January 15, 2004



Fez

We started off the morning by taking a tour of the medina. We stopped in a weaving shop to learn about the process. All of the workers seemed to have a rhythm going together, and all were producing different kinds of materials. There were children standing just outside the shop doorways with strings threaded from their fingers, weaving stronger silk thread that their fathers were simultaneously sewing into garments. We

saw several more examples of mosaic work in the main mosque (though we were not allowed to go in) and an old Koranic school.

We went to the government-run rug co-op, owned by the same wealthy man who hosted us at the Sufi drumming session the night before. We got to see the stark contrast between rural and urban art and between that of the Arabs and the Berbers. They all incorporate the Islamic geometric