Christmas Parties and Travels!

My next entry will be from London! I am preparing to leave Fes for the first time in months, what feels like years, to go to England for Christmas!

Three of the faculty at my school hosted a Christmas party this week that was amazing. I do enjoy the typical Moroccan parties, in which everyone dresses up, sits around and talks, is served food, dances, is served more food and talks some more, etc... This party reminded me just what it can mean to have a party: our hosts set out snacks and made the announcement, 'Since this is an American celebration, we are serving food help-yourself style. We are bringing around the tray of mini-pizzas to get you started, but after that, you are on your own to get food from this table!' They performed the funniest skit of making hot chocolate with one person's arms on another's body, and proceeded with other improv games and activites. For our student teacher who is finishing her internship this week and going home, we had a box where we all wrote her notes, and there was still plenty of talk time and eating time. The weirdest part of it all was when the party ended. It just... ended! We sang every Christmas carol we knew, and our hosts wished us Merry Christmas, offered out leftovers, and all the 30 people or so left. It was a great evening!

My roommates Dottie and Rachel should be back in Texas by now; they left on the train last night to fly home from Casablanca. I'll be returning to Fes the night after Christmas!

Princess for a Day

This was an exciting week at school. Between field trips, Tuesday off for lunar new year, student council elections, the arrival of the basketball hoop, Poetry Night, and the December Cup intre-high school soccer tournament, there has been little time to settle into our normal school routine. Friday was our bi-monthly half day for staff development, and we celebrated with a school spirit event: Traditional Dress Day for the whole school.

Although ‘traditional’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘Moroccan,’ that is the natural standby. Traditional dress days in the past have also yielded cowboy outfits, kimonos, and togas.

Traditional Moroccan casual-wear is a wonderful bathrobe-like creation called the djellabah that goes over any other clothes (usually ones that don’t match or don’t look appropriate for outside) and robes the wearer in a full-length dress of some bright color. They remarkably resemble wizarding cloaks, and it’s all I can do not to shout “You shall not pass!” at anyone walking toward me.

For this traditional dress day, I stepped it up a notch, to a kaftan-taksheta: beautiful formal gowns made for weddings and fancy celebrations!

Moroccan dress clothes are not really what Americans would call comfortable. There are multiple layers of stiff, rustly fabric, the sleeves fall well over your hands, and the skirt well over the feet. Wearing a Moroccan traditional dress is a big enough and complicated enough endeavor to be dubbed ‘and experience.’ But, you know, it’s not really about the dress.

Like so many of my experiences, I was surprised to find that, what I thought was the point, was really not the point at all. It was actually a means to an end. It’s not really about the dress. The dress is not the finish line, and the physical appearance not the aim.

The act of getting dressed couldn’t have been less dignified; I have never donned a taksheta by myself before, and I quickly discovered why Moroccan women put these on in a room all together. The satin has no give to it, the fancy decorative embroidery catches like teeth as it scrapes over my face, and each sleeve has enough fabric to considered an arm-skirt. When I finally have the first layer on, I have to tackle the second layer, still attempting not to drown in the first. The belt is wide like an obi, with lacings up the back. The train of the second skirt tripped me as I tied these up. You know what I did? I fell. I had a fleeting dream of catching myself before the reality of all those skirts and beading caught up with me, and rather than tear the skirt, I just let myself fall straight over like a bowling pin.

Finally I was dressed for school, with Moroccan make-up, which rivals theatre stage pancake, and ten million bobby-pins in my high hairdo.

Then I realized what the Moroccan dress was really about.

I walked into drawing class before the bell to the usual: squirrely students rushing about, chatting, riffling through papers, throwing things, and general manageable chaos. When I opened the door, the room fell silent. Students froze with papers half out of their bags and mouths still open from conversations, and the only sound was my deafeningly rustling skirts. “Miss,” one of them voiced, “You look like a princess!”

I have to confess that, at that moment, I felt like a princess, too.

