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create-ninety · 6 years

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Tuesday 1st January, 2019

I’ll admit I was nervous about travelling to Morocco. I didn’t know what to expect. There’s only so much you can read about before you simply need to experience it to make up your own mind. But our trip to Fes has been one of my favourite cities that I have visited – ever.

On the way to the riad from the airport, I tried to gauge what the general vibe was. But it was dark and we couldn’t see a lot. Glimpsing various buildings, I was reminded of bits of Spain. My anxieties had been quelled slightly; I liked the driver and didn’t feel unsafe. And soon I was even grinning for a moment - I noticed a guy sitting in the back of a swerving white van ahead of us, the back door wide open and flailing about with each twist and turn of the driver’s whim. I thought maybe the door was broken but Lucie pointed it out – the guy was smoking a cigarette, and looked completely nonplussed.

But then I felt my heat sink not long after. While pulled up at some lights, a small child darted around the side of our van. The driver waved his finger at the kid who was probably no older than nine. Rejected, he made his way to the vehicle on the other side of us and I saw what he was holding: a brush and bottle of water. A sight not uncommon in parts of New Zealand – but I’d certainly never seen a child working for probably nothing more than a Durham at a time.

When we got to the riad, my anxieties weren’t quite quelled. There were groups of teenage boys gathered around, leaning against walls and listening to music. The buildings were high and chipped, and if there were windows, they were protected by bars. Almost immediately a homeless looking man rushed forward with a trolley in the hopes of wheeling our luggage, but he was also dismissed by our driver. Tall, hands buried in his jacket pockets, he lead us through narrow, winding alleyways for at least five minutes. If he had merely dropped us off, we would haven’t have had a clue. If I was nervous then I’m sure Lucie would have been too. But soon we stopped outside a big wooden door with an iron knocker and a thin slit at eye level. The driver knocked. And when a woman answered and let us inside, it almost took our breath away – a dazzling hallway and then open space came into view, with a ceiling so high you had to crane your neck to see the ornate detailing at the top. Doors with painted gold, green and red stars and shapes stood tall, framed by windows looking in on our bedroom. Our host Elodie showed us the room and gave us the key. She spoke in a hush voice and in the morning I knew why: the layout of the Riad places the rooms around and above the communal area.

We curled up in bed, grateful to finally be able to rest, in awe. The room had been decorated with such impeccable detail that it almost seemed rude to disturb the bed. Paintings of African women were hung beside the elaborate door; ivory elephants lined up in size order on a shelf; a Moroccan guitar; white and green tiled floors; painted shutters. A traditional bathroom. I couldn’t believe that such a grand and beautiful house was there, hidden amongst those intimidating alleys we had walked through. We fell asleep in pure darkness and I was completely at ease.

Elodie greeted us for breakfast in the morning. The tables had been laid out with the same effort and care as our bedroom, and we were pleased to spot an elegant long-haired cat. Elodie said her name was Amira, which is Arabic for princess, a name Lucie particularly liked. We hurriedly ate a breakfast of bread, freshly squeezed orange juice, and coffee, and then got a very quick explanation of the Medina from Elodie. We had a deadline to be at the Post Office to meet our Medina tour guide – our first activity of our trip. Thankfully Elodie kindly agreed to take us to our meeting point so that we weren’t swallowed by the Medina before we even started.

Our guide was friendly, tall, Moroccan, and was wearing a traditional robe with a peaked hood – I came to realise that peaked hoods, which I’d only seen in Harry Potter, were a common occurrence in the Medina. And he excitedly led us to the Blue Door and into the thick of it all, and I found myself falling in love with the strange city.

Thin alleyways but bursting with colour, delicious smells, the sounds of accents and language I couldn’t identify. The cobbled ground underneath was uneven and well worn; this was a city with the most interesting history, and its inhabitants seemed all at once otherworldly and familiar.

We visited one of the three tanneries of Fes, and I was chosen by one of the salesmen as an easy target. And he had selected well. I was a bumbling mess as, after I announced quietly to Lucie that I liked one of the bags on display, the man darted forward and started (in his opinion, likely) humerously trying to sell me the bag. I was awkward and uncomfortable as the rest of the group were watching me fail – I can only describe it as being more of a ‘guess the price’ game, because I kept saying low numbers even though I knew there was no way we’d be buying it. But every time I said no he persisted. By the time we left the tannery I was red-faced and thinking there’s no way I’d be stepping foot back in there, even though the view from the top of the factory was truly a stunning sight to behold.

We carried on, and I adored the rest of the sights. The ceramics, the leather goods, and the rugs… all on display in the most vibrant waves of colour. People were in most cases far more polite than they were pushy, a pleasant surprise which kept me calm. And when we stopped off towards the end of the tour at a tiny roofed stall, just off the copper square, our tour group got to taste – in my opinion – some of the most delicious tea and coffee that I had ever tasted. It was served by a man who had almost no knowledge of English, and who stood behind a tiny counter covered in fresh herbs, and who twiddled the knobs and taps of a gigantic copper vat. We sat and drank and I grinned. How beautiful, to be surrounded by people so interesting, different to me, and who were just going about the business of their every day life, not knowing that I was in awe of someone merely making coffee. The man had a permanent smile on his face and the guide mentioned in passing he’d been there since the sixties. I turned to Lucie: “I’m going to find this place tomorrow. We’re going to come back.”

