...they do things differently there.

Part 7 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

Sam:

We set off into what was now becoming torrential rain. We sped down the wider roads and wound our way through the narrow streets until farmland started to consume the city. Eventually, all that was left was the occasional rundown house and the rolling fields and of course, the rain. Brown veins pulsed down green paddocks and began to join up with arteries that were the roads we where trying to follow. Annas and Michelle chatted light-heartedly as we cruised along the water-covered roads, but to Alistair and I, every kilometer brought a little more doubt.

At this point we had been driving for a good hour and a half to two hours, which I can assure you felt like 6, and the rain hadn’t eased up. Al and I where starting to question how we were going to get back. I mean the roads where already 2 foot under water with potholes and road floats everywhere and we weren’t even there yet. They way we look at it by the time we got to the spring, had a bath (which we hadn’t done in 2 weeks) there would be no way we would be able to drive home. As well as that, there was that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were just getting further and further away from our bags. When we had to start swerving around massive holes full of water Al and I thought it was time to say something. We interrupted Annas in mid sentence, “I can’t remember rain like this in Fes, even when I was a child…” to ask “Ah, how do you think we’ll make it back if it keeps raining like this?” Michelle casually waved the question away and carelessly cast “We go other way” in our generally direction. Not more than a minute after our question Michelle made an attempted turn up a blocked road and got bogged in the mud. Although we’d sat through stories of his driving expertise, it was clear he had little idea about what he was doing. I mean, if you made a checklist of what not to do, it seemed he could competently tick every box on that list. He stopped in the middle of the mud and water. He turned the wheel hard to get back to the road and accelerated hard. Of course we went nowhere. Luckily Annas did have some concept of how to drive, so he straightened the wheel, told Michelle to go steady on the gas and we slipped out of the mud and back onto the pulsing brown road.

After another 45 minutes or so we arrived in what seemed like a small mountain village. As we had become accustomed to, the town was a mess with shacks and semi-permanent buildings barely keeping the pounding rain out. We reluctantly got out of the car and begun to sullenly walk through the rain. It was already getting to around 7pm and we’d been up for a 13 hours with only 4 hours of sleep under our belt from the night before.

We could smell the baths before we could see them. That reeking stench of sulfur, like eggs that have been left out in the sun and then placed right under your nose. Sammy and Annas led us to the entry where we had to pay a miniscule amount for lockers. I’d been to “hot springs” before but the image in my mind turned out to be nothing like what we were about to see. 

Alistair: 

The Moroccans have a very different relationship to bathing than westeners, which can make it difficult for westerners not staying in western hotels. Sam and I hadn’t showered or bathed at this point in over a week but it wasn’t something we really noticed – we’d grown pretty used to being dirty for long periods of time. All the same, we were glad to finally get an opportunity for cleanliness. Moreover, we figured the hot springs to be a chance to take stock and evaluate our situation.

When we arrived, we had no idea where we were except that we were hours away from Fes. Sammy parked the car and we walked to a large, rectangular building. The floors were tiled and wet, and the bare concrete and dirty walls did nothing to offset my unease. Sammy paid, as always, and Sam and I found a place to get changed into our suddenly very western board shorts. The pools themselves were to be found in smaller rooms, packed to the brim with old, hairy men scrubbing each other or sitting by the edge, talking. Voices clanged and echoed in the chamber, and Sam and I stood in the doorway momentarily coming to terms with the sight. The yellowing water filled rectangular holes in the floor, maybe 10 metres long and 5 across, and spilled out to our feet as boys played and splashed. The sight of the men – fat; oily; naked – matched the familiar stench of the place.

As always, when we were seen, we were harassed. Previously lifeless men sprang from slumber and offered us massages for apparently very good prices, but Sam and I were in no mood for their hospitality. The room, despite a level of determination impressive even for Moroccan standards, soon found the two white men to be altogether unapproachable.

