Party like it's ... Fes

Our incredible homestay host, Kaoutar, made our last night in Fes a memory worth its own blog post.

The home we stayed in is in the Medina of Fes, the old city.  The whole Medina is walled in, no traffic.  You couldn't fit a car on those streets, anyway.  Some of them can barely fit a donkey cart.  This means, of course, that when you buy a refrigerator, it is wheeled to you on a pushcart, pulled either by a donkey or a man.  We did see donkeys trotting around with all kinds of things, including tanks of propane for stoves.  Interestingly, they wear rubber shoes for better traction on the cobblestones, which get slippery when they get wet.  Since you can't hear them coming, the most important word in the Medina is "Ballach!" (bahLOCK), which means "get out of the way!"

The stores in the Medina are mostly open stalls.  The residential sections have massive wooden doors, with two separate sections.  A high doorknob for people coming on horseback, a low one for the rest of us.  There are tiny windows high in the walls, but most of the light and air comes from the courtyard, which is open to the sky.  A ritzy house has a screen over the courtyard, but many are completely open to the sky.  They have drains in the floor and the whole courtyard is a step lower than the other rooms.  Rain comes in, rain goes out.  Moroccan homes don't tend to have a lot of furniture.  The tables and chairs are iron frames and ceramic tile tops, so they are indoor/outdoor, just like the living rooms.

Will the real Moroccan please stand up?

[From left:  Meg, Michaela, me, Kaoutar, Kaitlyn, Phyllis, and Brooke.  We let the men back in to take photos after the dancing was over.]

Kaoutar's mother bought her house to use as a B&B about 15 years ago.  But she ran into licensing issues, because she could only outfit four rooms with separate baths.  She works with a homestay program now that has a lower barrier.  We stayed in three of the rooms, and our tour guide stayed in the fourth.  We did not meet the mother, who may have been staying in one of the other rooms that does not open onto the main courtyard.  The house is at least four stories high (three very tall stories, but also doors opening up midway up the flights of stairs).

All through the house, there is wonderful ceramic tile and iron work typical of every place in Fes, no matter how modest.  The bathroom may have no hot water (this is not really a hypothetical; the sink only has one tap and the shower ran cold from both taps), but the cold water falls onto gorgeous tiles.

On our second night with her, Kaoutar had a surprise for us.  At our request, she had bought the ingredients for pastissa, which is sort of a crèpe-wrapped pie, with chicken, almonds, onions, and loads of sugar.  Dessert for dinner.  It's a party dish, so she made a party for us.  She borrowed party clothes for each of us, color-coordinated ensembles with dress, overdress, belt, and head scarf, and then she dressed each of us.  And then we danced.

And we looked at her wedding pictures, and we talked about the baby she will have in December, and promised to send all our friends to Morocco to stay with her.

I haven't had so much fun dancing since Jefferson and Megan's wedding two years ago today.  Happy anniversary, you two, and I can hardly wait to see you in a few days.  xoxoxo