We started class, with students drawing sketches for ten minutes each before a rotation. After about 5 minutes, one tardy senior opened the door, and I froze mid-attendance. She was beautiful in an untouchable way, like a porcelain doll, needing care, but somehow outside the daily life we shared. The rest of the room, too, had stopped mid-sketch to stare at her. She floated into the room without a trace of sheepishness at being late – and why should she be? Clearly, she was a princess.

Every repetition of this phenomenon was as dramatic, and each as natural. The production undergone in the morning was forgotten. Today, the girls were all princesses and the boys were all kings. The point of Moroccan dress isn’t the clothes, it’s the ceremony, the honor, and the respect that you do yourself and those around you, by stepping regally back from your careless, casual self, into a china figurine, admired, protected, and regal.

Catch Up

Here's what you missed:

1. School is more organized this year, and continues to get more organized each week. We have discipline now, and working internet, and we even take attendance in detention.

2. Amina is engaged! Her fiancee is an older Frenchman who is very calm and sweet to her. They are aiming for a summer wedding. Her parents are happy, and her siblings are excited for her. Her family doesn't understand her love of working, but her fiancee does, and says that if she is ever without a job she can help him out with his business, which is sort of a trade enterprise between France and Morocco.

3. I have started seeing an Arabic tutor once a week! I'm learning the finer points of grammar, most notably the difference between the four verbs that equate to various forms of 'taking' and 'bringing.'

4. My roommates have continued to visit with their American friends in Meknes, who came to visit last weekend, bringing Dottie a guitar that she had given them earlier! We are now a two-guitar household, and have been taking advantage of this fact.

5. I have spent a lot of time lately with three sisters who are my age and live together close to the city. They are a lively bunch, each with her own distinct talents and interests, and they know a lot of people around Fes. We had a birthday party for one of their friends recently and belly-danced around her living room for 5 hours!

6. The Eid Kabir, the biggest Moroccan holiday, was last month. I spent the time with Amina's family, and actually just lived with them for the week. We sacrificed a sheep, and I learned how to obtain, clean, and prepare everything from stomach and uterus to brains, lungs, and fat. And I did it with dignity.

7.I have had a few guests from Europe and America stay with me for a night or two here and there. It's fun to meet people who are just passing through Fes and get their impressions. It's also fun to tour them around the city and introduce them to everyone.

8. The weather hasn't changed yet. It's chilly, but not raining yet. It thought about raining, and we had 3 days of such intense rains that Casablanca suffered serious flooding, and the mountain highway to Ifrane, the major north-south road through central Morocco, was closed. But it's been dry for a week now. The rain should start any day now, and continue until the end of February.

You are caught up in Moroccan life! Insha'allah, blog entries will resume as scheduled this weekend.

Steve Is Smart

To be honest, the last two or three weeks have been hard. As much as I’ve tried to deny it, they have been homesick weeks. Of course I always miss my family and friends, but the magic of Morocco tends to overshadow any such sadness with amazement. The last two weeks have not been so.

I danced around the issue, even in my head. I worried that being ‘actually homesick’ meant I wasn’t seeing the beauty here, wasn’t appreciating how lucky I am to be somewhere so exotic. Mostly, I just didn’t want this to be the beginning of a long downhill that would stay on my heart for the remainder of the year. I forget sometimes that, although I am in an exotic land, I am still a not-so-exotic normal person, with normal-person ups and downs. Thankfully, my awesome fiancé Steve remembered that fact, and suggested that maybe I wasn’t having fewer adventures because I was homesick, but that the causality was reversed. Therefore, this weekend, I was resolute on doing something to appreciate Morocco.

I have climbed the Zalaugh mountain 4.5 times, but each hike is different. This one was the most unique yet!