Sam and I slid into the water, immediately frustrated by the lack of room for swimming. Our one opportunity to clear our heads was a claustrophobic dip in tepid, oily water. We used what was given to us and took our chances. I reviewed the day over and over in my head, stuck in a loop of logic. I was desperate not to push some level of colonial prejudice onto the Moroccans. It was a process of deliberately quelling my instincts and rejecting any presuppositions. Instincts, for most people, are prejudices. Although I’ll write more about this later, for a long time after that day I struggled to explain my thinking in that moment. The truth is that in that moment, my desire to act fairly overrode what were in the end perfect instincts. I chose to ignore the gut that was telling me the worst. This is a decision that I have never regretted.

I stripped back the story 100 times until what was left was without emotion, assumption or instinct. The facts were confusing by their scarcity. As we have mentioned before, the only piece of evidence that pointed to any wrongdoing, was that Sam’s mother hadn’t been able to find prices as high as Mohammed had suggested. On the other hand, the evidence against wrongdoing was formidable, ranging from the backing of the government to the sheer scale of the operation. The truth was that Sam and I were paralyzed until we learnt the true value of these carpets for ourselves, and the only way to learn would be to access the Internet, alone. We were powerless without the Internet. Without it, we simply had no information to make any type of decision. Getting to it, then, became our only focus.

Part 6 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

If you don’t yet know what this is about, here’s Parts 5, 4, 3, 2  and 1.

Sam: Hearing that our news about how the carpet prices back in Australia differed from Michel’s testimony, Sammy was quick to jump to Michel’s defense. He said that his brother was a very smart man and wouldn’t make a mistake like that, he said that his brother was also one of the most trustworthy people he new. Sammy then said, “In fact, Michel’s business has been doing so well that I want to join him. I have just divorced my wife, that’s why I’m back home, but now I am single, it would be ideal for me to join up with Michel.” This extra detail seemed too carefully sculpted and too specific to have been part of any lie, and it went some way to allay our suspicions of Sammy.

After lunch we told Sammy that we needed to go, as we needed the Internet for a few things. Lucky, he told us that we could use his. It wasn’t working. After playing around with the settings, trying to get the Internet to connect (with no success) Sammy told us that he was going up to the hot springs and asked us if we would like to join him. We had had well and truly enough by this stage and wanted to go home, even if to just check if all our stuff was ok. I mean, if this was a scam, then they knew where we were staying (Abdul took us to the hotel and asked the receptionist for our room), they knew in which room we were and would have no trouble getting they key from the guy down stairs as he believed we were friends, or by paying him off.. There was a good chance all our things would be gone. Sammy, seeing our reluctance, said that he would be happy to drive us to our hotel, if we told him where it was, so that we could pick up our swimmers. The hot springs are one of Fez’ main attractions and we now had an opportunity to get there for free, check on our things at the hotel and lead Sammy to think that we trusted him. Also, it would look strange if we turned him down. Somewhat reluctantly, we agreed, and after Sammy packed his things, we were off.

Alistair: The weather had been deteriorating all day, and it was raining steadily as we began to drive through Morocco in the green Mercedes, towards our hotel. As we were driving, Sammy turned around in his seat. “My friend Annas is flying in from Paris today and I think I should invite to the baths. Would you mind?” Unable to say no, Sam and I agreed that this would be a fine idea, although internally I was pretty concerned at the thought. Was Sammy suspicious of us? Was he calling a friend as back up? Was he planning on roughing us up? When we finally picked up Annas, we found him to be an older, gentle man who seemed quite friendly, and we were able to relax a bit at the sight of him. I might have breathed a sigh of relief, but we had greater concerns – would our possessions be back in the room when we returned?

Sam: Eventually we arrived at the front of our hotel and Sammy said he’d wait downstairs, so we entered, got the key, and walked nervously up to our room. This was a moment of truth, we could very well turn that lock and open the door onto an empty room. With Sammy downstairs in a car, there wasn’t even anyway to try and hold him responsible, or question him if anything gone. The key hovered in front of the lock before making the plunge and with a squeak of the hinge, we slowly pushed the door open.

