Fes: exploring!

We spent yesterday and this morning wandering around the Medina of Fes (which is a good thing as it’s POURING really hard now; Morocco is having the wettest year in a centure, lucky us!!) We visited the tanneries, where they scrape, clean, process and dye tons of hides (goat, camel, cow) and turn into the leather products for which Morocco, and especially Fes, are famous. We were taken up onto a terrace overlooking the vats, which gives you a better view and is less smelly. It still reeked and I honestly thought I might be ill, in spite of the handful of fresh mint I was breathing through and the fact that it’s cool out & there was a good breeze.  I can’t imagine what’s it is like in summer. The hides are washed in a variety of liquids prior to dying, including lye (to help remove fat, fur, etc) and pigeon poop (natural ammonia which conditions hides) before final washing & dying with all natural colors: poppies for red, tumeric for yellow, saffron for orange, indigo (which is a mineral found in the sahara, which when boiled, so said our guide, turns blue) for blue. Beautiful leather products, but painfully vile process. The tanneries are a cooperative, with 165 families participating. Our older gentleman guide (who used to work in the tannery) says the work is very hard, and jobs are passed from father to son. Many of the vats at this tannery were red dye, as they have a huge order of red leather for a German company. He said it’s much better now for all working through a cooperative, so each family doesn’t have to do all the steps themselves or deal with middlemen in the process.