You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

OLD MEDINA

There are a diminishing number of Arab mud villages left in the world. I had become fascinated by these warren-like assemblages of common wall structures when I first saw them in architectural history class. One of the oldest continuously occupied of these is in the city of Fez, Morocco. Fez was first occupied around 800 AD.

In 2015 my partner, Ruth, was agitating for a trip to southern Spain. I agreed to do it if we tacked on a side trip to Fez. We flew to Madrid and took the bullet train south to Los Barrios. From there, we crossed the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry to Morocco. By the time we had located a hotel and unburdened ourselves of our backpacks, it was evening in Tangier. We walked to dinner. The central streets of the city were brightly lit and lined with restaurants and bars. The sidewalks were filled with people. There was a carefree, almost festive feeling in the city. We had met a couple on the ferry. She had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Tangier 50 years earlier. She remembers one restaurant fondly from those days and had determined that it was still open. We met them there for dinner.

The following morning, we took a cab to the bus terminal near the port of Tangier. Ruth was anxious about going to Fez without pre-arranged accommodations. She was accustomed to taking tours where everything was arranged in advance. Thinking that Fez could not be drastically different from Tangier, I was confident that we would find a hotel in the old section of the city. I assured her that all would be fine.

We left Tangier around midday. The bus stopped in two towns before we passed over low mountains and into the seemingly endless parched landscape of central Morocco. It was dusk when the bus made its third stop. It was a lonely roadside concession stand. There was nothing else for miles in all directions. It was baffling how this small commercial enterprise could survive in such a desolate location. The construction of the stand was rudimentary. It had three parallel cinder block walls with various shaped logs for beams between them, and corrugated metal roofing for protection from the sun and infrequent rain. It was open at the front and back. There were no doors. It was more like a permanent shelter than a building. It was divided into two separate shops. One was a meat market, with several goats and parts of goats hanging from hooks behind a counter. A raised charcoal fire pit stood in front of the counter, far enough away from the structure that the smoke and sparks weren’t close to close enough to start a fire in there. On the other side of the central block wall was a second vendor who offered items that accompany the meat to make a Moroccan roadside meal.

We learned that we must first purchase meat, which was cut from the hanging carcass and cooked to order on the grill. While the meat was cooking, we went over to the other side of the central wall to the stand which offered: bottled drinks, tea, flat bread, tahini, pickles, and sliced tomatoes. These were purchased separately. It all came on a paper plate. We then returned to the meat market to wait while our meat was being cooked. It was warm by the grill, which was radiating heat into the cooling evening air. We rolled the meat and condiments into the flat-bread to make a sandwich, and took our meals to the “sitting area”, an arrangement of folding tables and a variety of old chairs under a canvas awning. There, we joined several locals and other passengers. We ate our meal and waited for the bus trip to resume.

By the time we arrived at the bus station in central Fez, it was 9:00 PM. There, we encountered an aggressive man who approached tourists asking if they needed a taxi. I declined his offer. So did everyone else. I had expected information about hotels to be available at the bus station, but there was no printed information. Furthermore, there were no staff at that late hour, to ask about hotels. I tried to use the pay phone, but the phone didn’t work. By this time, we were alone in the bus station. The two of us and the aggressive man. Our only option was to rely on a cab driver. It was not my preference because he would most likely wish to take us to a hotel of his choosing in the modern part of the city. One where he would receive a commission. The aggressive man followed us out through the side door to the parking lot where several cabs were parked. The drivers of these cabs were standing in a huddle in the middle of the parking lot. I hesitated, not knowing how to approach them. Seeing my hesitation, the man insisted that I needed his help to get a cab and hotel, so I accepted. He swept up our bags and headed to a nearby taxi. He put them in the open trunk and gestured for us to get in. I expected him to get in and drive us to a hotel; instead, he went over to the group of cab drivers and began to talk with one of them. While I did not understand the Arabic conversation, I did understand what was happening. The aggressive man did not own the cab. He didn’t even have the permission of the cab owner to have put us in it. I could see that the owner of the cab was not accepting the aggressive man’s proposal, which certainly included a hefty “finder’s fee” and possibly a specific hotel. The cab owner wanted us out of his cab.

Seeing this confrontation, Ruth and I got out of the cab. I retrieved our bags from the trunk, and we walked out of the parking lot to the street in front of the bus station. The two men saw us leaving and continued arguing. Before we turned away from view of the parking lot, I looked back to be sure that the aggressive man was not following us. He was not. He was slugging it out with the owner of the cab. The other cab drivers were standing around, enjoying the entertainment of a good fight.

