Casa! الدار البيضاء

This is my last full day in Morocco.  Yesterday, five friends and I took a train from Fez to Casablanca.  It was really nice.  We filled a whole first class cabine for ourselves.  Jeremie (my first friend in Fez) and his girlfriend, Mandy (She came from Boston to visit), were going to Marrakech, but had to pass through Casa to get there.  Liv was going to Casa and then on a tour with a group.  Pierce and David decided to come with us to spend the day in Casa.  We love Casa!  It's warm and sunny and much more cosmopolitan.  We walked on the beach and ate cotton candy.
I think Fez is more exotic and a more authentic Moroccan experience, but Casa is much more comfortable to live in.  The climate is more temperate and the people tend to mix French and Arabic together much more than in Fez.  The people in Fez are also definitely poorer.
Today, I'm on my own.  I went to see the Hassan II Mosque.  It's very beautiful.  It's the third largest mosque in the world.  (The two largest are in Saudi.)  I walked around Casablanca for a while, but then decided that I've just had enough and have been hanging around my hotel for the most part today.  Tomorrow I fly home.  See you soon!

Henna Party حفلة الحناء

I've been wanting to get my hands done with henna before I leave.  When Chris O. and I were in Marrakech in 2008, we got our hands and feet done by a lady in the Jmaa el Fnaa, but I haven't seen anything like that in Fes.  Usually, people have henna done at home before a wedding or a holiday.  Finally, it occurred to me to ask Leyla (the woman who works in the villa.  She's a wonderful friend.)  So, I asked if she knew anyone who would come to the villa if we had a few women who wanted it done.  She said that her cousin does henna and she would ask her.  The cousin said she would do it on Friday for 25 dirham ( a little over $3) per hand.  So, Saida came and we all went up on the roof for our henna party.  Saida had a tray with all her utensils:  a bowl of henna that looks like mud, a couple syringes, a cup of tea with sugar and black pepper.  They dab the tea on the henna drawings as they dry to help it to darken.

This is a lot of work and it took Saida at least 30 minutes for each hand.  She draws the different designs on the hand (or foot) and then you have to sit and wait for your hands to dry.  This is very frustrating.

We stayed on the roof through Liv's hands and feet, my hands and Pierce's hands and one foot.  Then it was getting cold and we went down to the salon for Saida to do Andi's feet, Nicole's hands and Brittany's hands.  She didn't finish until about 8:00.  We paid her quite a bit more than she had asked for since that was a ridiculous price for all that work.

Here's a video of Saida working on Nicole's hand.

I give up.  I've tried several times to upload the video.  I think the internet is too slow here or it keeps cutting out.  I disabled pop-up blockers for FB and Blogger, but still no success.  I'll try again to upload video when I get home.  In the meantime, there are lots of henna pics on my FB page.  Unfortunately, Facebook also posted the video as photos

The henna doesn't stay as dark as it is in the pictures.  After it dries, you brush it off.  I washed my hands in the morning.  It's a light brown, but you can still definitely see it.  You can see my hands in person when I get home!
Also, for our last dinner in the villa (Jeremie was also leaving.), Leyla cooked tajine chicken with prunes - really delicious.  Every time Leyla cooks something, I never want to eat it other places again because hers is so good, nothing can compare.

And my hands two days later (every time I wash them, I think - Oh no.  Henna is coming off:

The roof السقف

I LOVE the roof.  This morning, I did my laundry before going to class.  I went up on the roof (about 9 a.m.) to hang the clothes and was struck by the thought of how wonderful it is to be up there - and that I wouldn't be going up there much longer.  Today we had class in the morning and then our final exam at 4:00.  We went up on the roof to study at midday.  Everyone agreed that we love the roof.  David said, "This roof is the best place in all of Morocco."  I think I might agree.  When you're up there in the afternoon, it's really warm and sunny almost every day.  A couple weeks ago, Jeremie and Pierce brought a table and chairs up there.  Now, it's really perfect.  At night, you can see the stars very clearly, but it's too cold to sit up there.  I suppose in the summer everyone goes at night and it's too hot during the day.  Here's a picture of Jeremie and Nicole studying for their exam on the roof this afternoon.  (By the way, the exam turned out to be long, but not too hard.)

