We arrived in Fes 2 days ago and it’s like hopping into a storybook! Well okay, we did have to take a couple buses, spend a night in this cool surf town, wake up at 6am, take a ferry to Morocco, then take a 6 hour train ride and a couple of taxis thrown in there, but you know, typical travel day, easy peezy!
Well, when we [finally] arrive at the train station, we get sim cards, (not that easy on a Sunday afternoon; most stores are closed then, FYI). Then, after we get a local number, we call our air bnb host, take a taxi to this local square and then meet up with this cute old man (who doesn’t speak a lick of English) and then follow him through this labyrinth of narrow streets until we come to the end of the street and we come face to face with this giant door. Well I’m not sure what to expect, the streets are really narrow, there are stray animals roaming around, the road is really narrow, like we are single file line walking and there is no more room around us.
Well our guide opens the door and my first impression of the place is wow, we’ve entered into a palace! The place is full of colorful tiles and a high ceiling and columns and beautifully decorated. It is gorgeous! We are told to sit down and we drop our heavy packs and after some time, we are greeted with a lovely pot of delicious Morrocan tea. It’s called Moroccan whiskey (since Muslims don’t drink alcohol and Morroco is predominantly Muslim and I guess it looks like whiskey?). It’s this wonderful green tea with mint and sugar and we got this homemade shortbread nutty cookies that just crumbled and melted in our mouths and it was such a wonderful time after our long journey to be greeted with such hospitality and generosity. We sat and talked for a few hours, got settled in, and then had a delicious meal of couscous with milk (at around 10:30pm) at night.
Morroco is a land of delicious food, spices, crafts, delightful people and Fes is home to the largest walled city in the world without cars – we are just outside the medina, and yesterday after spending the morning talking to our host and eating a delicious, ornate breakfast and prayer time, and then we headed out into the city. We waited until late afternoon because of the sweltering heat, made even more uncomfortable because of our conservative dress code. Yup, it’s long skirts for me this month.
So now we get back to our storybook beginning! Fes is this maze of narrow roads and vendors and vendors! It is very easy to get lost! We walk around, a local asks if we are interested in looking at a local tannery, and boom, he leaves his little shop and leads us to it. We are given mint leaves because the tanneries have a strong (unpleasant) smell. Some of us buy some leather bags. We walk back, get some street food and it’s hard to explain all the smells and sounds and small passageways and shops and how friendly everyone is! What’s challenging is the prevalent Muslim beliefs and how much of a lifestyle it is here. We hear the call the prayer multiple times throughout the day, it sounds so foreign- like bleating sheep or something…
I can’t believe the Camino was only a week or so ago but it already feels like a lifetime. We arrived in Santiago and attended Pilgrim’s mass – which honestly put me to sleep a little…it didn’t help that it was in Spanish and that they kept shushing us in the hour before the service started. It’s this [sad] feeling I get when visiting these beautiful, historic Spanish churches: church feels like a history book when they should be a place of life. A lot of pilgrims experience church in this way, as an institution of tradition and rituals, which is okay too, but is not the full picture.
We spent about a week debriefing with our whole squad and that was emotionally intense, just unpacking the last two months and discovering more about ourselves. We got to float around on the Mediterranean, celebrate Lauren’s birthday, and take a break and recenter. I realize the last few weeks, I’ve been working out of my strength and not my overflow.
Please pray for us this month in Morroco, we are out of the comforts of Europe. Already when we first arrived half the team was feeling sick (congested, dry throat, cough). And I’m typing this on the balcony at 3AM as a few of us are keeping company for a teammate feeling under the weather. Please pray for our stomachs – the water isn’t safe to drink, so we’ve been buying bottled, and some foods are questionable.
