Our second week in Morocco was a hectic one – to say the least. Because Thursday was a national holiday and we did not go to our placements, we decided to travel to Marrakech Wednesday after placement and come back Thursday evening. Then, Friday after placement, we left for another one of Morocco’s past imperial capitals, Fes, for the weekend.
This week we also spent really getting into our teaching assignments at the community center. For Taylor, this week she had full responsibility for her entire class – curriculum planning, lesson planning, and teaching, as the other volunteer who was co-teaching with her left to go back to the states. For Ann, she began teaching entire classes by alternating days with another volunteer. We each teach approximately 12 students in class every weekday for about 2 hours, and spend much of our afternoon hours at the house planning and preparing lesson plans for the next day. Taylor is teaching a class of absolute beginners (or pre-beginners, as the previous volunteer referred to them), where they speak fluent Arabic, and are mostly fluent in French, and know no English; they’ve never taken it in school, and they are taking this class to learn it for the first time. Taylor’s class has students that range from age 11-20 and every day has been a challenge to balance the talkative students/very silent students, and to find the right amount of review/new material to ensure everyone is learning, as it is harder than anticipated to gauge what the students are actually retaining instead of just regurgitating. Ann’s class is the intermediate students with their ages ranging from14 – 18 and who have already learned the basics of English, but are working to understand the grammar rules, increase their reading comprehension, improve their vocabulary and learn more about English-speaking countries cultures. The balance of assessing skill level is the biggest challenge in lesson planning, and when we play jeopardy, the room is very competitive, so managing the room is fun too. All in all, the students are great and so willing to learn, it makes you want to keep coming back.
Monday and Tuesday after placement we had cooking lessons and a talk on the history, economics and education of Morocco; and on Wednesday we hurried to the train station after lunch to catch the 1:50 train to Marrakech (5 hour train ride!). When we arrived in Marrakech, we jumped right in, starting with Jemaa el Fna. This is the location that is most stereotypical when picturing Moroccan markets… Snake charmers playing music to attract tourists and their snakes; orange juice stalls filled to the brim with fresh oranges waiting to be pressed; food vendors surrounding long benches, where tourists and the residents of Marrakech alike take a seat to eat meals prepared in one of the many food carts filling the square; shops lining the edges of the square, whose salesmen seem to be some of the best in the world – selling overpriced merchandise, and reasonably priced merchandise, all of which screams Morocco; and finally the Koutoubia Minaret – at nearly 230 feet tall and the oldest of the three great Almohad towers – the first, the Hassan Tower, we saw in Rabat and the third is the Giralda in Seville, Spain. The Jemaa el Fna comes alive at night, which we watched from our (very touristy, but delicious) restaurant overlooking the square – as the light in the sky dimmed, people began to emerge from the many roads leading into the square, the noise level rose, the acrobats tumbled in the streets and the smells of traditional Moroccan fare filled the air.
That evening we had quite the adventure trying to find our riad. We didn’t set out in search of it until 11 o’clock and it was almost midnight by the time we found it – with the help of 3 children, 2 fish merchants, a police officer, and some kind strangers on the street. Our riad was set far into the maze of small winding alleys in the medina and once we got inside – was so worth it. The room was big enough for the 4 of us to share comfortably, and once we had settled in, we went downstairs to the courtyard to put our feet in the pool. Even though we couldn’t find the riad and we only spent a few minutes by the pool that night and even less time in the riad in the morning (just enough to eat breakfast and taunt the cat with my camera lens), Riad al Alfarah was a great place to stay in Marrakech and we would definitely stay there again.
Thursday we only had the morning to enjoy in Marrakech, as we had to catch the 2:30 train back to Rabat, so we spent the morning exploring the El Badi Ruins, meandering through the souks around the Jemaa el Fna, where we bartered and bought some great souvenirs. Our riad was very close to one of the famous sites of Marrakech – El Badi, the palace of Ahmed el Mansour. The name of this palace means “The Incomparable” and even though most of the palace is in ruins, it is easy to see why it would have been named this in the 16th century. The parts that can be visited today are the dungeons, the guest accommodations, and the grand reception space built for hosting ambassadors, and the central court. This area holds four sunken gardens and 6 pools, the largest of which is nearly 300 feet long.
Our walk through the souks was pretty overwhelming as the shops are all so very close together and all the multicolored items for sale sparkled for our attention. We quickly walked back through the Jemaa el Fna on our way to the Koutoubia Minaret, passing snake charmers on the way – and while the minaret was nice to see at night, in the daytime the beautiful green tile accents shone and accentuated the one tall building amidst the shorter surrounding ones.
We only had a little time left before we needed to head back to Rabat – so we headed to La Mamounia, possibly the most exclusive hotel in Marrakech (rooms start at 6000MAD/night – that’s more than Taylor spent on a runner, a handira, and a pillowcase) for afternoon tea. It was clearly the highest quality tea we have had since being in Morocco – but it lacked the flair and authentic taste of Berber whiskey. We did however enjoy the air-conditioning and the opulence of the décor.
