Tetuan began my transition back to the “real world,” but then, not really. Like everywhere I visited in the region, Spanish was the first language spoken to tourists (although my French served me as well as it does in any other touristy area, even if the Tamazight got me nowhere given the radically different dialect spoken by the Rifi Berbers. Even so, people often praised me for the few words of Arabic I do know!). I enjoyed one last seafood meal there (the cilantro-stuffed, fried sardines that are considered a treat elsewhere in the country just don’t do it for me!), although the highlighted seafood meal had been a fairly decent paella that I shared with my pal Jonathan in Martil. The paella had no mussels or sausage (of course!), but lots of tasty shrimp (how will I miss all the shrimp I have eaten this month – and it wasn’t even all that much!!) and reasonably accurate spices… (I had feared that we might be served something like the pathetic yellow rice my mother and I had suffered when we made the mistake of ordering paella in Brussels several years ago!). I also took in the Spanish influences in Tetuan’s architecture (for more on that history, I would recommend C.R. Pennell’s Morocco Since 1830: A History, which I am reading now).
Tetuan:
However, one of the things I’ll miss most about traveling up north was how genuinely nice all the people were (not wanting to talk trash about my own region, I’ll avoid too many specific comparisons for now). Perhaps, in part, they are used to a different kind of tourist from those who go caravanning through the more common touristy areas elsewhere in the country, but in all the places I visited, I was taken aback by the pleasant, friendly tone of everyone, even vendors and shopkeepers. Even in the medinas.
Let’s contrast this to Fez, where I made a stop on the way home (volunteers aren’t allowed to travel at night, so this obligatory stop was more or less a toss-up between Fez and Meknès – Fez barely winning out of sheer stubborn determination to try to figure that city out). This was my third (equally short) visit to Fez, although as I noted earlier, the first one, when I was sworn in, hardly counted (at the time, I had a stunning view of the Merenid Tombs, without the slightest clue what I was looking at). Like my second time there, I spent most of my energy trying not to kick or punch anyone (and I mean Moroccans, not other tourists). For one thing, it is just REALLY crowded (and those of you who know me well know about my crowd issues – I can get quite irritable, sometimes dizzy, and occasionally just plain nutty). And especially in the medina, restaurant hosts will literally jump in your way (I finally just started telling them that I eat Moroccan food every day and to get out of my way), little boys follow you, pointing at signs in the hopes that they’ll be tipped for being your “guide” (even just looking for a hotel, when I finally started telling them to leave me alone, that I could read the signs too… but to no avail), and storekeepers yell at you with increasing hostility once it becomes clear that you have no intention of stopping in their shops, which usually look an awful lot like the ones on either side of them.
Nevertheless, I did feel somewhat more successful than on my last trip, surrendering myself to the not-half-bad, color-coded sign system that can be used as a guide through the medina, based upon your specific interests: gardens, historical buildings, viewing traditional crafts, etc. (I say not-half-bad because, like the road signs that were often my nemesis in Boston, sometimes one is conveniently absent right at a confusing intersection where you need it the most!). So this time, I tried to stay on the “blue” (monuments) trail, with a few accidental diversions to the “pink” (crafts) trail, and found that I noticed a lot more than I did last time around – numerous mosques (which non-Muslims are not allowed to enter, although I got a few nice peeks from the outside), medersas, fountains, and stunningly-carved doors (although in one such case I was disappointed to look up and see that the door now marked the entrance to the ubiquitous Banque Populaire). And the morning that I left for the final leg of my trip home, I stopped by a must-see Fez sight – the tanneries. The walk there, first thing in the morning, was quite pleasant, as the medina was still basically empty, and I was becoming comfortable enough navigating the signage (pink) that I had a little less fear of becoming hopelessly lost and subsequently missing my bus. To view the dyeing process, you have to enter one of the shops, so we located a cooperative with a pleasant proprietor, who took us out to the store’s back terrace to observe the huge vats of dye while he explained the differences between different animal skins, dyes, etc. I had been warned that the smell would be terrible, and having set my expectations accordingly, found that it wasn’t so bad. Thankfully, I barely had enough cash on me to get back home, and I had left my credit card at the hotel, as there were some pretty amazing products at the cooperative, and they ship overseas… (times like these I do wish I were a real tourist, and not a volunteer who is overcome with guilt on the rare occasion that I do splurge on some souvenir!). Oh, and I almost saw a donkey fight on the way back through the medina – never have I seen such an evil look in one of those creature’s eyes!
Fez tanneries:
So, I have now returned from my small (and not especially arduous) vacation with a renewed sense of both wanderlust and homesickness. I have many more freedoms when I travel (dress, beverages, communication with family and friends, and simply being able to go out at night!), and, as I anticipated before I left the US last year (nearly a year ago!?), living abroad can become its own sort of rut, offering plenty of challenges but – after a certain period of time – little of the sense of exploration of traveling to new places. Living in a Berber mountain village for this long, many of the initial novelties have become mundane facts of life, if not outright aggravations! Now, although I am happy with the “comforts” (still no electricity) and solitude of being back in my own home, I find myself wanting to do more, see more – cultivating ideas for future trips both within and outside of Morocco. So (not that I have any intentions of visiting Afghanistan in the near future!), when I got home, I pulled out one of the many books inherited from my former sitemate, Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. In spite of my general enjoyment of travel writing, I had put off reading this one because I saw it had been written by a Brit in the 1950’s, and couldn’t imagine it to be anything but dull. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised – it was hilarious! As someone who never feels more than partially competent in my own travels, I found it perversely encouraging to read such a self-deprecating yet uplifting account of an incredibly ambitious journey. If only, and perhaps in another life…
Treat of the week: Swiss Miss and powdered milk (with water, of course!)
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