Al-Midf'a

The Moroccan flag flies over a fortress now open as a weapons museum.

When we learned the word for “cannon” in my Arabic 201 class, I was more than a little doubtful that it would ever be useful. When, I asked myself, would I ever need to say “cannon” in an Arabic-speaking country, or in America for that matter?

I stand corrected.

On Sunday we enjoyed a guided tour of Fez, first driving up the hills around the old city to the Merenid tombs (image above). From the high vantage point we could see all three parts of Fez. Front and center and surrounded by a centuries-old wall is Fez al-Bali, the old medina, where we are living, along with 450,000 others. The newer old Fez was founded in the 13^th century. And finally is the Ville Nouveau, the French part of town. So far I have only been to a small part of Fez al-Bali; it is easy to get lost and our host family has school and work and thus limited time to show us around.

A view of Fez, with a man collecting animal hides to be made into leather in the foreground.

Back to the cannon: on the tour we stopped at an ancient castle now being used as a weapons museum…with an entire room devoted to cannons.

Above: a Chinese cannon. Below: a traditional Berber knife.