as the cook chopped up saucisses et oignons and heated it on the grill, then took one of the round flat loaves found at any boulangerie stand, sliced into it to form a pocket that he filled with the sausage and onions, wrapped it in a piece of butcher paper, and handed it to me. Dix dirhams. As we proceeded through the medina, I enjoyed my treat, but eventually the grease began to seep through the bread and collect in the folds of the paper. I stopped to pour some onto the street, right in front of a shopkeeper talking with a friend. Because Moroccan shopkeepers treat the street facing their shops as an extension of their storefront, I was being incredibly thoughtless. He said to me, “Shukran,” the irony unmistakable. “Thanks a lot, buddy.” One good deed undone by an inconsiderate one.

Our last full day in Morocco, we were free of obligations. We’d been wanting to visit a nice beach – the ones in Rabat and neighboring Salé are not – so I’d asked Douae for a recommendation. Her favorite was Plage de Bouznika, forty kilometers south of Rabat. We headed to the gare that morning, past a group of pro-Palestine May Day demonstrators on Avenue Mohammed V, who were outnumbered three-to-one by police and military lined up in front of the Parlement. 

In thirty minutes, we were in Bouznika. We took a taxi that ferried us past a carnival being set up, a caravan of camels grazing nearby, and dropped us off on an unassuming residential street. We stood there a minute before realizing a walkway between two houses led to a long lovely beach sheltered by two rocky outcroppings, private homes behind us, the blue Atlantic beckoning. We walked along the edge of the surf to a restaurant at the far end of the beach, Eat and Chill, where we shared small plates of calamars frits et salade d’avocat aux crevettes,[6] watched fishing boats come in to unload their catch, and as the sign urged, chilled. 

Plage de Bouznika.

It was a sunny day in the mid-sixties. After we lounged on the beach, reading a chapter of The Spider House, I waded through the mild surf and dove right in. The beach was not crowded, mostly Moroccans. We were delighted to see another side of Moroccan life – teenage boys and girls in swimsuits, even modest bikinis; a girl paddling out on her surfboard to catch waves; two women lugging motorcycle helmets and wearing black leather jackets and jeans. Late that afternoon, we caught another taxi back to the gare, sharing a ride with three other passengers, trying to catch scraps of the Arabic conversation. On the crowded train back to Rabat, we talked about the almost giddy joy of being, in some small way, part of the everyday life of Moroccan people. 

During our month in Morocco, I was often too busy to think about or mourn for Jesse. I believe he would’ve wanted that, would’ve wanted me to “get busy living.” Still, as I walked to class through the medina just beginning to stir, watching fathers wheel little backpacks and escort their children to school, Jesse would come to mind. What does his hereafter look like? Of course, I have no way of knowing, but if I can carry forward the best parts of him in my life, if I can offer the world an echo of his sweetness, his generosity, his laughter, that might be what it is.

Footnotes

[1] A traditional Islamic celebration known as aqiqah.

[2] A typical Moroccan soup made of lentils and chickpeas in a tomato base.

[3] A pureed fava bean soup, popular Moroccan fare.

[4] “Is this for kif?” “Yes, do you want some?” In Morocco, kif refers to a mix of finely chopped cannabis and indigenous tobacco, usually smoked in a long pipe called a sebsi. The word is derived from the Arabic word kayf, meaning “pleasure.”

[5] “Thanks a lot, sir. If you need anything, I am there to help you.”

[6] Fried squid and avocado salad with shrimp, the best seafood we had in Morocco.