Alistair: Inside we found everything just as we’d left it. Wondering why I’d begun to get so paranoid, I took stock. We still had no evidence of any wrongdoing. The most likely scenario was that Sam’s mum had found some inaccurate information, and that everything could go ahead as planned. Next to this, it seemed fairly probable that Michel and Mohammed were simply misinformed, but Mohammed’s claim to have had so much business with Australians seemed to run against that. Finally, the third hypothesis – that we’d fallen into a trap – didn’t seem to work out. We had no evidence of it, and the sheer complicated nature of this theory – the intricacies, details and utter depth of the operation – made it seem so unlikely that once more I dismissed it, and, with Sam, climbed once more into the green Mercedes.

Part 5 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

If you don’t yet know what this is about, here’s Parts 4, 3, 2  and 1.

Alistair: Upon receiving the text message, Sam’s face had ashened. He appeared physically sick, and his behaviour indicated towards the same. Swearing loudly and repeatedly, and sitting with his head in his hands, I became very worried that he would begin to panic, as he was showing signs of doing. Luckily, being down only 5000 dirham, I wasn’t placed under the immediate stress that Sam was, and did my best to calm him down. As Sam said, my first action was to point out that none of the carpets that Sam’s mum had seen online matched the description of the carpets Michel and Mohammed sold to us.

Sam: We finished our tea and got ready to leave. By this time Alistair and I were well and truly ready to go back home, try and relax a little, find some internet and do our own research and hopefully ease that twisting knot in our stomachs. Alistair asked me if I’d like to go home and I told Sammy that I thought I would like to, but he interrupted with a pained expression and said “But I’ve already told my mother we’re having guests and she’s cooked lunch for us.” We were obliged to stay; we didn’t feel we could turn him down. We walked outside and hopped into that same green Mercedes that Michel drove around the night before. He saw the intrigue and flash of suspicion in our eyes as we got into the car and asked if we had seen it before. He told us that it was actually the family car that their father had bought, so the brothers shared it around. We had no reason to doubt that; it seemed fair enough.

Sammy welcomed us into his home, a traditional but very large and comfortable home. We sat down on the sofa (after taking our shoes off to walk on the carpet of course) and he showed Alistair pictures of his last trip to Merzouga (a part of the Moroccan desert) whilst I went to the bathroom (and was bloody thankful that there was a toilet with a seat and toilet paper).

Alistair: While Sam was on the toilet I took the chance to explain to Sammy the reason for Sam’s behaviour. My thinking was that, in the slight chance that Michel was not our friend, and was in fact involved in the scam, it was extremely unlikely that Sammy, too, was involved. In fact, he acted so much like the less intelligent younger brother that he didn’t seem capable of being in a scam at all. In any case, I still had little to no reason to believe Michel was a criminal. It was more likely, for example, that Mohammed was a criminal, and that Michel was also being tricked. It was even more likely that both Mohammed and Michel were misinformed as to the price of carpets in Australia. The single most likely thing, however, was that Michel and Mohammed were genuine, and that Sam’s Mum simply hadn’t found the correct pricing.

Sam: When I returned, Sammy said that he was taking a trip to Merzouga soon and that we could join him if we wanted, we would only have to share the price of fuel and it would be much cheaper for us that way. Not wanting to commit to anything more, we thanked him for the offer but said we’d have to think about it. Whilst discussing this, Sammy busily set a small table in front of us. He then introduced us to his mother who proceeded to bring us our lunch, chicken and chips. Yeah, we expected that one.

