Mohammed Obama-Friend

So one of the highlights of Morocco was our time in Fes. While we were in Fes, we spent a good portion of one day at a leather tannery. Billy is writing an article on the tanneries so he needed to do interviews, take pictures, etc.

While Billy was down taking photo's of the vats of pigeon poo (read Billy's article to learn about the Fessian way of preparing skins--its worked for 700 years and starts with a good soak in pigeon excrement) we were up in a leather shop. I of course just firmly planted my bum on a bench--I could care less about shopping, particularly leather. Meanwhile, Peter was determined to buy himself a leather bag and jacket. He selected two items, and proceeded to start the bargaining game. (sidenote: P became sadly sadly addicted to bargaining..he even tries to bargain at Starbucks now!)

I got called in to be the bad cop a few times. 'You want to spend WHAT on that jacket?!?! Are you INSANE???' and so on and so on. Finally, Peter got to the point where the 'manager' had to intervene. And by manager I mean someone about our age, called Mohammed. Mohammed got the negations to within 200 dirham. He said he'd take P's hat ( a nike baseball cap) for the gap, Peter quickly said no way. Then remembered he had something in his bag, he rummaged around and finally pulled out a pin he happened to have on him. He offered it to Mohammed instead of the cap. The pin said 'Australiafor Obama.' (don't ask--long story). We had discovered during our first day in Morocco that Moroccans love Barack Obama. Mohammed instantly loved the pin, and put it on. As Billy spent a bit of time at the tannery we chatted a bit with Mohammed. He was very nice.

Later that evening, we had a rough time navigating Fes. The guides (or people wanting to sell you their guide services) were a bit relentless. As we walked back to our hotel we heard someone shouting 'Hello! Hello! HELLLLOOO!!!!' we ignored them and kept walking as we became conditioned to do.--then more 'EXCUSE MEEE HELLO HELLLO!!!" and then really loud 'OBAMA! OBAMA!!! It's me OBAMA FRIEND!' We turned around to see Mohammed.

Mohammed invited us over for harira (traditional Moroccan soup). We ate soup with Mohammed, he and P bonded immediately. He then invited some friends over and spent a good portion of the evening teaching Peter and Billy how to play an Arabic card game. As you can see, from the photos the evening with Mohammed Obama-Friend was a real highlight for us.