Arrival and first days in Fes

Hello everyone! I apologize for the delay in writing…both traveling and settling into life in Morocco have kept me quite busy, and I’m in the process of searching for a good internet café in Fes. I predict that the majority of my entries on this blog will be written on my laptop and then posted later from a cyber café. I’ll do my best to be succinct in summing up my activities over the last few days.

My air travel went smoothly. Wednesday (5/27) I flew from RDU to Washington D.C., from D.C. to Paris, France, and then from Paris to Casablanca, Morocco. On the flight from Paris to Casa, I overheard the man sitting behind me say he was going to Fes, Morocco. I later asked him about his travel plans and it turned out he was going to the Arab Language Institute in Fes (where I will be studying for three weeks) as well! Even better, Romeo, a graduate student at UCLA studying ethnomusicology, had been to Fes three years earlier studying Arabic, so he was familiar with the country and how to get around—the right friend to make at the right time.

After retrieving our luggage and exchanging dollars for dirhams (one USD=roughly 8 Moroccan dirhams), we took the train from the airport to another station in Casa to Fes. The first thing I saw pulling out of the train station? Shantytowns, with dilapidated houses made of garbage and small fires with grey smoke rising into the hot air outside. It was a sight that took me somewhat by surprise—though I’ve done a lot of reading about Morocco and was well aware of the poverty that exists here—it’s not the Morocco one sees in paintings, movies, or photos in guide books.

We arrived in Fes around 9:00 pm Thursday (5/28) local time, culminating almost 24 hours of travel. At this point I was pretty tired of traveling and ready to crash at the hotel and visit with Eva for the evening (for those of you who might not know, my sister Eva is also doing research in Morocco and France this summer, investigating local culinary traditions and the influence of North African food on French cuisine).

It was so good to see her—the knowledge that my sister was in Morocco; waiting to see me was a huge comfort to help counter the culture shock. Unfortunately, it turned out that Eva had been in the hospital all day because of food poisoning! She’s fine, but I felt terribly that I couldn’t have arrived any earlier to give her the same comfort she provided me.

Eva left at 6:00 am the next morning for France, and I had to be up as well to meet with the institute’s housing coordinator, so Friday (5/29) was an early morning. The Arabic Language Institute in Fes (or ALIF) is located in Fes’ Ville Nouvelle, a French-built portion of the city. I arranged for a home stay in Fes el-Bali, which is located in the medina (the older and traditionally Moroccan-style part of the city). While waiting for my host mother to arrive, I met a few of the other students who will be studying at ALIF, including a grad student from UNC who works with a former professor of mine. It turns out that he, Romeo, and I are all in the same darija (Moroccan dialect) class at ALIF—what a small world!

I’d been going back and forth, debating whether or not I should do a home stay for some time. But almost immediately after I met my family, I realized I had made the right decision. I have three wonderful sisters: Hagar (15), Selma (7), and Ayah (2), and there is one other daughter who lives in Germany. My host mother, Rachida, and father, Naguib, are very kind, and when they are not encouraging me to help myself at the dinner table (“Kooli!” is the first Moroccan Arabic I’ve learned, which means “Eat!”), they are reminding me that I am family. It is a truly caring environment, and it’s really helped me transition to life in Morocco.

After Eva left, the reality that I was alone in Morocco began to sink in and was hard to handle. But with each day that goes by, I feel more like I am a part of this family, and as I meet more students at ALIF, I’ve been realizing that I’m as alone as I initially felt when I arrived.

After Rachida picked me up from ALIF, I had my first tajine with the family (Everyone comes home for lunch here). Tajine is actually the plate the food is served on, but the dish—which contains meat and vegetables which are slow-cooked and covered with a cone-shaped lid. The food is arranged with the meat in the middle and the vegetables covering it, and you eat it by scooping up the food with bread. My first tajine was chicken smothered in potatoes, chickpeas, and a variety of spices, and accompanied by salad and melon for dessert. In a word: delicious.

After taking a nap, I met some more family: one of Rashida’s sisters, and her daughter. We had an afternoon tea and sweets, and then I went downstairs to watch Star Academy (a Lebanese TV show similar to American Idol) with Hagar and Rajah, a friend who lives in the building. Later, we went up on the roof of the building, le terrace, and put up some laundry while enjoying the cooler night air. We finished the Tajine for dinner, and then I showed the family some pictures from home, and they showed me some of their own before going to bed.

A quick note: my “bedroom” is actually the houses’ salon. In Morocco, many people sleep on long couches that become beds at night (i.e., just add blankets). In fact, the two older girls, Hagar and Selma, sleep on the couches in the room that doubles as the dining room! The lack of privacy has taken some getting used to, but the couches are comfy enough and I’m usually so tired that it doesn’t take me long to fall asleep.

Anyways, yesterday after breakfast I went to the souk with Rachida to buy food for the day’s meals. On the way, we stopped by Naguib’s shops (he owns two stores on one of the medina’s main streets, Talaa Kebira) and visited Rachida’s sister. Of course, we were served milk and sweets as soon as we arrived. I’m beginning to think that I will never go hungry in Morocco (or as long as I’m living in Fes, at least).

The vegetables in the souk are as enormous as they are inexpensive. I’ll always have a place in my heart for Harris Teeter, but our prices are off the chart compared to the souks’. Fes el-Bali reminds me of the markets I passed through in Syria last summer, with stores crammed full with their wares. Food and spices literally overflow on to the cobbled streets as cats mew around the butchers’ shops looking for scraps. At one butcher’s shop, I saw camel head hanging outside (though Rachida told me camel is very expensive---fine by me!). All in all, it’s an exciting place to live, and since the medina houses most of the city’s museums and other sights, I won’t have to go too far for my research.

We ran into two girls I met at ALIF, Adi and Ailea. We agreed to meet up later that afternoon once I’d finished the errands with Rachida. I gave them a call after lunch (another tajine, this one beef covered in green beans and spices). I met the girls at the Najjarine, a beautiful woodworking museum in the medina which I found extremely interesting. I don’t know whether or not I’ll include the museum in my final research, but I took some notes and photos of the exterior (no photography allowed inside, unfortunately) just in case.

That evening I went with Hagar and some of her friends to the Festival of World Sacred Music—an event that’s going on all week in different locations in Fes. The show we saw near Bab Boujeloud (a gate to the medina that’s at most 15 minutes from the house) was traditional Moroccan music, which tourists and Moroccans alike were dancing to.

Today I’ve been hanging out at home, playing with the girls, starting my blog, and outlining my plans for research. My first day of classes at ALIF is tomorrow at 8 am, so I’m trying to enjoy my last day without homework. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope to post again soon.