Alistair: As we sat over the meal, we began to talk with Sammy about our situation and our concern. We were quite open with Sammy, playing the part of two innocent boys who were worried that we mightn’t make the profit we thought we would. We acted in this way for a few reasons. Firstly, if Michel and Mohammed had simply been mislead as to the Australian auction price of the carpets, we hoped that Sammy would help us convince Michel to sell them in Switzerland on our behalf, instead. If Michel did this, he ought to have been able to make his usual profit, and return that sum to us. Alternatively, if Sam’s mum had merely made a mistake in finding their value, Sammy may be able to shed some light as to their true value. Finally, if criminal activity was involved, acting the innocent victim would give us an opportunity to gleam some information from Sammy’s responses, whilst at the same time arousing no suspicion.

To Be Continued.

Part 4 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

If you don’t yet know what this is about, here’s Parts 3, 2 and 1.

Alistair:

So, after watching Michel make his purchase of 6 rugs for resale back in Geneva, Sam and I found ourselves making deals. Eventually, after much consultation, deliberation and consideration, I settled on two rugs, with an approximate value of 3000 euro each. Sam settled on a single rug with an approximate value of 4500 euro. I warned Mohammed that I wouldn’t have access to that type of money immediately, and instead left a 5000 dirham (approx 500 euro) deposit, with the pledge that I would return the next day to make up the rest. Until then, Mohammed would hold onto the carpets and explicitly told us that he would not ship them until all was square. As Sam paid for his carpet via credit card, this meant that all three carpets would not be shipped until I came up with the money, but that one carpet had been paid for in full.

Sam:

After all of our dealings where completed, Michel told us that he had some more business to attend to and we would catch up again later that night. He then called over another man, unknown to us, and instructed him to give us a tour of the Medina. He politely obliged, and we were soon making our way through the labyrinth of little streets and buildings. He took us to see the world famous leather tannery, the silk weaving factory, many small authentic medicinal shops and many other places which we would never have found on our own, such as the prayer rooms. As we were venturing through these alleyways Alistair and I found ourselves being overcome by uneasiness. My gut started to twist and knot and I found myself looking to Alistair in search of some kind of reassurance, but it was clear he was feeling the same tension.

Alistair:

The uneasiness that Sam is talking about can be best attributed to a type of dread. This was the first time either of us had made any kind of real investment without a parent or guardian standing behind us in support. Having made it, we now began to feel drained, having concentrated all morning and woken up earlier than usual. Remember, too, that the Medina itself is a draining environment for a westerner. It’s busy, cramped, smelly, loud and confusing. Walking around it, feeling the weight of putting our entire journey at risk, we grew cynical, distrustful and very much alienated. The main salesman of the tannery even went as far as to remark “I think you do not like leather.” As I was wearing my leather jacket, I simply raised my eyebrows at this salesman in wonder, while Sam did nothing to hide his frustration and exasperation as he attributed our lack of enthusiasm to tiredness.

Sam:

As more and more people tried to sell us things, we become more and more fed up with the entire situation and, on top of that, it had started raining. We were beginning to get wet, we were tired and we wanted out! We thanked our guide for his tour and said that we needed to go home. He understood but told us that Michel had organized for us to meet up with his brother. We couldn’t back out. We walked out to the back of the Medina to our guide’s car, which seemed to be parked at the bottom of a small quarry, where he rang Michel for us. Alistair spoke to him on the phone; it looked like we were going to meet his brother. With the same sickened feeling in our guts, we drove for about half an hour out of the old city and into the new city, eventually pulling over on a street corner and telling us that this would be where we meet Michels brother. At his point he turned around and asked if we had enjoyed our tour, we said yes (we were trying to be polite), he asked if that was the case then would it be too much to ask for a donation? We gave him 40 Dirham which was the equivalent of about 4 euro. He took it and turned around saying, “Some people give me 500, some people give me 1000, but 40 is good.” He turned back around to us and all I could do was glare. He saw that I was a little pissed off (to put it mildly) and tried to back peddle, saying “If you’re not happy, take it back, I just want you to be happy.” We got out of the car.

