January 14 // 2:24PM
Fes // Morocco
These craftsmen. They tend to do things the old way, the way their fathers, and grandfathers did. The medina in Fes is home to one shop after another and the walled cobblestone streets are wide enough only for a donkey. If you walk long enough, you might find yourself on the edge of the medina, where the walls open up and you can suddenly see much more of the blue sky than you could before. The sounds are louder here, and things are busier.
People are yelling and motorbikes are whizzing by. Trucks flank some of the stalls on the left and right of the street. You realize that this is the industrial zone, where real things get made. Craftsmen are hand carving wooden moulding that might find it’s way into a living room in Russia or Croatia. On the other side, someone is pounding copper into kitchenware. There aren’t many outsiders coming to Fes, but especially this area. As I walked, I came across a truck backed into an open door. Inside the opening, past the truck, I could see two enormous stone wheels connected in the middle and turning on a round table. The truck was completely filled with olives and the wheels just inside the door was an olive press extracting olive oil from them.
Almost everywhere you looked there was something being made, the hard way. Not for a crowd, not for tourists, because there aren’t any here. These people are doing these things the hard way because that’s the way they’re done – because the craftsmanship matters.
I went further and found a tile shop. Moroccans are famous for their tile work. It adorns every fountain and the interior walls and floor of every riad you might walk into. Beautiful geometric shapes, usually bursting with color are everywhere. I watched as they turned the glazed clay tiles into tiny shapes that were then combined into intricate patterns for tables, fountains, and pottery.