Allah Is Good! Allah is Great!

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." The 6'5" giant of an African man approached me and my traveling companions with these words, offering his services as our guide for the day. He continued quoting Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson and Stephen Crane. I was impressed by the effort and the photo of his two-year old daughter was adorable, so guess who got themselves a guide for the day...

I'm happy we did because Fez is a city in which I could probably develop a multitude of psychological disorders and then be trapped alone with them for the rest of my life. Yes, its that confusing. The city's made of innumerable alleys scarcely big enough for two people to walk down side by side. Supposedly it helps with the heat in the summer. I just felt like I was in a giant maze.

As a tour guide Abdul was decidedly off, but as a person with a desire to make his clients feel welcome, he was spot-on. He invited us to his house for dinner after our tour where I was told that God had given me many gifts, but the most beautiful was my tongue. I've since been checking my tongue out in the mirror with much greater frequency. Really though, it has led me to consider the great good and evil that can be done with our words.



These tanneries were featured on a national geographic episode. I pity da fool whose job it is to make the leather baby-butt soft by mashing it over and over, standing barefoot in these vats of cattle urine and pigeon poop. The smell reminded me of manure hauling season on the Hess Dairy.


The biggest reason I wanted to go to Fez was for the World Sacred Music Festival. The difference in energy levels between the concertgoers at this festival compared with the Mawazine popular music festival was astounding. Religion permeates every aspect of life here and when the Sufi brotherhood, a group of extra dedicated Muslims took the stage to sing about Allah's and Mohammed's greatness, the crowd went ballistic!

Dancing, like most things in Morocco, is separated by sexes. Girls dance with girls and boys dance with boys. I found myself in the company of a bunch of young men who were especially into the music. One of them invited me to dance with him and those remaining surrounded us in a circle. I then became dance partner to almost all 27 dudes at sometime during the night. It was refreshing to be caught up in the energy of the moment. I also enjoyed the fact that the dancing wasn't some kind of awkward sexual foreplay akin to American dance floors. I felt like it was dancing for the sake of dancing. It was another testament that language isn't always necessary for people to connect and feel united.

The energy from the concert carried over to the hotel. Helen, Hermione and I decided we'd like to have a German room. Helen's from Germany and Hermione and I are both fluent. It was a lethal combination. I pulled out my, "Favorite Folktales From Around the World" book to read some bedtime stories. The plan was to read one from each country represented, then retire to bed, but it turned into an all-night party complete with reenactments of folktales, performances from Aladdin in authentic dress with a magic carpet (see picture below), and endless laughter. It has taken me two days to recover, but it was a night I won't soon forget.