After about 5 minutes of waiting in the doorway of a nearby shop, a slightly older man with a bit of a gut, but quite a young face, approached us and introduced himself as Sammy, Michel’s brother. He asked if we liked beer, and if we’d like to go and get one. Being an Islamic country, alcohol is quite difficult to come by and we agreed that a beer might be a good idea, after all, we couldn’t have come all this way to meet the guy and then shake hands and leave. As well as that, we had no idea where we were and apart from a taxi, we had no way home. It turned out that the place we went to didn’t have beer, so we drank the local mint tea instead.

Alistair:

Sitting inside the tea house, I spoke to Sammy about he and his family while Sam went to the toilet. He was a little younger than his brother Michel, but a bit larger. He was a builder from Nice, but was back in town because he had recently divorced his wife. He also happened to have a little daughter, who, he said, he missed a lot.

Sam:

It was also about this time that I thought it would be a good idea to text home and ask for some quick information on quality Moroccan carpet resale prices in Australian auction houses. When I got a reply, it wasn’t good. There were no carpets being sold above 15 thousand dollars and the ones that were that price were antique 100% silk, all the others were around the 4 thousand mark dollars. As Mum noted in her text, it looked more likely that we’d lose money on the resale, rather than make exceptional profits. At this, I become a little more distressed, and pissed off. Alistair noted though that the carpets we had bought didn’t fit into any of the actually categories that were researched and were in fact, completely different types of carpets all together, so we really didn’t have any new directly relating information, and therefore, no immediate reason to “flip”.

Part 3 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

You should probably start by reading Parts One and Two.

Sam:

At about this time Michel interjected, reminding Muhammad that he was here on business and that he’d like to be shown the newest range of carpets; today was after all, the first day of the handicraft market. Muhammad, enthusiastic as always, walked us to another room and after exchanging a brief word with Michel, had carpets pulled down from the walls and laid across the floor. They truly were beautiful.

After a good hour of Michel getting carpets pulled down and then rolled up again he had obtained a pile of three nice blue ones that he was truly interested in. It was about this time that Muhammad asked if we were interested in looking at any carpets. Alistair and I looked at each other and, with the same thoughts rushing through our heads, we gave a nod. The carpets started flowing. They fell from the walls and onto the showroom floor like water leaping from the cliffs edge and into the pool below. Before we knew it we were standing on a 5 layer deep carpet pile. With each new carpet came the method of quality testing that Muhammad had taught us where we would count the thread and knot number per strand. Along with this came the method of scratching the backs of the carpets to insure that the knots are secure.

Alistair:

Let me describe to you our thinking up until this point. Sam and I are naturally skeptical people. We’re the last to buy any story, and the first to question the source of any statement. We pride ourselves on being able to weigh the arguments for or against a case and come to a logical conclusion. Naturally, the idea that the entire thing was a scam did occur to us, but on a solely rational level, there was very little evidence to validate that suspicion. There was, however, plenty of evidence to invalidate that suspicion.

• Firstly, the business was a government cooperative. It was prepared to guarantee and certify any and every purchase it made. It was held to strict quality controls and had prices fixed by the government itself.

• Mohammed showed us an address book with hundreds of Australian names and locations to validate the fact that Australians comprised a large proportion of his clientele.

• The cooperative was housed in a 14^th century mansion within the Fes Medina. It was easily the largest business within the Medina. Morocco runs a special branch of the police called the ‘Tourist Police.’ The king employed this division a few years ago in an attempt to make tourism in Morocco safer, easier and less likely to involve scams. They are very powerful, very tough, and come down very, very hard on any wrongdoing against Westerners. There was simply no way that this government cooperative could have run a scam of this magnitude without arousing the suspicion of the Tourist Police.

