Turning virtual in Fes
3 June, Ian
Later this afternoon we leave Fes and make our
way to Calvi in Corsica by way of Gatwick and Marseilles. The end of this month
came upon us quickly and in the last few days I've been trying to get to some of
the Moroccana that we hadn't fitted in so
far.
On Wednesday evening we went with David to dinner at Palais de Fes, which is another of the noted restaurants. It's sited in the lovely Rcif district and you get to dine on a covered terrace looking out over the town at night. The sounds of everyone bustling around below you make for a more atmospheric meal than La Maison Bleue, even though it lacks the luxe feel of the salons around La Maison's court. The format of the meal was the same: lots of starters to pick at, pastilla, tagine then dessert; it was no better but it was more fun. The pastilla had a sort of seafood vermicelli inside, the tagine was a stew of meatballs and eggs and the dessert was a nice selection of juicy fresh fruit (cherries, apricots - called meshmash in Arabic, melon and watermelon).
Up until now I hadn't been inside any of the medersas (religious colleges) here and so yesterday Zoe and I visited the medersa el-Attarine next to the Quairouine mosque. When we were talking about visiting one of the other medersas today Zoe asked neutrally whether it would be another of those places with all the tourists, which has some truth to it. While we were in the medersa, which is only quite small, there was a guy hanging around waiting for a guided party to stream from one view spot to another so that he could photograph them and hawk his snaps at their hotel later. But since the groups travel in packs once they had left the place became almost empty and very tranquil. Although we hadn't planned it this way it was good to look around the medersa after we had seen plenty of other examples of hand-carved plasterwork, hand-cut zillij and hand-crafted cedar work and the rest of it elsewhere so that we had more context for what was exceptional there. I particularly like the way that Koranic texts are incorporated in the very jazzy decoration - it's a great counterpoint.
Much as I love the classical sites it's the day to day activity in the medina that I've enjoyed most. Of the four of us I've probably had the most opportunity to appreciate this. Partly this is because Paula and the girls had had episodes of sickness, while apart from a day/night of headaches I've been in rude health. More than this, though, we seem to have fallen into the local gender roles, with Paula doing most of the house-bound chores and taking to reading on the roof terrace for relaxation, and me picking up chores that require running around the medina (and occasionally the ville nouvelle). I prefer to amble around the medina that to sunbathe; Zoe has also taken to coming with me, which has been nice. But while I like having all the guys greeting me as I walk around, their attentions are less welcome to Paula, which has been the true reason why she hasn't taken to spur-of-the-moment tours on her own, as she would elsewhere.
Over dinner David told us that he'd been speaking in the day to an English guy with children of similar age to ours who is very keen to move to Fes for two or three years. That would be a real adventure. David himself has done very well here, largely due to his ability to speak Arabic and the fact that he has a good job. We've had a lot of fun with Abdelghrani in our language lessons but we're terrible students, and have done virtually no revision all month. I have, though, practised a few little phrases where the circumstances allowed. As well as being a gesture of friendship to some of the people we meet it's very useful with the faux guides: addressing them in Arabic is my new alternative to telling them that we live in the medina and is equally effective. If any of you are coming out here I can email you some useful phrases! Having said that, I should emphasise that the overwhelming majority of people we've run into have been friendly and helpful, and I wouldn't want to encourage you to view someone who is trying to give you advice or say hello as a pest, even if s/he owns a shop.
The people that we see around the medina also look very healthy and seem to cohabit well with the diverse population of microbes that I assume hang out here. True, there seem to be more people with missing limbs than you'd expect to see in a country that hasn't recently been democratized by the Western powers; but while there are a few women around who seem pleasantly well fed most of the locals seem fit and firm, and the only person I noticed all month who looked borderline obese was an American. If that guy ever does bring his family over here for a couple of year my guess is that they'll do well on it.
Financially also it's attractive. Apparently, if you're lucky you can pick up a decent dar for around 15,000 Euro; that probably means you could get somewhere that you'd really like for about five times that, which is still very cheap by English standards. And if you could get a job that pays you anything like a decent UK or US salary you could put aside a little for your return.
But we wont be moving here and I doubt if any of you will. What I would recommend for anyone who ever thinks about taking some time out is to stay here for a month as we have. A really great sabbatical would be a three month break split between southern, northern and western Africa - maybe Botswana and Zimbabwe, Fes or Cairo then (Priya recommends, having a rare moment of lucidity about Nigeria) Ghana and Togo. (The Congo also appeals to me but it may be a little too unsafe at the moment.) If you did do this you'd have to think about how to get from place to place - maybe you could overland it.
As we finally leave the place it turns out that we've taken up residence in cyberFes. David did a google search on "Dar Bennis" this week and discovered our web site on the first page. We are at the 3rd and 4th place for searches on "Dar Dmana", too. (And - you can tell I had a slow moment - top for "Ian Paula Zoe Heidi" and "Volubilis Buffy".) Getting onto the front page of a google search makes we wonder whether there isn't a web site somewhere linking to the blog?
