A medina is a walled city designed to protect its citizens and the Medina of Fes is both walled and covered making its narrow streets dark and crowded. The light that reaches the street comes from openings above shops and houses that creeps into the streets themselves. We arrived in time to see the donkeys and their owners going about the medina picking up last night’s refuse. So much of what we saw goes back to the middle ages. Butchers cutting meat to be consumed in today’s couscous, herb and vegetable vendors have the potatoes, carrots, and onions ready to place on the tagine and it will be served with papa comes home from the mosque. Friday is not a holiday from school, but it is a shortened work day for the bread winners. Cats snatched meat scraps and vendors hawked trinkets to visitors. We visited the site of the oldest university in the Moslem world, visited their tiny dormitory rooms and learned a lot about the symbolism tied to the tile work. We teach so much of European culture and history but fail to spends equal times on the Middle East. Of course we could not leave with out visiting the rug and leather shop. A side visit to a small apartment in the medina revealed a jewel box of a home completely different to the rough edges of the alleyways we had been walking on. The visit to the second medina also known as the Jewish quarter gave us a chance to see how Jews and Muslims lived together for years. Many European Jews fled the continent and came to Africa. The King of Morocco gave then a safe place to live and would not give them up to Nazi officials. The King has a palace in Fes and is in residence there now. Important looking guards and Moroccan flags announce his presence and we could take some hurried pictures of the palace. We leave this history and return to a modern city with shopping malls, fast food chains and a Marriot hotel where we are staying. Tomorrow we head for the desert.