• Indeed, if the entire thing were a scam it would mean that: it had the funding to operate out of a 14^th century mansion within the Fes Medina; it was a multi-layered enterprise, comprising of 1. Abdul, 2. Michel, 3. Mohammed, 4. The Manager, 5. All other 15 employees of the cooperative, 6. A number of government officials to be on the payroll, 7. The Tourist Police to be on the payroll.

What evidence did we have to suspect any of that?

• We had experienced unusual generosity - generosity that we had been warned to expect.
• That’s it.

Part 2 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers

Part 1 of this story can be found here.

Alistair:

When we woke up we didn’t remember if we’d set our alarms to Spanish time or Moroccan time. We pulled on our dirty clothes and waited. An hour later, at the correct time, Michel pulled up outside in his dark green Mercedes. He seemed cheerier than the previous night, and instead of driving us directly to the Medina, took us to a lookout above it, where we took a few photos (found a few pages back).

“I must take some, too” he explained. “For my girlfriend in Geneva.”

Sam and I were glad to get this opportunity. It’s hard to find these little places when you travel in a foreign place, and we were stoked to have found some locals ready to show us about.

After jumping back in Michel’s green Mercedes, we made our way down to the main gate of the Medina. The Medina of Fes is one of the oldest surviving Islamic cities in the world. It’s ridiculous. It’s a labyrinth of tiny alleyways winding between crumbling mud brick buildings. Cars aren’t allowed, simply because they couldn’t fit through the narrow archways or drive the cobbled roads. Instead, donkeys are used. They transport everything – food, produce, even carpets. The place is loud and it stinks; something that the locals don’t seem to notice but the bustling German tour groups do. There’s shit everywhere, in both senses of the word. On the left are piles of rotten lettuce; on the right is a pile of tagines. And in the middle of the bloody path you can find healthy piles of donkey excrement that gravitate toward your shoe like my (or Sam’s) foot to the face of a Chihuahua. God I hate Chihuahuas. Essentially, the Medina is a bombardment to the senses. But not in the clichéd, travel-brochure sense – the Medina will attack you.

Sam:

So after being blinded by the constant rush of people, donkeys and branching alleyways, after the Medina had filled our ears with it’s unrelenting rumble and after it had ripped our tongues out, rendering us completely speechless, we arrived at the Government cooperative. You could tell immediately that we were somewhere special. The brown, dilapidated walls had been replaced by freshly whitewashed and rendered ones, the tiled floors were clean and the heavy wooden doors promised us that they were hiding something special. Sure enough we walked through those doors to find something completely unimaginable to those fumbling through the dark, rundown shit-infested streets outside. The doors opened up to a mansion, a palace with 15-foot ceilings and walls tiled in intricate mosaics. And that wasn’t even in the main room. As we walked further in to the palace we stumbled into what used to be the main living area. The 30-foot ceilings and 4 by 5 meter carpets hanging from them simply stole the very air from our lungs, the air we were using to survive.

A smiling face rushed forward to take our hand and greet us. This man, we soon found out, was Muhammad, and he ran this Government cooperative. We got talking and before we new it, he had called on a worker to fetch us breakfast. Muhammad excitedly arranged chairs and offered us mint tea and baffled on about how excited he was to share breakfast with his new Australian friends. Breakfast came and it was amazing; a thick white bean soup with a layer of chilly oil across the top. Obviously there is no cutlery; you eat the soup by scooping it out with chunks of bread broken from a communal loaf. I can honestly say that this, mixed with the soothing sweetness of the mint tea, was one of the nicest meals I’d had, or would have, whilst in Morocco.

