Teenage Weddings in Fez
Fez is one of four imperial cities in Morocco. Marrakech, Meknes and Rabbat being the other three. It is a city of parts: the mellah, the medina and the nouvelle ville.
The medina is where you'll find the world's oldest intact medieval city and the world's largest car free urban centre.
The word ghetto accurately describes the mellah, formerly the Jewish quarter of the city. Most of the Jews have left this area with its cemetery of 25,000. Mellah translates into salt as Jews were often employed to salt the heads of those condemned to be executed. Here a faux guide attached himself to us and tried to show us around which led to some rather unpleasant haggling thirty minutes later.
All that aside it smells in the medina of all sorts of things, most of them unpleasant like mule poo and I guess it doesn't help that the tanneries use pigeon shit to soften the leather when they dye it. There are bees all over the sweet stalls and cats all over the streets.
We were kicked out of the hostel after our first night there because a group of 43 Dutch people had prebooked it for the next week or so. A little searching around found us on the couch at Erin, Cameron and Fraser's house. These three were students of Arabic from the States and the UK. The wall in their living room kept track of the number of deaths and fights they had witnessed in the last five months in Morocco. Erin was an awesome host. Fraser was the youngest of the three and also by far the most amusing. 18 years old and five months in an Arabic country without a word beyond asalamaleikum. His plans are to get to Damascus and really learn proper Arabic. Fraser also was totally surprised that by signing up to live in this country he had signed up to celebacy and an alcohol free existance. It seems that finding a place to buy booze is easier than finding a teenage girl in this part of the world. Half a vodka bottle, a bottle of wine and a pint of beer in he exclaimed that he would be so so attentive if he had a girlfriend in Fez. Then Fraser proclaimed that he loved tennage weddings. He was really looking forward to being the best man at his friend's wedding in June. The affaire wasn't going to be the same at all as the quails eggs and champagne wedding at Versaille he attended. This was going to be much better with the groomsmen throwing up in the background while the grandmother sniffled how beautiful the event was.
The next day we left our 15 dirham chicken and rice dinners behind. It was off to Rabat, Morocco's capital city, where that same day we encountered something that made Chris' tummy expel all its contents along with one of the quietest protests of police brutality I've ever witnessed.
I picked up an "underground" novel, The Lemon, by Mohammed Mbrat. I suppose the thing that made it "underground literature" was the sodomy/pedophilia storyline. Nothing much happened in the 130 pages other than the continuous insinuation that something terrible would happen to the runaway kid that shacked up with a man who liked to booze with questionable lady friends. All these lady friends talked about something terrible he had tried to do to them.
The medina is where you'll find the world's oldest intact medieval city and the world's largest car free urban centre.The word ghetto accurately describes the mellah, formerly the Jewish quarter of the city. Most of the Jews have left this area with its cemetery of 25,000. Mellah translates into salt as Jews were often employed to salt the heads of those condemned to be executed. Here a faux guide attached himself to us and tried to show us around which led to some rather unpleasant haggling thirty minutes later.All that aside it smells in the medina of all sorts of things, most of them unpleasant like mule poo and I guess it doesn't help that the tanneries use pigeon shit to soften the leather when they dye it. There are bees all over the sweet stalls and cats all over the streets.We were kicked out of the hostel after our first night there because a group of 43 Dutch people had prebooked it for the next week or so. A little searching around found us on the couch at Erin, Cameron and Fraser's house. These three were students of Arabic from the States and the UK. The wall in their living room kept track of the number of deaths and fights they had witnessed in the last five months in Morocco. Erin was an awesome host. Fraser was the youngest of the three and also by far the most amusing. 18 years old and five months in an Arabic country without a word beyond asalamaleikum. His plans are to get to Damascus and really learn proper Arabic. Fraser also was totally surprised that by signing up to live in this country he had signed up to celebacy and an alcohol free existance. It seems that finding a place to buy booze is easier than finding a teenage girl in this part of the world. Half a vodka bottle, a bottle of wine and a pint of beer in he exclaimed that he would be so so attentive if he had a girlfriend in Fez. Then Fraser proclaimed that he loved tennage weddings. He was really looking forward to being the best man at his friend's wedding in June. The affaire wasn't going to be the same at all as the quails eggs and champagne wedding at Versaille he attended. This was going to be much better with the groomsmen throwing up in the background while the grandmother sniffled how beautiful the event was.The next day we left our 15 dirham chicken and rice dinners behind. It was off to Rabat, Morocco's capital city, where that same day we encountered something that made Chris' tummy expel all its contents along with one of the quietest protests of police brutality I've ever witnessed.I picked up an "underground" novel, The Lemon, by Mohammed Mbrat. I suppose the thing that made it "underground literature" was the sodomy/pedophilia storyline. Nothing much happened in the 130 pages other than the continuous insinuation that something terrible would happen to the runaway kid that shacked up with a man who liked to booze with questionable lady friends. All these lady friends talked about something terrible he had tried to do to them.
posted by LOTC at 10:07 AM
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