In the medina
2nd - 5th May, Ian
On Monday we flew, I'm told for 12 hours, from
Cape Town to London Heathrow to catch our plane to Fes. Unfortunately, our Fes
plane took off from Gatwick so our friend Mark picked us up and transferred us.
We had not wanted to touch down in England at all this year, still less to drive
round the M25, but the cost and complication of any other route from south to
north Africa were prohibitive. In any case, it was nice to see Mark and to have
a few hours to make calls, buy the girls reading books and sort out internet
connectivity. Zoe and Heidi each have their own flight book that records all of
their plane journeys, with the mileage signed off by the captain. On this
journey Zoe passed her 100,000 air miles and they were invited into the flight
deck when we landed at Fes. Before 9/11 this was quite commonplace - I was once
even invited to sit in the jump seat for take off on a trip from Milan to London
- but in these paranoid times when we can't even get a metal teaspoon with our
in-flight coffee it's more of an
event.
We were met at Fes by Hafid, who is helping us out while we are here. Our first sight of Fes was from the windows of an old Mercedes, with Hafid and me squeezed side by side next to the driver in the front and Paula and the girls more comfortably in the back. Like many Moroccan cities, Fes has a medieval walled town, the medina, and a colonial-era ville nouvelle built by the French for their own administrative and residential quarters. While the ville nouvelle, which we drove through, is built on an orderly plan of wide boulevards, the medina, where we are staying, is composed of almost 10,000 narrow winding roads and alleyways.
Due to an error on my part, we had to spend our first night in a guest house, Riad Dar Dmana, before we could transfer to Dar Bennis, where we are based for the rest of the month. The taxi dropped us off at the periphery of the medina where it is still possible to drive and we walked to the riad where we were staying that night. Riads and dars inside the medina are completely inscrutable. Simply plastered walls inside the medina run continuously along its network of streets, with closed doors and shuttered windows, all in the same chocolate brown and to the same pattern, giving no precise delineation of individual addresses and hiding completely whatever is inside. The mystery of the exterior gives the interior the power to surprise, and in both Riad Dar Dmana and in Dar Bennis it does. Inside the Dar Dmana we were led into a large lounge courtyard open all the way up to a high sliding glass roof. The floor and many areas of the walls were done in zellij, the colourful ceramic tiles arranged in the classic geometry of Islamic tradition. Arranged around the courtyard were a number of round tables with sofas and chairs decorated in rich fabrics; we sat and, after a journey that had started over a day ago, were served mint tea. Arched windows from the bedrooms opened onto the courtyard from above and we spent a very comfortable night in two of these.
Here's a picture of a corner of the courtyard:
Before turning in, we were joined for tea and then for dinner in the ville nouvelle by David, the owner of Dar Bennis. David is an American who has lived in Fes (and before that Egypt) for many years and who now runs the American Language Centre where he himself, though a linguist, teaches a course in architecture. We are hoping to arrange lessons in (Moroccan) Arabic for the four of us through his centre; in the meantime he has taught us a few useful words. Fortunately, many people here seem to speak French, which seems so much easier now that we have seen a little of some of the alternatives like Arabic and the click languages such as !Xhosa.
Yesterday, after breakfast at the riad we had our first excursion into the neighbourhood. By day, most of the frontages along the main arteries of the medina that are blanked off in the evening open up as shop fronts. It's exactly as if the old city, like a huge set of toys, were taken out in the morning and put away at night. Small house-front stalls sell shoes, bread, ceramics, groceries, fruit, shoes, clothes, kebabs, white goods, sweets, shoes and much else besides. The streets are extremely busy with human traffic and donkeys. Most of the men kick around in jeans and t-shirts; jellabas are mainly worn by the elderly, although we did see students from one of the many medersas sporting chic black and white checked ones. The women, on the other hand, dress conservatively with their legs and arms covered; the robes and jellabas that they wear in public apparently cover western clothing, judging from the protruding jeans and hems and what we can see on sale for women in the local shops. Clothes-wise, this will be an easier month for me than for Paula.