During the course of our meal we enjoyed some lighthearted conversation about our travels and where we’re from (Australia). Muhammad, like most Moroccans, was excited to learn of our homeland and our travels. He couldn’t wait to tell us about all the Australian customers that passed through his store and their main reasons for buying his product. Apart from the fact these were truly exquisite carpets, I mean Alistair and I can safely say that we have never seen carpet this beautiful, these travellers could use the purchase to help fund their travels. How? I’ll tell you…

Alistair:

Or rather, I will. Over breakfast, Mohammed began to explain what Michel had been telling us since the night before – that Moroccan carpets are capable of extraordinary resale prices. This was made possible because of the work of the government. It was in Morocco’s interest to keep the price of high-quality carpets low, so as to encourage tourists from the West. Tourists could either buy the carpets for themselves and import them to their own homes, or they could buy them with a hope of resale. Resale, both Mohammed and Michel assured us, was guaranteed. In fact, it wasn’t only resale that was assured; these carpets were guaranteed to resell abroad at auction for at least 4 times the price. However, 4 times the price is an anomaly – most sell for 5/6 times the price and have no trouble finding buyers. For us, this would mean funding our entire year with a few transactions.

Sam and I aren’t dumb kids. We don’t consider ourselves gullible in any way. In fact, for the most part we consider ourselves pretty savvy. We also fancy ourselves as having a confident level in business, and an opportunity to make money is one that we don’t like to pass up. But, being careful, the first thing we asked was; “Where can these carpets be sold in Australia?”

Mohammed answered immediately: “You are from the Gold Coast, no? There is an auction house in downtown Brisbane, not far from the Hilton. I’ll give you the address.”

We were pretty impressed with this Moroccan’s knowledge of our hometown, and this reply was more than satisfactory. However, being careful, Sam and I weren’t ready to immediately buy Mohammed’s story about the number of Australian customers he had had. The reason he gave for this was the low tariffs on importing and exporting goods between our two countries – something based on Morocco’s reliance on Australia’s Merino wool. Of course, Mohammed sensed our reluctance to believe his story, and pulled us into his office. There, he opened a large bound book, where he had on record the names and addresses of all his customers. We began scanning through. Brisbane, Wagga Wagga, Evans Heads, Ivanhoe, Tugan, Geelong. There was no shortage of names of places that we had grown up in. Streets that we had walked down. It was clear that Australians definitely did buy carpets from this Moroccan Government cooperative, and that all Mohammed’s stories were indeed true.

Part 1 - Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers

Ok, so. This is the story of how Alistair and Sam got pulled deep into an elaborate criminal scheme and came out unscathed.


Alistair:

It started with Abdul. We’d been on the bus for 6 hours, traveling from Tangier to Fes. Morocco was flooding and the wind was howling. It reminded me of home a bit. Abdul got on the bus a stop before Fes, about an hour out. He sat down near me and before long we were chatting. Sam and I chat with a lot of people. It’s just what you do when you travel - you make friends with everyone you can, everywhere you can.

Abdul was 21 and didn’t believe I was 18. He looked to be upper-middle class Moroccan, and his family had a large farm that supplied the local supermarkets. He had studied architecture in Barcelona and now works for UNESCO reinforcing the 14^th century walls of the crumbling Fes Medina. I told him about where we were from and where we were traveling and he asked if we had a hotel in Fes, to which I said no. It was 10 pm at this stage, still raining hard and Abdul had nothing to do, so he offered to take us to a good cheap hotel before we went and grabbed some dinner. It sounded like a good idea so when we got off the bus I told Sam about the offer and got a taxi with our new mate.

After dropping our things in our hotel room (which cost us around 5 euro a night) we headed out with Abdul to get some chow. At dinner we had a good time talking about Australia, Morocco, the Moroccan King, progression, Socrates, and so forth. Just as we received our food, Abdul sees his uncle come in, whom he invited over to join us at our table.


