Another day, another Moroccan town and this time we are heading to Fez. To get there was another bus ride, so after a prompt start we headed down (finally it was just downhill!) to the CTM bus station at Chefchaouen. We got there far to early and the bus was late, but only ten minutes or so. Five hours later we arrived at a tiny bus station – apparently the main bus station for Fez. This was quite well outside town so we knew that we would have to get a taxi to the hotel, but we weren’t quite ready for the assault on the senses as we emerged from the bus station. Cars and taxis everywhere and people coming up to you offering a taxi – at least until they heard the name of the hotel at which stage they all seemed bemused. However, one man from one of the ‘petit taxi’ agreed to take us at a very reasonable rate. These are generally shared taxis for up to three people, but he seemed happy for the business. He dropped us some way from the hotel as it is in the medina and pretty much inaccessible to anything other than pedestrians, horses and donkeys (yes – they really are about) and over-enthusiastic youngsters on mopeds.
Following Google maps we headed towards the hotel, but were then taken in by a youngster with good English who said that we were heading down a no-through alley and he would show us the way. We now know that this is their standard line, but we were grateful for some help …. right up until the point he demanded money. We had offered some but he played insulted by the amount we had offered him (which was quite generous) and even after doubling it, he became quite aggressive about demanding more and even demanding some for his friend (who had just emerged later from an alleyway). We eventually walked away, noticing that he didn’t come too close to the hotel door as they are probably known to the hotels. He harangued us a bit more and then gave up …. Not the nicest welcome to a place.
However, from there on it improved distinctly. The hotel was lovely – in an old house with extensive traditional decoration and both courtyards and a roof terrace to relax on. The room itself was also excellent – long and thin, but with plenty of space.
The first morning we had booked a course at the Anou Cooperative. This is an artisan cooperative run by women who have set up a digital marketplace for traditional crafts – particularly rugs and other woven products. Their physical base is in the medina and they use that to run workshops. Our first workshop was in dyeing wool using natural dyes. The first step was to choose the colours we wanted to create. We chose madder root (a deep red/purple), hibiscus (brown) and turmeric (yellow/orange).
Once these were chosen we headed out to the market to buy the spices and roots needed.
The wool was then split into 100 gramme balls and then loosely coiled. The spices and roots which we had bought were then added to large saucepans of hot water on hotplates to keep them hot (though never boiling) and the coils of wool added. The rest of the process was slowly stirring and waiting, though some of the madder root ‘brew’ was shifted into a cast iron pan. The rust on the pan reacted with the dye to change the hue significantly. After between and hour and a half to two hours, the coils were then rinsed and spun dry, ready for us to use the next day.
For the remainder of the afternoon we headed across town to go and see the tanneries. Fez is well known for these, though to view the process you have to negotiate all the people trying to get you into their leather shop. Each shop then has a balcony overlooking the tanneries. We chose one (or he chose us) and were offered fresh mint (to try to mitigate the smell), though we didn’t take it. From the terrace you can see all the vats where they process the leather – all done by hand.
The next morning we headed for our next appointment at the Anou Cooperative – this time to learn to weave the wool we had made. This was done on a small wooden frame with two rows of nails at either end. We wrapped thread between the two ends – first the outer row and then the inner row to form a vertical framework for the weaving.
A small board was put through the bottom end to form the base and then three rows of plain wool were woven horizontally in and out of the vertical threads. Then a row of wool. The wool was cut into short pieces which were looped around a pair of vertical threads. The colour was changed as appropriate to form the pattern which we had chosen. It was slow and painstaking work. After each row of short woollen threads a further three horizontal rows of plain wool and so on ….. repeating all the way up the frame. After about four or five hours of obsessive working we had finished and the staff helped us to finish off the mats, cutting them loose from the frame and knotting then ends to keep them secure. An immensely satisfying job and although we only had a very small square patch of mat in the end, it made us realise the work which goes into these artisan carpets.