After lunch with David we went to Dar Bennis to settle in. It's located in a side street (as if there were anything else) between the two main drags at the heart of the medina: Talaa Seghira (small ascent) and Talaa Kebira (large ascent). Despite being so centrally located, the chances of randomly stumbling on the door to Dar Bennis are around zero. Cantilevered over the narrow dark alleyway, inside it's arranged over five floors, with the top floor opening onto a roof terrace. Like Dar Dmana, all of the floors are done in zellij, which provides enough colour that most of the walls look fine in bare plaster and there are few extraneous furnishings. Again, there is a central lounge courtyard (though only a fraction of the area of that at the riad) that opens up to a skylight; thus the main rooms of the dar, which on all floors open onto the courtyard, are far lighter and more airy than the roads outside. The girls love it.
I would like to find a vocabulary for the subtle changes of smell and scent that subliminally catch you as you move around, both outside and in. As well as the more noticeable ones such as recently tanned leather or mint, Heidi commented accurately that one spot smelled of pasta, even though none was visible, and at other points you might think of plaster dust, perhaps, or water over brick. Although it's the vernacular architecture, the vendors in Fez hats, the well-used zellij fountains and so forth that you notice, it's equally these marginally conscious aromas and the ambient sounds of, say, leather shoes slapping on the stone streets that configure your neurons to form the experience of Being in Fes.
When we awoke yesterday morning Paula told me that she had been disturbed in the night by the call to prayer. These blast out five times a day from loudspeakers all across the medina and it turns out that one of these times, strangely referred to here as "dawn", is in the middle of the night. Well yesterday morning I was aware that this had featured in my dreams but it hadn't woken me. Last night, however, it did wake me. When I was fully awake I checked my watch and noted that the time was 3:20. I listened to the incantation, which had a distinctive repeating phrase pattern, with the pause at the end of each phrase offering up the possibility of peace; but, of course, the overwhelming majority of such possibilities - all but one - were false. The Imam seemed to get more and more strained, and he was eventually joined by other fainter voices in what seemed more like the Biblical but now recondite Christian practice of glossolalia (or speaking in tongues) than any actual language. They eventually chucked it in at 3:50.
We had taken dinner earlier at a roof terrace restaurant. When the Imam had started up this time we could survey a fair patch of the medina and didn't even see one person turn away from their business to fall to prayer; maybe the zealous were already indoors. I'll probably write more about the food in later entries. In my first three meals I've already dinged the top culinary cliches of tagine, pastilla and couscous; refinement of this hopefully to follow.
Now that we're here we want to settle into a routine of regular hours for teaching, eating and exploration. I'll keep you posted...
We were met at Fes by Hafid, who is helping us out while we are here. Our first sight of Fes was from the windows of an old Mercedes, with Hafid and me squeezed side by side next to the driver in the front and Paula and the girls more comfortably in the back. Like many Moroccan cities, Fes has a medieval walled town, the medina, and a colonial-era ville nouvelle built by the French for their own administrative and residential quarters. While the ville nouvelle, which we drove through, is built on an orderly plan of wide boulevards, the medina, where we are staying, is composed of almost 10,000 narrow winding roads and alleyways.
Due to an error on my part, we had to spend our first night in a guest house, Riad Dar Dmana, before we could transfer to Dar Bennis, where we are based for the rest of the month. The taxi dropped us off at the periphery of the medina where it is still possible to drive and we walked to the riad where we were staying that night. Riads and dars inside the medina are completely inscrutable. Simply plastered walls inside the medina run continuously along its network of streets, with closed doors and shuttered windows, all in the same chocolate brown and to the same pattern, giving no precise delineation of individual addresses and hiding completely whatever is inside. The mystery of the exterior gives the interior the power to surprise, and in both Riad Dar Dmana and in Dar Bennis it does. Inside the Dar Dmana we were led into a large lounge courtyard open all the way up to a high sliding glass roof. The floor and many areas of the walls were done in zellij, the colourful ceramic tiles arranged in the classic geometry of Islamic tradition. Arranged around the courtyard were a number of round tables with sofas and chairs decorated in rich fabrics; we sat and, after a journey that had started over a day ago, were served mint tea. Arched windows from the bedrooms opened onto the courtyard from above and we spent a very comfortable night in two of these.
