A misty night on the cobble-stoned streets of Fez ~ August.8,1985

By David Heiller

The night was cool. A heavy mist, just short of a fog, hung in the air. Buildings seemed covered in a light, light gauze. The cobblestone street shined, slippery, reflecting light from shop windows, doorways.

David in Sidi Kacem, Morocco in the Peace Corps

The place was Morocco, the city of Fez, the year 1979. Four Americans walked up the steep street of cobblestone, streets so narrow an American car would barely pass through. But there were no American cars here, not even during the bustling days when horses and drivers would crash through, shouting “red bellick, red bellick!”—“look out, look out!”

Now, on this misty spring night, even the bustling crowds were gone, sitting in their homes, talking, or watching the single channel on Moroccan TV, eating hirara, the soup made from leftovers on Sunday night.

The four Americans had rendezvoused in Fez for some fellowship. Each lived in different parts of the country, in smaller cities. They taught English to Moroccan students. They spoke Arabic, after a fashion. They were glad to be together for a day and a night, glad to eat at a restaurant together, glad to speak English and act American.

A Moroccan street.

The damp Fez night gave them even more freedom. With the near-deserted streets, they could walk without stares, without kids pestering them for money, without shop owners crooking a finger and shouting out special prices, which were three times higher than what Moroccans paid.

The Americans had spent nearly two years now, living in this North African country, up to their eyebrows in Islam and its countless differences from their grass-mowing, Christian childhood. So much of this country baffled the Westerners. As teachers, they were treated with respect, and had ultimate control in the classroom. What the teacher said, happened. If it didn’t, students were booted out, sometimes flung through the door like a barroom brawl. Students knew their one chance at making it was to stay in school, pass their Baccalaureate exam, and get an education. Or join the Army if they failed. Or live below the poverty level crammed into a box in the city, or in a dirt-floored hut in the country.

A Moroccan girl running through the streets.

The poverty level was a relative term to these four Americans, as they wound their way up the narrow, misty streets of Fez. By American standards, they were dirt poor. Each earned $250 a month, teaching with the Peace Corps. Out of that came food, and rent, and everything else. But most Moroccans would have grinned and thanked Allah for a salary of $250 a month. Like the bricklayers who worked in the 110-degree sun for $3 a day. Or the men who rode their donkeys through town selling bottles of water gathered at a local spring, shouting “I-ma h-loo, I-ma h-loo”—“sweet water, sweet water!”

Then there was the bottom rung, the beggars. These four Americans had seen them in all shape and size. Some little kids who sucked the tourists in Fez, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech. Some toothless old ladies who had no family, who lived and died on the street, mumbling rough their gums for pennies and nickels, pleading with their eyes more than their words. Some without legs, or arms, some with polio, or disease.

Some who had used cooking oil that had been laced with jet fuel from leftover American supplies, and now had crippled wrists and feet. No lawsuits or government help for those peasants. The king could spend 40 percent of his budget on the military, but nothing for the poor. No welfare here, except for the kindness in the heart of the passerby.

The four Americans knew all this, as they trudged and talked their way up the shiny, misty streets of Fez. They knew it firsthand. They had seen enough beggars.

This little girls family was so poor they could not keep her. She lived with and worked for another family that could feed her. Her name was Haifida.

And they was another, up ahead, on the left. A man sat on the curb of the cobblestone, shrouded by the mist. He was huddled on his haunches, not sitting or kneeling, bit hunched like a baseball catcher. His eyes were downcast. He did not look at the four well-fed Americans as they approached, though he knew they were coming, could hear their shuffle and strange language. He could hear them as they turned their voices low, then off completely. But he did not look up. He looked down, at the baby he clutched to his chest with one arm. The other arm, bent at the elbow, palm up, asked for help. The man said nothing.

The four Americans did not speak either. They did not stop. The misty night again swallowed the man and his child. And the Americans continued on their way.