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| Farida by Marriage Carriages |
Our beautiful guide in the medieval section of Fez, Morocco, wore a long black coat and a black and white scarf. Farida is forty, with the unblemished skin of a twenty-year old. She grew up in the medina, got a BA in English literature, married for love, and has 3 sons. One of only a dozen women among the 400 licensed guides in Fez, Farida led us through the narrow lanes, alongside carts and donkeys laden with goods, past hundreds of workshops and stalls where craftsmen and merchants made and sold items their Berber and Arab ancestors sold centuries ago.
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| Fabric store in the Fez Medina |
Farida shops in the medina. Why would she go outside, she asked, where everything is twice as expensive? Her wedding dresses and carriage were made in the medina. She carries her formed loaves to the neighborhood baker, who bakes each family’s bread.
On Sunday morning, her husband takes their older boys to the
hammam, the community bathhouse, where in the steam room, they cover themselves with a dark, thick olive oil soap, scrub their entire bodies with a lufa mitt, and emerge 2 hours later squeaky clean. Farida takes their youngest child to the
hammam another day, when it is reserved for women. No TV, no video games, no toys, and no distractions. Just two hours of parent/child togetherness every week. In the West, children stop bathing with their parents or each other at a certain age. In Morocco, thanks to community baths, all ages bathe together all their lives.
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| Produce along a street in Fez |
Two days later, Farida came to fetch us at our
dar, a house with a fountain in the courtyard, converted into a 4-room hotel at the end of a narrow alley. Safe from male eyes, she asked if we would like to see her hair. She removed her scarf and shook out a luxuriant, wavy black mane. She was movie star gorgeous. And, we realized, she was wearing makeup!
Muslim women may be like Moroccan architecture: nondescript when viewed from the outside, but inside is great beauty. The outer walls of a house don’t matter. Inside may be lush courtyards, gardens, fountains, orange trees, stained glass windows, arches, balconies, and intricately designed and decorated walls, pillars, and ceilings.
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| Amy, Nancy, and Becky under rooftop tent |
Our
Dar Drissi
in the heart of the medina boasted all of the above. On its roof, with a tall minaret rising above a nearby mosque visible -- and audible all day long-- we relaxed under a canopy with our dear traveling companions Amy and Terry.
Although we had been warned that people get very lost in the medina, our map of the tangled streets enabled us to navigate. We loved being in the center of the action and within walking distnce of fabulous restaurants. We
even spent an afternoon in a traditional hammam bathhouse where we got a good
scrubbing and massage.
After four marvelous days in Fez, we boarded the Marrakesh Express for our next Moroccan adventure.
Although things happen serendipitously at home, amazing
coincidences bless us even more abundantly when we travel. We catch the only
bus, get the last hotel room, show up at a museum on its one (announced) free
day of the year, and tour the ruins on the only day it’s not raining.
Last year, Becky and
I were hiking in Greece. The rocky trail was much steeper, longer, and hotter
than we had thought. Seeing the next town at a great distance along the jagged
coast, we realized we didn’t have enough water or strength to reach it and
wondered out loud what to do. We hadn’t seen another hiker for over an hour.
Right then a man and woman appeared on the trail walking toward us. They spoke
English. They lived nearby. If we turned off the trail just up ahead, we could
reach the road through their yard. The bus to our destination stopped across
from their house.
