Just look! No buy. Just look!

So say the touts* as we stroll through the medina, along the narrow, steeply-sloping roadway crowded with people, made narrower by goods spilling out into the path. No, no! we say. No. "No buy"? Yeah, sure. Isn’t it always about buying?

*Tout: a person soliciting custom or business, typically in an aggressive or bold manner

Actually, no it's not, as we are slowly learning. Oh sure, the shopkeepers want a sale and we are potential customers. But, the vendors in the Fez medina, one of the oldest shopping centers in the world, have a broader view of life than that. When we slow down and actually listen to what they have to say we find people who are experienced and as interested in us and our lifestyle as we are in theirs.

  

Standard transport in the car-free medina. Donkeys, and hand carts

Fresh mint, a staple in Moroccan households

No matter how much of the medina we see, there is always something mysterious...

And besides, tending a stall in the marketplace, even one as colorful and dynamic as the old Fez medina, must get boring. It’s great to break up the day by sharing tea with a stranger, a foreigner, and hearing what they have to say. From this perspective, stopping to chat with the shopkeepers is enjoyable and inevitably rewarding.

Since we are staying here for a couple of months we wanted to get to know the vendors, and make sure they knew us. So we often stop to explain that we will be here for a while, and will visit with them soon.

A plumber displays his workmanship

An old man waits.
(Look! More yellow slippers!)

One thing we learned three years ago on our last trip to Morocco, from a rug merchant, is that you never say no; the two acceptable answers are “yes” and “maybe.” You never want to close out a possibility. Consequently, we make it a point to let vendors know that we’ll be around for a while, and we’ll stop in another time. Mostly what we say is “not today, perhaps later.” (To which the answer is inevitably “Inshallah!” If God wills it; an on-going reminder that in Islam, God is at the center of everything. And this is always said with the right hand on the heart, to show sincerity.)

Our first week here Paula used a new expression on a couple of young men who were anxious for her to try their restaurant. She said, “Not yet!” That threw them for a loop, as they hadn’t heard that before. So she gave them a quick explanation of this somewhat obscure phrase (obscure for non-English speakers, anyway). Now, every time we pass by they shout, “Not yet! Hey, not yet!” And we agree, Yup, not yet! We did stop in one day and they showed us around the restaurant; it’s quite nice and we will have dinner there some day; just not yet…

Brass Lacework

Among all the artisanal handicrafts constantly on display here, such as the hand-crafted, complex, detailed tile work known as zellij, traditional iron screens, carved plaster, and hand-done wooden screens, the one that intrigues me the most are the pierced metal lamps. We’ve seen demonstrations of how they are made: brass sheets are cut with tiny openings in traditional patterns, the sheets are assembled into a sphere or other closed shape, and a candle or lamp (an electric lightbulb, these days) is placed inside. The work is incredible in daylight, and the lamp casts fantastic shadows at night.

Contemporary lamps in an artisan's shop.

These lamps are for sale in shops all over the medina; much like the carved and inlaid boxes we saw in profusion in Essaouira, the vast number of them tend to dilute the appreciation of the fine work and careful craftsmanship they require. After all, when it seems that everybody is doing it, how hard can it be?

Very hard! There is a local artisan school to teach and encourage traditional crafts just outside the medina; we’ve visited it a couple of times to see how these mind-boggling works are created. Slowly and carefully, is the answer. In the case of the lamps, we saw students with fine little saws carefully cutting each tiny opening (and there are hundreds), then assembling the sheets into the finished lamp. Truly extraordinary.

An established artisan hand-cutting brass sheets for a lamp

Stops in making a lamp, right to left; from artwork to a formed, pierced sheet

One day in the medina we came upon a shop specializing in these lamps, with some very large and unusual pieces. (Referring to them simply as “lamps” seems derogatory; these are truly works of art!) After a few words with the young man at the entrance, we were invited in to speak to his father, far back in the dark depths of the shop. He spoke excellent English, having visited California some time ago. As he talked about what he did, we looked around and realized this man was truly an artist and a master craftsman.