I enjoyed my Saturday morning by sleeping in a little too late, which was completely acceptable to me since I didn’t have any hiking buddies (a lot of people traveled this weekend, and Amina had a potential suitor visiting to seek her hand in marriage from her father. It’s gone well so far). However, I wanted time at the summit, so I decided to taxi to the base of the mountain instead of walking out of the city cross-country. The taxi driver tried to charge too much, and I found another, strange taxi stand, who charged me much less (about $1), but still the price to go all the way to the next village! Since he was charging me to go to the village, I figured I would just go. The driver was very confused as to why I would go alone to anywhere I didn’t know a family, and kept asking me in Arabic, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” When I would respond affirmatively, he would demand, “Are you sure you understand the question?” and would then redirect the question through the husband of the woman sitting next to me, in French.

This was a sweet show of concern, but by the fourth time in as many kilometers, I was ready to just agree to the next town name someone suggested. Most of the passengers had left the taxi, save for a boy up front, and the couple beside me. We were about 20 km from Fes, and I saw a nice grove of olive trees with a trail through it. I bluffed that I had been trying to get here all along, and when the taxi driver pulled over for me, the couple got out as well.

I was excited for the trail ahead, and looking forward to spending the day walking and running back home. However, I had a serious cultural concern at the front of my mind. Moroccan ladies do not go out running in the countryside, and the young couple had already proven themselves the protective sort. I knew their cultural demands would require them to escort me to my destination unless I could get away soon.

I made a point of stretching out my feet, gesturing at my sneakers and the jeans under my dress – I told them this was my work-out, that I had done this before. Nothing doing. They were ready to come with me, with this poor young woman in her high heels and fancy satin djellabah.

I bid them goodbye, and looked around desperately for the least occupied direction I could find. “I’m going THAT way!” I said. Oh, they said, so are we.

We walked together a few minutes and came to a fork in the road. One bend was maintained and well traveled; to the left, a path that looked like a dried stream bed snarled. “Goodbye. I’m going THAT way!” I said. Oh, they said, so are we.

They were really very pleasant company, but the craziest thing was, they weren’t making it up!! A few minutes later, we arrived at their family’s house! This tiny village of 5 houses in the countryside had been their destination all along. Now I’m done for. I’m standing outside their house, and, of course, they invite me for lunch. And, of course, there is no polite way for me to decline. I stay for lunch.


The small house is FULL! Our small round table (think table for 4, or maybe 6 people) has 15 people packed around it! We are sharing chairs, but no one falling because we are too squished against each other. Everyone is still in pajamas, everywhere is muddy, and the courtyard is filled with about 60 people eating.

I’m very skeptical that 60 people actually live here. The house is composed of four long, low rooms of white-washed mud-brick walls and stick-thatched roofs. In the middle of these four rooms is the courtyard. The cow pen and sheep pen are behind the house, and the chickens and bees roam free. I learn that Hayat and her husband Brahim grew up here before moving to the Fes medina for work. The 60 people are all extended family of some sort, visiting for the weekend.

It isn’t until I try to leave after lunch that Hayat tells me why all the family is visiting. Her cousin is getting married, and this was the second day of the ceremony! Hayat and Brahim, sweet newlyweds, prefer to be outside themselves than caught up in fuss and flounce. The three of us went for a beautiful countryside walk after lunch, climbed olive trees and picked olives, trespassed through dangerous fields of intensely prickled brown plants, hopped a few streams, and lay on the honeyed earth to stare at the passing clouds. There was not a town for miles, and the thatched roof village houses disappear into the land, until we looked to be the only people alive in these beautiful golden hills.

We returned with minimal primping time for the marriage ceremony. Hayat’s oh-so-fashionable aunt loaned me a spare caftan to wear – a gorgeous deep garnet satin creation with silver trim, pure white embroidered flowers, and an under-dress of purple and silver netted lace. The groom rode over the far hillside on a caramel-coloured horse, completely covered in a white djellabah, and fanfared by two trumpeters and four drummers in the Rifi style of music.



