Unabridged Me

“Are the chefs coming with us?” Vivian asks while I pack up the remaining items in our hotel room.

“You mean like Mohamed? No, sweetie, they work here and will stay here in Fez,” I answer abstractly, knowing she’s referring to the staff who are here day and night regardless the time. I don’t want to forget anything.

“Oh. I don’t want to leave,” Vivian looks at the floor, struggling to process leaving the faces she’s grown familiar with and has started to trust.

I look at my daughter for a minute before sitting on the bed and pulling her on my lap. I talk about traveling and taking trips and how even though we enjoy a certain area and how we are sad when we leave, we keep moving forward to see and learn more. Talking too much, she’s not hearing you.

“Do you know why we are leaving?” I ask her.

She shakes her head, still struggling with her sadness.

“We are going to ride a camel in a day. Tonight, we stay in a new place, then the next day is the desert and camel,” I lay out our timeline, highlighting the part she’s been looking forward to.

Her eyes light up and she starts helping me pack up the room. I take a breath, trying to prepare myself for our goodbyes.

*

We begin our long drive from Fez to Arfoud, a town bordering on the Saraha desert. I don’t feel I have seen the full amount of Fez that I could or should have seen, but it’s time to move onward as we try to see the full variety of the country before heading back to the States.

At breakfast we learned why we saw the same staff regardless of the time of day: They work 15 – 16 hours days. Though I have no confirmation we were assigned a staff member, we saw and managed to talk a little with the same person for every breakfast.

Also, this means they start work at 7 a.m. when breakfast service begins and do not end their day until 10 p.m. or later, after the last dinner is served and cleaned up.

From the standpoint of a tourist, or Vivian, this creates a sense of comfort and familiarity as we see the same face day in and day out. By day 3 in Fez, Vivian trusted who she saw and that they would make sure she was taken care of. For the staff, this makes for a very long day.

New boundaries have been drawn, as our travel companion asserted her displeasure with our driver before getting into the van. At the same time, I was running around with the staff member who seemed always there for us, making sure to get the items both my mom and our travel companion forgot in their room.

Once all items were in the van and we said our goodbyes, I did as I was asked the previous evening and informed our driver we needed to make two stops on our way out of Fez. After this, I am extricating myself as point person in this trip.

The first stop was the bank, as intended the day before. The second was the mall so our travel companion could pick up some wine. Wine has not been easily found in Morocco to date, and she decided it was time for her to take things into her own hands. While the morning did not start as early as our driver intended, for the first time we enjoyed walking around modern Morocco as we wandered the mall.

Finally, with wine in hand, we started a very long drive to the southeast. Conversation waxed and waned in comfortable tides of getting to know each other as we settled into a more comfortable rhythm of talk. My mom and her travel companion have been on several trips together, so this was more a chance for her and me to get to know one another.

Apparently, our travel companion is feeling better. I can say my travel sickness resolved itself in Fez, so I will not have that burden while meandering through the desert on a camel.

We stopped for a quick coffee in Ifrane, the Switzerland of Morocco. The stop gave us a better sense of what we wanted from the trip, and things mellowed into a rhythm of enjoyment.

As we wandered back to the van, I saw old steps set into a hill. The steps lead up but it appeared there were a set of steps that came down near the van. On impulse, I told my mom we would meet her at the van then said to Vivian, “Race you to the top.”

She and I played a quiet game of walking tag at the top, staying away from families taking pictures, and then ran back down to the van to continue on our way.

As we moved southward, the cultural demographic changed. We saw less European and Arabic influence and more Berber culture.

A quick stop for lunch in Midelt found us in a small, out of the way restaurant ran by a widow. Once again too much food was presented, even though the driver had told me it was not normal for them to eat like this every meal. I felt so wasteful, seeing all the food we didn’t eat. The driver said to not worry, her children would eat the leftovers.

After a small conversation with our driver this morning regarding the amount of food my mom is capable of eating, I don’t feel that we are offending the widow as we would have with previous hosts. We are relying more on our driver to communicate for us, and so far it’s helping. At least, for this one day.

Finally, we reached our destination in Arfoud, where our hotel appeared to be a sprawling resort of Sahara fun. The supper was buffet style, mostly designed around European and American food sensibilities, with ornate Berber decorations and uniformed staff. The sprawling resort had rental dune buggies and motorcycles, as well as a pool with swim up snack and alcohol bar.

While comfortable, I was glad we were staying only one night and set to leave the next day for a camp in the desert. Although I have very few expectations for this trip, there was something very Disney or Las Vegas to the hotel that I struggled to reconcile in my mind.

While the riad in Fez hosted larger tour groups, we were immersed in Fez and only saw the groups in passing in the lobby. Here we were immersed in home, though I hear a lot more French and Spanish than English. The staff are speaking Spanish to Vivian, which she understands and responds to more than French or Arabic, but it is making her withdrawal a little since she has not heard Spanish here except when we practice her vocabulary.

Tomorrow we will take a tour of a small village market before returning to the hotel to head out to the desert. We have finally reached Vivian’s focal point. I hope she is not disappointed. Also, I am starting to wonder how the rest of the trip will go once her focus has passed.

And I realized I left my washcloth in Fez. Like the clothes hangers, my washcloth is not a necessity but a convenience I will definitely miss. I have not bought a single souvenir, but I have left them everywhere I’ve been.