Contemporary styles in an ancient art form.

One thing I found most impressive was a sphere almost two feet (60 cm) in diameter formed entirely of Arabic characters. He said the letters were the lyrics to songs by Om Kalsum, an Egyptian singer widely popular in the Arab-speaking world. Her fame, he said, is something like that of Edith Piaf, or perhaps Barbra Streisand.

(I’ve been back to look at that sphere again, and I still don’t get it: neither the design, nor the layout, nor the construction of such a thing seems probably; yet there it is.)

The lyrics to songs by Om Kalsum, made into a lamp (!?)

The Bakery

It’s one of many small storefronts along the Tala’a Kbira (Big Street), the larger of the two main avenues in the medina (the smaller being Tala’a Sghira, Small Street), and it’s not far from where we live, so we pass it often. It’s not much to look at, just an aging display case full of pastries and cookies.  There are fancier patisseries in Fez, although they are mostly in the Nouveau Ville, the new town built by the colonial French. But like I said, it’s right near where we live so we pass it every day. And, Paula discovered a to-live-for peanut-chocolate confection that we quickly became quite fond of.

"Our" bakery

So this day we stopped to get some more, and the older man behind the pastry case immediately pulled one out and held it up with an anticipatory grin on his face. We both laughed. Yup, that is what we came for! We bought 10 (hey, they’re small) plus a few cookies I liked. Then a younger fellow came out and invited us in.

Again, my immediate reaction is, uh oh, what does he want? So we hesitatingly stepped around the case and into the carnivorous room. Well, what he wanted was to show us around, share with us what he does and how their products come into being.

The room was large, maybe 15 -20 feet in every direction, lit by a single CFL bulb hanging on a wire from far above. It was hard to see into the corners, but the Main Event here was the oven. The small door was open, revealing a stone-lined floor that seemed to stretch about 10 feet in every direction. It was lit by orange-yellow flames which we could not see, but the oven was certainly hot!

The baker loads the oven. This time it's chicken, not bread, to be baked

Lonely chicken in the huge oven, lit by the hidden flames

Our host, speaking decent English, explained that this is a neighborhood bakery. Housewives from all over the neighborhood bring (or send – this is one of the chores the kids do) their bread to the local oven for baking. And the baker knows each family, and what kind of bread they bring, and how to bake it. He keeps a mental map of his oven, knowing the optimum spot for each loaf, and which is whose.  And when a loaf is done, he pulls it out on a wooden paddle on a 20-foot pole, shiny from years of use.

The bakery fellow, our guide for this particular journey, went on to explain that the communal oven is one of the five things every neighborhood has. In addition to the oven there is a mosque, for worship; a school, for learning; a fountain, for water (largely replaced by indoor plumbing these days); and a hammam, or public bath, for cleansing. (Today hammams are often modern spas, including scrubs, massage, facials, and hair and nail care, appealing to locals and especially tourists. Traditional hammams are still around, though, serving men in the early morning and late evening and women during the day.) Oftentimes the bakery is located next to the hammam, so they can share the same fire: the one for heating water, and the other for cooking.

This fountain, no longer in use, once supplied the neighborhood with water

The restored fountain in the Nejjarine Square, Fez (still providing water, note!)

        A Lesson in ‘50s Slang

Most of our journeys outside the medina start at the Bab Boujloud, the closest place to get a taxi. And along the way we pass through restaurant row. As you may recall (and if you don’t, refresh your memory here: Our previous blog, "Another Fine Moment...") we often eat at one of the restaurants here, and the guys (and the ladies cooking!) know us now, and always greet us warmly. After shaking hands all around, and agreeing that we were, indeed, doing quite well, we turned to continue on our way when we were caught by “See you later, alligator!” from one of the guys. Paula turned back and spent a few moments to instruct him in the proper response, which is, of course, “In a while, crocodile!”  He was chuffed.

Ah yes, doing good and spreading knowledge everywhere we go….