At the top of the hill, he waited and the trumpeters played, while we all gathered around him and danced and yelled. He rode solemnly down the hill while we celebrated all around him. We all led the way into the courtyard, and the musicians helped him dismount. He had to not be seen for awhile, but the musicians played for us, and everybody danced around the courtyard energetically. Whenever anyone got tired, they retired to one of three ‘nap rooms’ for a couple hours, then returned to dance some more.

Eight hours later, the bride was ready to be visited by the women. We walked through one by one to take pictures with her, kiss her, and wish her luck and congratulations. There was more dancing, and more music, and more dancing… eventually even the Moroccan woman did get tired of the dancing, and mostly sat around clapping and talking. The three nap rooms turned out to be the bedrooms. First beds went to the older men, then to the couples, then the children. The young men and single women each had separate rooms (I think one each?) but I can only speak for the women’s room. There were about 25 of us, and all the mattress space was taken up by a couple of babies and young children. About 10 of the remaining women could fit lying down on the floor. Therefore, we took it in turns to sleep. I got to nap from 1h30-2, and sleep from 6-8am. The dinner meal happened at 2am, and was a tasty chicken tagine with fresh-made khubs bread. The most curious thing about the sleeping arrangements was actually that, the next morning, everyone complained about being tired and having to sleep on the cold mud floor. I thought no one would complain since we all were tired and stiff, but instead there was a sort of community about it.

We had breakfast of hirara soup and bread with honey, and I played with the kids. The courtyard was as full of bees as if there were a cultivated hive in the center. They kept landing on us, and our food, and getting tangled in our clothing. But they weren’t very aggressive, so we played with them.

The whole environment was so pastoral and sweet. Many people were related both by blood and by marriage, which made it very confusing to keep track of, but they all just treated each other – and me – as family. I had the sense that this family put all they could into the ceremony, and everything was just shared. Everything from caftans to bread hunks, from slide-y shoes by the door to chairs around a table, was MADE into enough to go around.

It was a beautiful lesson in community taught by beautiful people – the protective couple I had thought so hard about how to leave kindly did, in fact, escort me all the way back to Fes. Sunday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after I had planned to come home, the three of us taxied back together. It was a fitting conclusion for the adventure, ending just as it began, with the three of us crushed in the back of a full taxi.

On the way home, I admired all that I had missed admiring in the Moroccan landscape. I wondered about the people we passed, and their lives. I couldn’t even bring myself to go back to my apartment, and instead took my schoolwork to my favorite café to work while I watched the world go by. It’s a world I love, an exotic and magical place.

It just took an adventure of the sort that could only happen here to remind me of that. Although my count for climbing Zalaugh is still at 4.5.

Henna Study

The first time I had an offer of henna, I was nervous about going to work with it. Because I was in the company of my boss's girlfriend, she called him and asked what he thought about us getting henna. His reaction? "That's great, I'm so happy for you! All the students will be pleased."

Henna is a sign of celebration. Used traditionally for marriages, the bride has henna painted on both sides of her hands, up to the elbows, and tops and bottoms of feet, all the way up the ankle. The groom receives only small designs on each palm, one a circular dot pattern, the other the name of his bride-to-be. Though henna is now used for many occasions, it is always a sign of joy. Imagine that your best friend just got that big promotion she'd been working toward forever. How happy for her you would be. That is the emotion that accompanies henna.


Henna comes in all colors, but the natural henna is orange-ish brown, and is a powder made from the henna plant. It's a dermal pigment, staining the skin for somewhere between a week and 6 weeks depending on the skin and the care. From the powder, it is made into a paste and applied using a (non-needled) syringe. The colored hennas have some chemicals in them to dye them- Candace got a black henna last year that burned like acid on her skin.


I started learning about henna from many Moroccan friends, and took a few packages back to America. My cousin Charlotte and I stayed up terribly late making henna for the first time. She has become one of the best hennaias I have seen, and she makes all her own designs!