“I’d be very impressed if you manage to find this again!”

By the time the tour was over, we were hungry and tired, and ate a tagine meal at the ‘Cinema Café’ not far from our Riad. And then we picked up a blue pouffe and some beautiful hand painted plates from a shop. I have some lovely pictures of Lucie crouched down on the floor as we were choosing which ones we liked the best. Along with a little copper pot we’d bought on the tour, we excitedly dropped our goods off and headed back out into the Medina by ourselves. On that excursion we found another pouffe we liked – this time a mustard one – and I made a fool of myself for a second time that day, accidentally low-balling the shop keeper because I was convinced we had paid less for the exact same thing up the street. Only after he denied our offer and we’d left did we realise that his pouffe was bigger than the one we’d bought earlier; we turned around and went back, paying his lowest price.

New Year’s dinner was divine. Elodie and her mother, and perhaps others, had prepared a three-course meal for us. We were so full at the end we could barely fit the dessert in too. All the guests staying were French speakers, and I found myself desperately trying to understand the conversations as we joined them in the lead-up to midnight. I picked up a kids book on a shelf and did some reading, surprised with how much I was able to remember, but a little frustrated that my listening and understanding skills weren’t as sharp.

Midnight ticked over and suddenly it was 2019, and with a clink of champagne glasses and a chorus of ‘happy new year!’, we stood around drinking for a while longer before bidding each other goodnight. Lucie and I collapsed into bed totally full, a tad drunk, and trying to stifle a fit of giggles: we’d been laughing most the day, and at times during dinner, had struggled to contain ourselves.

The next day I looked at the map. And then I boldly declared to Lucie that I would find that coffee shop – that I was determined. And I did! Somehow I was able to identify stalls we had passed, instinctively knowing what we had seen and what was unfamiliar. At one point I paused and listened: sure enough, I could hear the clanking of mallets on copper, and knew that if I could find that square, then I would know how to get to the coffee. Connecting those dots in my mind was of the greatest satisfaction, and as we entered the little stall, the man behind the counter exclaimed excitedly something in Arabic. Lucie was beyond surprised, and the coffee tasted extra sweet.

From there I was confident I could navigate us around places we’d seen on the tour. After then it didn’t really matter where we went, so long as we could get back to the copper square. And after a couple of turns, me making metal notes, we found a narrow street that was home to knives and other metal work. At one of the stalls a man with blue eyes and an array of hand made knives set out in front of him caught my attention; picking up one of the small objects, he told me proudly he’d made it himself, and that the handle was from ram’s horn. We had a conversation in French and when he told me that the knife I liked was twenty Durhams, or the equivalent of £2, my jaw dropped and I handed over the money without even trying to negotiate. Bursting with glee, imagining making my books with the knife, I lead us back to the copper square. There we picked up four small copper pots and four small glasses to go inside; it was as close to the way the man in the coffee stall served it to us, and we wanted to recreate it. There we watched as another man polished the pots so that they shined bright in the sun – it was the most magical day, seeing people creating things with their hands, with such care and pride, with such ease and creativity. I looked at all the items and saw them, in a sense, as art: sculpted, cut, melted, bent, forged, painted… all by the hands of people with a story to tell.

We started hunting for lunch, and discovered a terraced restaurant overlooking the Medina. We ate another tagine, with vegetables on the side, and a cat circled the table. The sky was blue except for a few scatterings of clouds. Lucie revelled being in the warmth of the sun, and when the call to prayer rang out over the city, I hit record on my phone to capture it. I felt so happy. I was with the woman I loved. We were getting lost somewhere beautiful. It was the first day of the new year; a new chapter, a new beginning.

Leaving the restaurant, I thought I knew where to go. But I realised quickly that we must have gone too far, or not taken a turn; the stalls were unfamiliar. We turned around to head back the other way and Lucie spotted a bright orange rug with embroidered detail. And to my surprise (she hadn’t liked many of the rugs we’d seen), she engaged in a price battle with the shop keeper. He dropped his price, but we agreed it was still too much, and we didn’t have the cash anyway. I was anxious because I must’ve made a wrong turn but couldn’t work out where we had made the mistake… and even after we left the rug shop, I still couldn’t catch my bearings. But when the shop keeper came running after us shouting, “okay, okay, I can do 1900, but that’s as low as I can go!”, we excitedly went back with him. That worked out to be £180. We got it. And the men in the shop wrapped it up for us, and scrawled the name of the place it had come from: somewhere in the Atlas mountains, made by one of the Berber tribes.

Thankfully, the men also told us how to get back to the Blue Door. From there I could navigate easily. And we were close – I worked out that we had indeed missed a turn off down a non-descript alley I hadn’t thought to remember, as I had actually thought we’d be taking a taxi back. But we made it back, thrilled, and dropped all the stuff off. We had a sleep and then went out and found some dinner: skewered meat, rice, and chips. Normally I’d not like being caught up at a table by the river of passers-by. But I didn’t mind it in this context. Even though I’m sure I stood out with my red hair, and did attract a few curious stares, I felt anonymous enough. People went on about their days, and so did we, and I loved it.

#createninety #journal #january2019

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