EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALJune
15, 1999
Meknes, Morocco
On a Wing and Some Air?
It’s 9am and we’re back at the post office with our bundle of Berber carpets.
Postmaster tells us about his little sister who lives in Montreal and how he wants to
visit her this summer. A rail of a man in slouchy pants pulls a tattered box from beneath
a bench. He’s the sewing guy. Freelance. Customs unrolls our carpets again and
inspects for illegals and other items. Very nice. How much?
Rolled up again and stuffed into the plastic woven sack, the sewing man stitches a seam
at both ends and we buy a permanent marker next door for labeling. Now the carpets get
weighed – 17 kilograms. That’s a lot of wool. 1200 Dirhams, or $200 later
Postmaster assures us the carpets will arrive by air mail within ten days. We’ve
taken all the precautions possible -- with Moroccan legacies of carpets bought by
foreigners switched for ragged, poor quality ones -- by watching our little investments
get unrolled and rerolled and sewed up and weighed and tossed over to a pile of outgoing
mail. Now all we can do is wait…and see if they arrive in Canada some day?
The train ride from Meknes to Fez is only an hour or so, but natives of the 8th
century Imperail city are famous for their undying hospitality, and eagerness to help
foreigners. Abdou leans forward and probes us with the now usual questions. "Where
are you going? What are you doing? Were are you from? What do you want to see?" He
leans back in his seat and chuckles to himself, "The Islamic faith is better than any
other because we can have many wives! But maybe it is not always good because they are a
lot of trouble!" Now we’re all chuckling -- polite chuckling, wondering where
this conversation is going.
"What do you like to eat in Morocco?" Abdou is now inviting us to breakfast
(no doubt prepared by one of his troublesome wives) at his home in Fez tomorrow morning.
"I would invite you for dinner but there is no point because you are
vegetarian." He leaves us at a mid-stop, in a small town where he will join his
sister for lunch. He leaves us with a few words of advice about Morocco. "Carpets
come in varying qualities. Make sure you buy wool ones from the reputable carpet emporium
in Fez. You’ll need a guide for the 12,000-plus streets of the Fez medina, the most
complicated city in the world. Don’t hire one from the hotel or the station. (Where
are you staying?) Only hire a guide from the tourist office. When you come for breakfast
I’ll take you to the office and tell them you are my family. That way you will get a
good tour. Then one day when I come to Canada you can do the same for me."