The Moroccan designs are relatively free of dots (compared to Indian henna) with repetition instead of the teardrop shape. Marrakesh henna is bold, just a couple flowers with the rest of the hand blank. It has extreme contrast and floral patterns. Fessie henna traditionally had a geometric pattern covering the whole hand. More modern Fessie henna is floral, with bold flowers in the midst of filler spirals and teardrops. The whole hand is covered, but the design stands out in the middle. Casablancan henna has very little contrast. The swirls dissapear into the hand. The design is barely evident, but it is intricate and expansive.



I've been collecting pictures of henna. Some of these are mine, some have been done by others in the Fessie community.

Moroccan Tech Support

The internet is NOT working here more often than it IS working. School has proven the only reliable network. Because of the 4 hour time difference from here to New York, I am often logging on to Skype late at night. Fortunately for me, there's a cyber-cafe next to my house that is usually open late.

Last night, I had a moment of shock as I walked into the Cyber. The man at the counter said "broken. broken." It was indeed broken. The computers were all in a pile in the middle of the floor. Desks had been smashed to rubble. The glass windows of the cabinets had been broken and shards were splashed around the room. All three men who work there were milling around looking busy - a rarity! I picked up my jaw and asked what happened. "Broken. Re-decorating." The man at the counter said. ...I guess... But they shushed me out the door and told me to check back another day.

I still had about 15 minutes before meeting Steve online, so I wandered off in search of another internet cafe. I'm going to be really honest here, and admit that, since I thought I was only going next door (the internet cafe really barely counts as leaving my house) I had gone down in my slippers. Not Moroccan slippers. Bedroom slippers. Fuzzy ones. With leopard spots. Just make sure that's a part of your mental image of this whole adventure.

I found another cafe (about 2 blocks of slipper-walking later), but they were just closing for the night. The man informed me that I was out of luck, because this was the only internet cafe in the city. "I just came from one over there," I told him. "No," he said firmly, "there isn't one over there." ...yes. "No, one over there doesn't exist." He must've thought I was a tourist and hoped I come back to his shop the next day (or maybe he noticed my feet). I told him I lived over there. Well, he said, then you know that there aren't any other internet cafes over there. Sometimes you have to choose your battles, and my battle was to see Steve in about 5 minutes. I left.

I found another Cyber about a block away. Here's when the story really gets funny. It was a big cyber, spacious, looked quality. I greeted the man at the desk and he showed me to a computer. When I turned it on, it displayed an error message in French about the key board being disconnected. 'Oh, let me get that,' says the man. He reaches in front of me... and starts hitting the keyboard, smacking each key with terrible fury!!! Maybe he thought he could SCARE the computer into working for him. Big surprise, it doesn't work. He keeps hitting it, while I read the error message, walk around the machine, and plug in the keyboard. The man is satisfied when it starts working again, because he had hit it and fixed it.

The computer boots up, but the mouse doesn't work. I'm happy to troubleshoot my own problems, but the man is still standing there, and he picks up the mouse. He taps it a few times, a reasonable gesture. Then he takes the mouse in his hand and starts whacking it into the computer screen!!! I have to act fast before he breaks it! I race to the back of the computer and plug in the mouse.

The computer appears to be working, but it's yellow. It's the standard windows desktop, in all shades of yellow (which is surprisingly stressing). I push the button at the bottom to adjust the colors and start fiddling with the settings, but the man comes over and, with no warning, smacks my monitor! He grins at me, makes a fist, and starts jabbing the monitor. "Gently!" I say. "Don't break it!" He looks surprised, and laughs hysterically! He looks back at my yellow monitor, winds up his right fist, and all-out PUNCHES the screen dead center!!!

I expect him to put his fist through it. But instead, the second his fist shakes that monitor, the colours snap back to normal! Shows what I know.

I'll end my story there. Lather, rinse, repeat with the microphone, the webcam, and then the Skype program itself. At least I was comfy in my slippers. When I finally did get to talk to Steve, it was the sweetest victory of my week.

