Medina Tours

School starts tomorrow. This weekend I began living up to the vow to learn my way around the city by walking the Medina with the other math teacher, who actually knows all the neighborhoods and districts. I was quizzed on the nine Babs (doors), and saw the one area of outside in the city that belongs to the women: the streetside on a big hill overlooking much of the Medina, where women line up in pretty djellabas to sit on the cardboard they bring (because there's no grass anywhere) to watch the sunset together.

There are many streets that dead-end in the Medina, but I did find one street, the 'secret passageway,' that appeared to dead-end, went into a building - where the foot traffic continued - up a set of spiral stairs, down a hallway, and suddenly turned the corner and was a street again. There is no such thing as an even set of stairs. All stairs are a bit varied in height, and most are really steep spirals. Walking on the inside of the spiral results in falling two stories. Walking on the outside results in not falling only if you're careful. I might see a reason for the shorter life expectancy. Or the causation may go the other way - since Morocco has fewer elderly, they see no reason NOT to turn their homes and streets into obstacle courses for the young.