On the street, I hailed a passing cab. The driver carelessly tossed our backpacks onto the roof rack. We climbed in. The cab driver turned to me and, in Arabic, asked, “Where to?” I responded, “Old Medina”. He said “talat medinas.” I understood him to be saying that there are three medinas. I did not know the Arabic word for old [qadim]. I tried other English words, but none worked. The cabbie was becoming cranky and gestured for us to get out. I didn’t budge, but instead, I waved my hands and arms in a kind of tangle, while repeating the one word we had in common, “medina”. He watched curious at my strange behavior, but then he jerked his head back in sudden recognition. He repeated my gesture and the word “medina”. I replied “Nam”, yes. And we were off. He drove out of the lights of the city center and continued through a rural landscape. Ruth became increasingly anxious. I reassured her, and yet I was becoming anxious as well. Finally, we passed through a large mud brick arch, the gateway into the ancient village of mud houses. We were there, but it was dark in this village. There were no street lamps, no hotel signs, no lighted signs of any kind. The only life to be seen was a tea stand with a handful of customers having tea, under the stars, at small round metal tables. The road widened into the central square. The cab came to a stop in the middle of it. The cabbie turned to me. He made the same arm-waving gesture that I had made, and said “Madina”. Then he pointed down forcefully, as if to say, “HERE!” He held out his hand and stated the amount I owed him. It was after 10 PM. It was absolutely dark outside the cab. There were no people in sight. If we were to get out of the cab, we would be stranded and alone. The cabbie was becoming angry, telling us, in Arabic and with gestures, “Pay and get out of my cab.”

After a moment, which seemed like several minutes. The silence and the tension were broken by a knock on the car window. A voice speaking in English said, “Can be of help?” This was Ibrahim, a slender man of about 25, with pleasant composure. He had been having tea with a friend and saw our cab stop in the middle of the silent square with no one getting out. The cabbie explained to Ibrahem, complete with laughter along with my gestures and the word “medina”, how it was that we came to be there. Ibrahim asked in clear, though heavily accented English, “Do you need a hotel?” I happily responded, “Yes!” He said, “I will take you to one.” We took our packs down from the roof of the cab. I paid the driver, who immediately sped away.

Ibrahim explained that we were going to a hotel in the old town. “Perfect!” I thought. We followed him through the dark, empty market stalls and into a narrow alleyway lined by tightly packed, clay-walled houses. Some places we passed were so narrow I could reach out and touch the clay walls on both sides of the alley. We walked through several “intersections” which were only slightly wider than the alleys. These were places where two or more alleys crossed and always at odd angles. These narrow alleys were just wide enough to accommodate a single donkey cart. From history classes, I knew that these labyrinthine and narrow alleyways were intended to confuse invading enemies who would become lost in them and vulnerable to stones, arrows, and spears from the rooftops.

We carefully followed Ibrahim through that dark tangle of passageways. There were no people, no sign of life other than the faint glow of amber light through an occasional small window.

Eventually, Ibrahim stopped at a heavy wooden door. It was like all the other darkened doors we had passed. There were no hotel signs nor any other indication of lodging available. Ibrahim explained, as we waited for his knock to be answered, that this was the house of his uncle. He had two extra rooms, which he offered to friends and tourists. Ibrahim’s uncle opened the door, and after Ibrahim explained about us, the uncle invited us in. The uncle was a gracious man. He showed us down a narrow corridor that curved into the center of the house. It was a traditional mud brick structure, with a central interior space which I will refer to as a “courtyard,” though it had a roof. The courtyard was two and a half stories high and crowned with a ring of clerestory windows. The second story overlooked the courtyard through arched openings. A woman peeked down at us through one of the openings. The interior of the mud brick walls were plastered. The color of the plaster was warm and subdued, as if the plaster had been made out of the same clay as the walls. There were a few photographs decorating the walls and Arab carpets on the clay tile floors.

Our host showed us the room and the shared bath. We agreed on a price for two nights, which included breakfasts. Ibrihim offered to come in the morning and be our tour guide through the old medina. We accepted and retired to our alcove, which was about 10 feet square. It had just enough space for a bed, a chair, and a small wooden armoire. The alcove had three walls. The fourth was an arched opening onto the courtyard. The opening was covered with a muslin curtain on a rod. The curtain could be pushed aside to act as a door. This curtain provided visual privacy from others in the courtyard or other guests who were behind a similar curtain in the other alcove on the opposite side of the courtyard. In traditional social occasions, the family would use these alcoves as sitting rooms, with women in one and men in the other. This accommodation was better than I could have imagined. Like travelers centuries ago, we were staying in this family’s ancient mud-brick home.

We had a good night’s sleep, at peace in the realization that this adventure could have gone very badly if it were not for a young man who happened to be drinking tea with friends in the only tea shop open late at night, a man who spoke English and who was motivated to help.