            The Butcher Boy

He’s really not a boy, and I’m not even sure he is a butcher. It’s his father who is the butcher; Imed fills in for him in the butcher’s stall. He actually makes me think of a lacrosse player for an Ivy League college (not that I know the first thing about lacrosse; nor about Ivy League colleges, for that matter). But he speaks good English, and is always willing to talk with us. And, of course, we’re pleased to talk with him and get his view of life in this part of the world.

Imed, "our" butcher. Nice guy, loves to talk with us, in English

We’ve also found that he makes (or can get) sausage. (I checked today: he makes the sausage meat, with his own secret blend of spices and herbs; someone else has the stuffing machine.) Several butcher stalls have turkeys out front (live ones, that is to say), and a few even have signs (“Dinde”: a French turkey). So we checked with him; yup, he makes turkey sausage.

And what sausage! Great stuff. For the next round we’ve ordered a half-kilo (about a pound) more of sausage, plus a half-kilo of sausage without the casings (which are made from lamb intestines, if I understood him correctly). He explained to me that different spices are used in sausages and the ground meat (there is a particular Arabic word for that meat that slips my mind – as do most foreign words the first dozen times I hear them). I said, Do what you think best; after all, you are the expert! He said, with a big grin, sure!

Making sausage meat.

I can’t wait to try it!

Along with chickens and turkeys (and hedgehogs), the medina is also home to these free-range ducks.

Yeah, I think it's a hedgehog, looking  cozy. Used for some kind of headache remedy, I'm told. No word on what it does to the hedgehog.

So we have our butcher, our baker; not much need for candles here, and indeed we have yet to see any candle makers. (I expect candles melt in the heat of the summer; in the house where we’re staying, the candles are kept in the refrigerator!) But we’re looking. In the meantime, we have found a great herbalist.

Or rather, he found us.

On our first morning in Fez, as we unlocked our front door (three locks, a real process, getting in and out) and stepped into the street for the first time, a jolly-looking man greeted us and welcomed us to Fez. It was Tabyor, a fifth-generation herbalist. He knows the people who own the house, and was pleased to meet us. His shop is just up the street, and he spends the day in a chair outside talking to friends and neighbors (as do many of the shop keepers in the medina). Our daily ritual includes chatting with him as we leave, and again as we arrive back home. It’s always good to exchange pleasantries with him, learning the common Fassi* salutations and farewells.  

*Fassi: the dialect spoken in Fez (Fès, in French), and by extension people and customs from Fez.

We weren’t in Fez long before Tabyor invited us into his shop. The walls are lined with large glass jars with screw lids, each marked with a hand-written label on a piece of tape, containing herbs and spices. It was quite a long demonstration, as his knowledge is broad and deep, and he is very conversational.

The Herbalist's space.

Paula gets the details of herbs and spices, for both cooking and healing.

Since herbology is something I’m not even interested in dabbling in, most of what he said passed right through. But I was impressed with his knowledge, and his enthusiasm. He said he is not interested in people asking him for particular herbs; there are lots of herb shops that can do that (indeed, his shop is a bit out of the way for most medina visitors). He prefers to provide solutions to sprcific issues: You’re making a lamb tajine? Let me mix you up something…. Stiff back? Runny nose? Bald head? I’ve got just what you need!

Ah, smell THIS!

Ah, Tabyor, you may never know how much you’ve added to our experience of Fez, Alhamd lillah! (Thanks be to God!) And, thanks to you, as well.

For more on the medina, try this site (I know exactly where he ate!):

             https://www.journeybeyondtravel.com/blog/fez-medina-story.html

although I know nothing about the tours offered at the end of the article.


   --- 6 April 2017


       Back again by popular demand: the travel map! It's interactive, poke around. See where we've been, and where we will be going.
I've been working on this for quite a while, but only now figured out how to link to it (I really wanted to embed it in this blog but my lifetime is finite and some things just don't seem worth spending too much of it on).

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

                  Click this text to get to the map -- DON'T click the map!