Sam:

Abdul’s uncle’s name was Michel, and he lives in Switzerland. He sat down with us and quickly joined in on the general conversation we were having. He found out that we had studied philosophy and explained his own interest on the subject and the reasons he thought it was such an important area. He also told us that he made a living buying handicrafts from Morocco and selling them in Switzerland. He told us how he’d just bought an apartment there and had paid off ¾ of it in full, an achievement he seemed very proud of. His business was obviously doing well. By this time it was about 1130 and Abdul told us that he had to go home and rest as he had Uni the next day and asked if we would like him to take us home. Before we could give an answer, Michel interjected, telling us that he was only in Fes for 4 days and that he liked to enjoy himself when back home. Because he didn’t want to go home just yet, he invited us to a local hookah bar, for a real Moroccan experience. Neither Alistair nor I had ever smoked shisha and thought that seeing as we were in Morocco, we ought to give it a try. We said goodbye to Abdul and thanked him for his helpfulness, walked outside, got into the “family car” (a mid 90’s green Mercedes) and were driven to the shisha bar.

Ok so here I would just like to explain one thing. This sort of hospitality is, for the most part, unheard of in the West, but we’d been warned that the Moroccan people can be very hospitable people and that it’s not at all strange to be invited into a stranger’s home for lunch or tea. Moroccans had told us this; other travellers had told us this; and English aid workers we’d met who live outside of Marrakech had told us this.


Alistair:

So we arrived at the shisha bar, found a booth, and sat down to some mint tea and shisha smoking. We had a nice night, relaxing with our new friend Michel and talking about everything from politics to football. Michel was 35, but didn’t seem at all concerned to be hanging out with people nearly half his age. I asked him about his business, and Michel responded in surprise. He seemed to be under the impression that we too were in town on business, that we were in Fes for tomorrow’s trade fair. Of course, we weren’t, but Michel made a point to underline the coincedence of us arriving the night before this fair.
His business operated as such: Michel would come to these yearly trade fairs and buy handicrafts from a range of government cooperatives. These cooperatives operate under government supervision and with fixed prices. Their products are insured, guaranteed and of the highest available quality. The Moroccan government, Michel explained, had a tourist-based interest in keeping the prices low and quality guaranteed. It meant that foreigners would be encouraged to buy directly from the source, rather than simply buy Moroccan handicrafts in the local furniture store for many times the price. Luckily for Michel, it meant that he could buy the handicrafts from the cooperative, ship them overseas, and then sell them for up to 6 times the price at auction.


Sam:

After talking quite extensively about the business which Michel had turned into a career, he asked us about the professions we would like to enter into and the subjects we studied and so forth. Interestingly, he showed a deep seeded interest in philosophy, telling us that he believed it to be an essential area to explore in order to be able to expand one’s thinking and broaden one’s mind. After two rounds of shisha and hours of conversation we realized that it was almost 2 in the morning and Michel asked us if we would like to leave soon as he did have to be up early in the morning so that he could get to the Medina before the crowds and get the pick of the finest available products. Very kindly he suggested that we come with him – he said that it was really no trouble to pick us up from the hotel in the morning so long as we would be ready by 730 am. The first morning of the handicraft market was something not to be missed out on, he promised us. We felt no pressure to accompany our new friend, however it seemed like a good opportunity to make a business contact, or at the very least, to see something completely new, so we happily accepted the offer. Michel then paid, after politely refusing our offer to contribute, and drove us back to our hotel.

Lying in our double beds (they were the nicest beds we have had since we left, and for 5 euro a night) we recapped the evening’s happenings and agreed that despite the hospitality shown to us, tomorrow we would have to stay sharp and keep a close eye on the things going on around us. After our extremely long day we crashed, and didn’t manage to regain a solid grasp on consciousness until 7am that morning.

Criminals, Con Artists and Carpet Dealers.

 We’re about to start posting, piece by piece, the true story of our time in Fes. So far we’ve told the story only three times. Bear with us - we’re at 1000 words and we’re only 2 hours into what was a 36 hour ordeal. The posts are dual authored, and we’ll indicate who has written each block. The story will probably take around 10000 words to tell, which is why we have no choice but to tell it slowly, step by step. In person, it takes us an hour and a half to tell it properly, and, as this is our written account, we aim on telling it as well as it ought to be told.

AlistairandSam.