Here's a picture of a corner of the courtyard:
Before turning in, we were joined for tea and then for dinner in the ville nouvelle by David, the owner of Dar Bennis. David is an American who has lived in Fes (and before that Egypt) for many years and who now runs the American Language Centre where he himself, though a linguist, teaches a course in architecture. We are hoping to arrange lessons in (Moroccan) Arabic for the four of us through his centre; in the meantime he has taught us a few useful words. Fortunately, many people here seem to speak French, which seems so much easier now that we have seen a little of some of the alternatives like Arabic and the click languages such as !Xhosa.
Yesterday, after breakfast at the riad we had our first excursion into the neighbourhood. By day, most of the frontages along the main arteries of the medina that are blanked off in the evening open up as shop fronts. It's exactly as if the old city, like a huge set of toys, were taken out in the morning and put away at night. Small house-front stalls sell shoes, bread, ceramics, groceries, fruit, shoes, clothes, kebabs, white goods, sweets, shoes and much else besides. The streets are extremely busy with human traffic and donkeys. Most of the men kick around in jeans and t-shirts; jellabas are mainly worn by the elderly, although we did see students from one of the many medersas sporting chic black and white checked ones. The women, on the other hand, dress conservatively with their legs and arms covered; the robes and jellabas that they wear in public apparently cover western clothing, judging from the protruding jeans and hems and what we can see on sale for women in the local shops. Clothes-wise, this will be an easier month for me than for Paula.
After lunch with David we went to Dar Bennis to settle in. It's located in a side street (as if there were anything else) between the two main drags at the heart of the medina: Talaa Seghira (small ascent) and Talaa Kebira (large ascent). Despite being so centrally located, the chances of randomly stumbling on the door to Dar Bennis are around zero. Cantilevered over the narrow dark alleyway, inside it's arranged over five floors, with the top floor opening onto a roof terrace. Like Dar Dmana, all of the floors are done in zellij, which provides enough colour that most of the walls look fine in bare plaster and there are few extraneous furnishings. Again, there is a central lounge courtyard (though only a fraction of the area of that at the riad) that opens up to a skylight; thus the main rooms of the dar, which on all floors open onto the courtyard, are far lighter and more airy than the roads outside. The girls love it.
I would like to find a vocabulary for the subtle changes of smell and scent that subliminally catch you as you move around, both outside and in. As well as the more noticeable ones such as recently tanned leather or mint, Heidi commented accurately that one spot smelled of pasta, even though none was visible, and at other points you might think of plaster dust, perhaps, or water over brick. Although it's the vernacular architecture, the vendors in Fez hats, the well-used zellij fountains and so forth that you notice, it's equally these marginally conscious aromas and the ambient sounds of, say, leather shoes slapping on the stone streets that configure your neurons to form the experience of Being in Fes.
When we awoke yesterday morning Paula told me that she had been disturbed in the night by the call to prayer. These blast out five times a day from loudspeakers all across the medina and it turns out that one of these times, strangely referred to here as "dawn", is in the middle of the night. Well yesterday morning I was aware that this had featured in my dreams but it hadn't woken me. Last night, however, it did wake me. When I was fully awake I checked my watch and noted that the time was 3:20. I listened to the incantation, which had a distinctive repeating phrase pattern, with the pause at the end of each phrase offering up the possibility of peace; but, of course, the overwhelming majority of such possibilities - all but one - were false. The Imam seemed to get more and more strained, and he was eventually joined by other fainter voices in what seemed more like the Biblical but now recondite Christian practice of glossolalia (or speaking in tongues) than any actual language. They eventually chucked it in at 3:50.
We had taken dinner earlier at a roof terrace restaurant. When the Imam had started up this time we could survey a fair patch of the medina and didn't even see one person turn away from their business to fall to prayer; maybe the zealous were already indoors. I'll probably write more about the food in later entries. In my first three meals I've already dinged the top culinary cliches of tagine, pastilla and couscous; refinement of this hopefully to follow.
Now that we're here we want to settle into a routine of regular hours for teaching, eating and exploration. I'll keep you posted...
Posted: Fri - May 6, 2005 at 08:14 PM
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Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM
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Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM