As you’ll recall, when we last left off Salma and I were in a taxi headed home. We arrived in Freedonia around sunset, and went straight to my host family’s house. Firstly, we had to get the key to the Fortress of Solitude (my host brothers take care of Amal while I’m away), but mostly it was because both Salma and my family had heard quite a good deal about the other, and they were all itching to see how accurate my depictions were. Fortunately, my name of Amin is well-earned (it means “trustworthy”), something you readers at home should keep in mind. And, since the television was on the fritz again, we had a great meal and a great time chatting. Thus began Salma’s whirlwind tour of my hometown.
Freedonia is usually known for its relaxed atmosphere and unbearably cold weather (it doesn’t matter where I go; whenever I say I’m from Freedonia, people shiver like someone just walked over their grave). Our time here, however, was affected slightly by the fact that I was technically working, the only three days of work in three weeks. Consequently, we rushed from meeting to meeting to take care of development at the same time as house to house for the people to meet Salma. We started the week with a fantastic health discussion at the women’s association (Salma is a doctor, after all), and then spent the rest of our time having a succession of lunches and dinners with a fraction of the various families who take care of me, and then going off to teach classes at the Dar Shebab. In fact, of the five or so well-known sights in town, we saw pretty much none of them. Salma did get to meet most of my friends, though, and my host family, and the places where I create peace. Not to mention making friends with Amal and enjoying the luxury of the Fortress of Solitude.
It was really helpful for me having her around, since, as I’ve just mentioned, I was pretty busy. But I got to exploit Salma’s charisma and command of the English language for my own selfish purposes (that’s also one of the goals of the Peace Corps, they just don’t talk about it as much). And, fortunately, I had planned ahead and asked her to bring me presents for some of the families that we went to visit, which worked out nicely considering how, once again, gifts were heaped upon her little shoulders.
And I got catch a small glimpse of what life might have been like if I had been a lady volunteer. It’s a just part of the culture, but men don’t really spend as much time with families; they mostly spend time with other men. Salma, on the other hand, is not a man, and so when we went to visit the family of some of my friends from the Dar Shebab, for example, and the mom was going to go next door to bake some bread, Salma was able to just ask and go with and got to learn how to make bread. I, of courses, had to come with her for the sake of language. If it had just been me, they very likely would never have asked if I wanted to see the bread making, and even more likely would have told me to just sit and relax if I had asked. But it wasn’t all work in Freedonia. Well, no, it pretty much was, but we got away from all that for two days and went to Fes.
I love Fes, and I think that was infectious because Salma seemed to feel pretty similarly. This may have been partly inspired by the fact that it being only one night, we figured we could splurge a bit and go to a riad in the old medina. A riad is an old house organized around a central courtyard that has been converted into a fancy guest house. Ours, Dar Iman (the house of Iman, a girl’s name and shared by the adorable little girl who lives there), belongs to a family that I met on an earlier trip to Fes, and is gorgeous. And just about two minutes down the street from the most beautiful building I have ever seen, the Madrassa Bou Inania. The Madrassa is really just a courtyard, but every inch of the walls are carved and decorated and tiled. It is absolutely incredible and I could easily spend hours just sitting there if it weren’t for the fact that some parts are still used as a mosque and they make tourists leave before the calls to prayer.
We toured a few more of the sights in town, but the most incredible thing to see is really just the city, so we spent most of the rest of our time just walking along the alleyways of the medina. And Salma got her souvenir, a fez from Fes, which gave her no small pleasure in talking about. We had a great time buying it, too, because the fez-man thought it was fantastic that I could speak Darija and that the Moroccan-looking girl couldn’t but wanted a fez. It turns out that he lied to us a little, though. We asked him which way to wear the hat, and he told us that the tassels go in front. This is not true, as we learned basically the next time that we turned on the tv and saw someone wearing one with the tassels in the back, as well as every other time we saw a fez, and from everyone else that we asked. I’m still not sure why he said that.
Back in Freedonia, we still had a day and a half before taking off for our final week of touring in the north, so I made sure to take Salma to at least one sight in town: the Saturday souk. Granted, Salma had been to souks in just about every city we’d been to, but these were either for tourists or big-city folks. There’s nothing like the country town souk. We hunted our way through the mayhem for all the vegetables necessary for making a vegetarian tagine (my staple dinner, roughly 4 times a week), which we cooked for dinner that night. We also took a little time to ourselves to walk around the town and enjoy the bucolic peacefulness. There were still nine more days of fast-paced action ahead of us.
To be continued…
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