Author: williamdwyer1431

The women below are either divorced or widowed. While married, the worked at home making carpets and tapestries. Now they work at a huge carpet wholesaler in the Fes old medina.

Day after day, doing this for hours on end.

In Morocco and elsewhere in North Africa, people pay for memorial plaques to honor loved ones who have passed away.

In America, the time consuming and labor intensive task of carving letters and figures into marble and granite is now done with machines.

But in the old Medina of Fes, and elsewhere in Morocco, that task is still done by hand, with meticulous effort and skill.

This craftsman, who was making a memorial plaque for a customer, allowed me to video his work, thanks to the help of my riad host Adel.

We Americans like to refer to ourselves as “hard working,’ and many of us are. But with the exception of some blue collar folk who actually do labor hard each day, American’s can’t hold a candle to the hard work I’ve seen in parts of Morocco.

Just about everything in much of the country is produced manually. Food, personal care products, medicines, furniture and rugs and woodwork, utensils and kitchenware, art and music. Created every day, the way it has for hundreds of years, for more than a thousand years.

I’ll post three examples tonight. A coppersmith. A marble sign carver. And the women who labor at making carpets and wall coverings.

Below is a young man who spends his days in the old Res medina meticulously pounding out copper pans. No stamping press here, just careful human workmanship.

The synchronized water fountain at the south end of the Menara Mall in Marrakech. Draws a crowd every night.

Not as good as the Bellagio in Vegas by a long shot, but then again, the only money I lost while in Marrakech was on wine and caviar. (Very affordable caviar).

And ya know… for just a moment there I thought I saw Elliott Gould offering George Clooney and Brad Pitt cigars.

Was enjoying lunch in the old medina in Marrakech Sunday afternoon when these guys approached my table.

Was enjoying an inexpensive lunch of Chicken Sharwarma and really good coffee when these guys approached my table.

Ya think this is where Jimmy Page got the idea for using a bow on his guitar in Dazed and Confused in concert?

Anyways, enjoyed this a lot more than “One ton tomato” at a Mexican restaurant.

file:///Users/wanderingscribe/Desktop/RAK.musicians.MOV

Arrived in Marrakech late yesterday afternoon and am very happy to be here. This should be fun.

Didn’t “take the train from Casablanca going south,” but a plane from Fes headed in the same direction. So I find myself with weather 10 or more degrees warmer than the last few days, and a far more modern city than either Chefchaouen of Fes, and nicer than Tanger.

What’s particularly nice is that, for the first time in a week, I’m in one place for the next five night. Stayed over last night at Riad Noos Noos, an absolutely amazing guest house in the medina area of Marrakech. Guesthouse. More like a small mansion. With a restaurant. And an actual in house hammam.

I’ll spare you my happy babbling at scoring such a wonderful lodging at a really affordable price, but tomorrow I will post about my experience with my first ever hammam, a traditional Moroccan full body scrub that exfoliates your entire skin surface and opens up all your pores.

Followed by a massage. Was an amazing experience. I floated out of the place.

More tomorrow. Been taking it easy today. I miss Chicago and numerous people, but not the weather.

Stay warm.

Will post more about the Fes Medina, the oldest settled site in North Africa, and home to the world’s oldest university, founded 1,000 years ago.

For now, several photos.

Please excuse a political comment. But I’m sitting in a 600-year old Moroccan house in the midst of the oldest medina in North Africa, reading the news, and I see that the UnPresident of the decidedly not United States of America has shoved his foot solidly in his stupid face once again.

I can just imagine him asking staff, “Yeah, but we’re still going to Tennessee, right? Just New Orleans, not Nashville?”

For the rest of my trip, when people ask me where I’m from, I’ll think I’ll make like the Cone heads from SNL and say “France! I’m from France.”

OK. No more politics. Back to the travelog.

Without comment. Scenes out the window during the 4 1/2 hour bus ride to Fes. Beautiful country, Morocco. Ooops. Guess that’s a comment. Guess I meant “without captions.”