Back in Rabat and after a quick Friday class, we headed back to the train station to board our train to Fes – the oldest of Morocco’s imperial capitals. Fes has a Ville Nouvelle and two separate medinas – Fes el Bali, the oldest section, which is where most tourists spend their time, and Fes el Jadid, where the imperial palaces are dominant. We spent most of our time in Fes el Bali exploring the souks and seeing the most common sights. Fes el Bali is full of a seemingly random and intricate maze of streets and alleys, and we were lucky to have a riad just off of the main road full of souks. The only exploring we did Friday evening was in our hotel and just down the road to our new favorite café, Café Clock; but Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to venture down the mile long Talâa Kebira that leads to the most important mosque in Morocco, the Kairaouine Mosque. This mosque is not only the epicenter of religion here in Morocco; it also is home to the Kairaouine Library, established in the 9th century and the study place for many of Fes’ scholars. Because it is such a sacred place, it is nearly impossible to get a view of the mosque, as it is surrounded by smaller buildings and is entered through doorways that non-Muslims are not allowed to enter.
Past the mosque was our first stop of the day – the Chouwara Tanneries. These tanneries are the largest in Fes and make a very prominent (and smelly) impression. At these tanneries, they dry and dye leather in the same production process as during medieval times – lay out the hide until it dries, soak it in the white and grey pigeon poop (the acidity helps the leather take in the dye) and wash it, before soaking the hide in an array of colored vats (poppy red, “saffron,” actually turmeric yellow, indigo blue, mint green, and black) for upwards of 20 days before it is ready to be turned into a bag or backpack or pouf or jacket or a pair of shoes. This trade is one of the few left that is still passed down generation to generation – the men who work in the tannery today had father’s who worked there and learned from their father. While there were moments of overwhelming touristiness and smelliness in the tannery, we had mint leaves to hold up to our noses and we enjoyed the peek into this centuries old practice, learning about the trade, the processing of animal hides, and how people throughout the Mid-Atlas region collect pigeon poop by the liters to sell to the tanneries every Friday.
On our walk back up the Talâa Kebira, we stopped in a few shops and made a few more purchases – Fes is where we expected to shop the most (and we were right). Ann spotted the first antique handira of the day, and was determined to negotiate hard to obtain this beautiful piece. We followed the little old man carrying the handira down the alley into his smaller souk to begin the negotiation process, and were quite surprised when his starting price was half of what we thought we would pay. He proceeded to tell us that we were his first customers of the day and it was good luck to sell the first ware of the day to someone who was going to keep the piece for herself. Later, we visited the very well reviewed Coin Berbere – a carpet shop that sells antiquities and other collectable items – where Taylor bought her antique handira from the [blnk] tribe and a new runner. It really was a pleasure bargaining for these items from a shop that knew exactly where they came from and was open about what pieces were high quality and which were not. If we ever happen to be in Fes again, we would stop by both of these shops in a heartbeat to buy another rug.
After a quick lunch, we walked to the Bab Boujeloud to see the city’s famous blue gate before heading to the Medersa Bou Inania, one of three Moroccan buildings in religious use that non-Muslims are permitted to enter. A medersa is literally a “place of study,” though most are used as dormitories and only some are used as a school to study the Qur’an. The Medersa Bou Inania is currently in use as a place to study the Qur’an and is the grandest of all of Fes’ medersas, with its carved dark cedar, beautiful stucco, and perfect zellij tilework.
That evening we headed up to the Merenid tombs on the hillside overlooking the city to watch the sunset and to hear the evening call to prayer sound from the city– it was an almost overwhelming sound coming from the city’s (reported) 365 minarets. The medina looked stunning, sitting in the valley between the hills and the Mid-Atlas Mountains.
The next morning we woke up early to leave Fes – and head towards the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis. These ruins were, quite literally, the end of the road for the Roman Empire – at the end of a trail that led through France, Spain, and Tangier, before stopping in the Mid-Atlas Mountains. This was likely the location from which Roman emperors wished to infiltrate and subdue the Berber tribes – luckily for the tribes (and unluckily for the Romans) the mountains were hard to navigate, and the Roman rule only lasted approximately 200 years before they retreated from Morocco. After the Roman’s left Volubilis, the city spoke Latin until the seventh century and remained intact until the seventeenth century, when the marble from the buildings was carried away for the building of Meknes. What we saw when we visited the ruins were from the second and third century, which included the triumphal arch and many of the original tile mosaics in the houses.
From Volubilis, we made a very quick stop in Moulay Idriss – the final resting place named after the founder of the first Arab dynasty in Morocco. This city has a sacred status due to Moulay Idriss’ shrine and mausoleum – and while it is a place of constant pilgrimage for Moroccan Muslims, non-Muslims are only permitted to the gate.
Our final stop of the weekend before heading back to Rabat was a quick lunch in Meknes, followed by a tour of the Prison of Christian Slaves (actually most likely a granary – not a prison), the Koubba el Khayatine (a reception hall for ambassadors to the imperial court), the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail (the only active shrine in Morocco that non-Muslims may visit), and a quick peek at the Royal Golf Gardens, before heading off to the train station to head back to Rabat.