Which is just what it should be.

For Real

Destinations are fun. Actually, more than that, destinations make TRAVELING fun. This is a great traveling story.

Instead of the usual weekend wandering of finding whatever adventure, fortunate or unfortunate, I could run into by walking around Fes, I set a destination. Destination: Algeria. Never mind that the border is closed. And has been since 1994. We've talked a lot as teachers about not lowering expectations for our students; I thought it was time to put the same in place for myself. What are laws when I have determination and a smile? Smiles get you anywhere in Morocco.

(Spoiler included for Mom: I didn't knowingly do anything illegal.)

I hopped on a night train for Oujda, and prowled around the city a little. It's bigger than I expected for being the only civilization this far east. Then the fun began - I started my frontier search! The frontier line, or border line, of Algeria is 12 kilometers from Oujda, and it took the involvment of 3 different colors of Taxi's and one swanky 5-star hotel, but I was finally in the front seat of a golden taxi on my way to Magrib-al-awsat: "The Middle West" from "The Far West."

Out of town, we encountered the typical barrenness between countries who have been known to claim each other's land, interspersed with Party Houses. Yup, they're really called Party Houses. In the desert wasteland, beautiful castle-like Casba's with neon lights proclaimed themselves "for rent," and possessing "a room appropriate for ANY party."

The taxi driver cautioned me about having my camera visible, and I stowed it in the folds of my skirt. 4km from the Frontier, we pulled up to a one-lane obstacle course. The signs indicated that it was a police checkpoint, but it looked like a stunt driver's test to me. Our mul-taxi swerved into the opposing lane to avoid the car laden with haybales that barreled toward us. We needed to be in the opposing lane anyway to avoid the first row of nails protruding from the asphalt. The taxi driver passed the first row expertly, skidding the taxi out on the way back to the right to avoid the next row of nails. He threaded the obstacle course like he could have done it in his sleep at 50kph. I have a reference for Hollywood's next stunt driver.

We arrived at the frontier. Though it has been closed since '94, none of the Moroccans here seem to know why, other than "Algeria closed it for political reasons." I didn't ask the Algerians their opinion. They were too busy telling me to get back to my side of the line.

Don't picture me fighting past trenches of armed men, or anything. There were plenty of barracades and barbed wire, but a clear path right through the border. Not seeing anyone, I figured the checkpoint must be on the other side, so I walked through.

No one there either.

Must be further up ahead.

I kept walking.

50m from the barracade, I realize nobody cares. I scout around for some officials, and go out of my way to talk to one of the policemen Gendarmes there. He tells me no, this is still Morocco, the frontier isn't for another 500 meters, at the foot of some cool looking mountains. No Algeria for Laura.

I was a little dissapointed, but had a great time chuckling at their security system. After all, I had known my goal was impossible from the beginning. I get back in the golden taxi, talking with the driver about the mountains. He doesn't really like them, but his sons like to go there. Go there? I thought no one from Morocco could go there. No, no one from Morocco can cross the Official Frontier. To get into Algeria, you have to go around!!!!

He offers to show me, not waiting for my answer as he swerves off the road into a cactus patch! Seriously, this guy could be the next 007 for the way he handles this golden taxi. We land in a tiny trail between the prickly pear and a concrete wall that hadn't even been visible from the road. There, he says, is Algeria. No more barbed wire; this part of the border is guarded on the Moroccan side by cinderblocks, and on the Algerian side by cacti!

We bump a little farther down the cactus patch - I will not call that spot a road. Nobody would.- until the borders open up. No more cactus, no more cinderblock. This is less than a kilometer from the fenced and baraccaded frontier where I talked with the Gendarme! Welcome to Algeria, Laura.

I got out and took a few pictures, tipped the taxi driver 100% (sill less than $1) and we were bumping back through the cacti and into Morocco, back to Oujda in the golden taxi.