By the way, the Cantor stuff last time wasn't purely there to winnow out our non-core readership so that I can write candidly about work. Thanks for sticking with it!
On Wednesday evening we went with David to dinner at Palais de Fes, which is another of the noted restaurants. It's sited in the lovely Rcif district and you get to dine on a covered terrace looking out over the town at night. The sounds of everyone bustling around below you make for a more atmospheric meal than La Maison Bleue, even though it lacks the luxe feel of the salons around La Maison's court. The format of the meal was the same: lots of starters to pick at, pastilla, tagine then dessert; it was no better but it was more fun. The pastilla had a sort of seafood vermicelli inside, the tagine was a stew of meatballs and eggs and the dessert was a nice selection of juicy fresh fruit (cherries, apricots - called meshmash in Arabic, melon and watermelon).
Up until now I hadn't been inside any of the medersas (religious colleges) here and so yesterday Zoe and I visited the medersa el-Attarine next to the Quairouine mosque. When we were talking about visiting one of the other medersas today Zoe asked neutrally whether it would be another of those places with all the tourists, which has some truth to it. While we were in the medersa, which is only quite small, there was a guy hanging around waiting for a guided party to stream from one view spot to another so that he could photograph them and hawk his snaps at their hotel later. But since the groups travel in packs once they had left the place became almost empty and very tranquil. Although we hadn't planned it this way it was good to look around the medersa after we had seen plenty of other examples of hand-carved plasterwork, hand-cut zillij and hand-crafted cedar work and the rest of it elsewhere so that we had more context for what was exceptional there. I particularly like the way that Koranic texts are incorporated in the very jazzy decoration - it's a great counterpoint.
Much as I love the classical sites it's the day to day activity in the medina that I've enjoyed most. Of the four of us I've probably had the most opportunity to appreciate this. Partly this is because Paula and the girls had had episodes of sickness, while apart from a day/night of headaches I've been in rude health. More than this, though, we seem to have fallen into the local gender roles, with Paula doing most of the house-bound chores and taking to reading on the roof terrace for relaxation, and me picking up chores that require running around the medina (and occasionally the ville nouvelle). I prefer to amble around the medina that to sunbathe; Zoe has also taken to coming with me, which has been nice. But while I like having all the guys greeting me as I walk around, their attentions are less welcome to Paula, which has been the true reason why she hasn't taken to spur-of-the-moment tours on her own, as she would elsewhere.
Over dinner David told us that he'd been speaking in the day to an English guy with children of similar age to ours who is very keen to move to Fes for two or three years. That would be a real adventure. David himself has done very well here, largely due to his ability to speak Arabic and the fact that he has a good job. We've had a lot of fun with Abdelghrani in our language lessons but we're terrible students, and have done virtually no revision all month. I have, though, practised a few little phrases where the circumstances allowed. As well as being a gesture of friendship to some of the people we meet it's very useful with the faux guides: addressing them in Arabic is my new alternative to telling them that we live in the medina and is equally effective. If any of you are coming out here I can email you some useful phrases! Having said that, I should emphasise that the overwhelming majority of people we've run into have been friendly and helpful, and I wouldn't want to encourage you to view someone who is trying to give you advice or say hello as a pest, even if s/he owns a shop.
The people that we see around the medina also look very healthy and seem to cohabit well with the diverse population of microbes that I assume hang out here. True, there seem to be more people with missing limbs than you'd expect to see in a country that hasn't recently been democratized by the Western powers; but while there are a few women around who seem pleasantly well fed most of the locals seem fit and firm, and the only person I noticed all month who looked borderline obese was an American. If that guy ever does bring his family over here for a couple of year my guess is that they'll do well on it.
Financially also it's attractive. Apparently, if you're lucky you can pick up a decent dar for around 15,000 Euro; that probably means you could get somewhere that you'd really like for about five times that, which is still very cheap by English standards. And if you could get a job that pays you anything like a decent UK or US salary you could put aside a little for your return.
But we wont be moving here and I doubt if any of you will. What I would recommend for anyone who ever thinks about taking some time out is to stay here for a month as we have. A really great sabbatical would be a three month break split between southern, northern and western Africa - maybe Botswana and Zimbabwe, Fes or Cairo then (Priya recommends, having a rare moment of lucidity about Nigeria) Ghana and Togo. (The Congo also appeals to me but it may be a little too unsafe at the moment.) If you did do this you'd have to think about how to get from place to place - maybe you could overland it.
As we finally leave the place it turns out that we've taken up residence in cyberFes. David did a google search on "Dar Bennis" this week and discovered our web site on the first page. We are at the 3rd and 4th place for searches on "Dar Dmana", too. (And - you can tell I had a slow moment - top for "Ian Paula Zoe Heidi" and "Volubilis Buffy".) Getting onto the front page of a google search makes we wonder whether there isn't a web site somewhere linking to the blog?
By the way, the Cantor stuff last time wasn't purely there to winnow out our non-core readership so that I can write candidly about work. Thanks for sticking with it!
Posted: Fri - June 3, 2005 at 08:37 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