Les Merinides

Now that it's getting close to time to leave, I'm trying to cram in everything that needs to be done.  My final exam is Thursday.  I was planning on leaving Fez on Friday, but have now decided to leave on Saturday.  My flight leaves from Casablanca on Monday morning, so I definitely need to sleep in Casa Sunday night, but several friends are taking the train to Casa on Saturday and I'd rather go with friends than take the train by myself.  And this way I can do any last minute things on Friday.
Yesterday, several of us went to the medina.  Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead, but I've already posted lots of medina pics on previous posts.  We didn't see any camel heads hanging at the butcher's this time.  I bought belts for Oumar and Ish and some other stuff.  Then we went to Cafe Clock for lunch.  It's a restaurant in the medina that's owned by a British couple.  I'm sorry I wasn't able to take any photos there because it is a really nice place.  And they serve camelburgers!  Pierce ordered the camelburger and I ordered a lambburger and we each ate half of each.  We both agreed that we liked the lamb better (more flavor), but the camel was fine, too.
Today, five us went to the Tombeaux des Merinides.  It's a hill with tombs on it.  When Nicole went, there were shepherds and she got to hold a baby lamb.  Unfortunately, we only saw tombs and people.  Some of the tombs are quite recent.  It's hard to tell with others.  The dates, etc seem to come off very quickly.  Some of the tombs had a drain - I guess so that they won't fill with water.

Then, we went to the Hotel des Merinides for a coffee.  It is a beautiful.  (Chris O.: If you are reading this, it reminded me of when we went to the Mande Hotel in Bamako.  No river with pirogues, but a great hillside view of the city instead.  A place where you think you'd love to stay there and then realize you'd run out of money after the first night.)  Even the bathrooms were nice.  I thought about taking photos in the ladies room, but then some other women came in and I thought they'd think I was strange.

Here are some pics of the view.  The first one is a man with his donkey.  I should have tried to get it closer.

Shopping

Buying things is definitely more difficult here, although that is partly because I don't have a car.  There are several big stores.  Marjane is the largest.  It's like a Walmart superstore.  It has food (meat, dairy, canned, produce, liquor, everything), clothing, appliances, school supplies - just about anything you might need.  There are 2 Marjanes, but both are quite far.  You need to take a taxi and sometimes it's hard to find one.   I have gone there three times and I don't expect to need to go again before I leave.  I didn't take any photos, but it really looks quite similar to stores in the US or in France.

The place where we buy most of our food is the Marché Central.  It's a little area that has a wall around it and you go up some steps to enter.  Below is a picture of the main entrance.

Inside, there are small shops selling different things.
Produce:  When you are interested in something, you start choosing some and the man will give you either a plastic bag or a basket.  After you have chosen what you want, he weighs it on a scale that uses weights for a counterbalance.  Sometimes they will put a smaller weight in with what you bought in order to determine the weight (subtract).  Or, sometimes, they take some out.  One time I had counted out 15 tangerines.  He weighed it, then took one tangerine out and told me it was 2 kilos.

Olives, olive oil and other things in cans.  (These things are more expensive than the produce.)


Fish:  (I haven't tried buying any)

Birds for sale as pets.  They even have African greys.  I haven't asked what the prices are for them.

The cheese man is my favorite.  He has all sorts of cheese:  Moroccan goat cheese, gouda with cumin (delish!), camembert, swiss, etc.  He speaks excellent French.  I think he has a lot of European customers.  He also sells wine and other alcohol (not easy to find in Morocco.)

Church كنيسة

Today I went to mass in the Catholic church in Fez.  There is no Anglican church here - despite what Google maps says.  (That one is an evangelical church.)  There is only one Catholic church in the city - St. Francis of Assisi.  It has two masses each week: Saturday at 6 pm and Sunday at 10:30 am.  There a is no cross on the top of the church and there are no church bells.  (As I write this, I can hear the call to prayer from the local mosque.)  I knew that the mass would be in French, but I was surprised that the usher asked me if I spoke French as he handed me the bulletin.  Then, when I sat down, I saw that the man in the pew in front of me had a bulletin in Spanish.  There were 4 older white women (counting me) and about 200 Subsaharan Africans.  They all looked to be in their twenties.  There were more men than women, but it was a good mix.  There was a very nice choir that sat in the front (about 10 - 15 people).  At the front, there was a large screen that showed the words to hymns.

There was a collection, and ushers came with baskets, but they didn't pass them down the pews.  They would come along the aisle and if you wanted to give money you signaled them.  I watched to get an idea of how much to put.  Most people gave nothing at all.  Some gave a few dirham (8 dirham = $1).  I put about 6 dirham in.  I didn't have any 10 dirham coins and the next thing I had was a 50 dirham bill.  I would guess that they collected less than 200 dirham from all those people.  I'm guessing the church in Rome must subsidize because there's no way the priest could even eat on that.  Of course, they're not paying for any heat (FREEZING in there - like every other building in Fez). 
The communion was wafers - kind of waffled - that the priest or an acolyte (older African woman) put in your hand.  More than half the congregation went up for communion.  At the end, they had their announcements.  They are going on retreat to Rabat on 2/18.  It definitely seemed like an active community.
Of course I didn't take pictures during the mass, so all these photos are from after the mass ended.  There were many people around the priest at the end.  I went over to ask if I could take pictures in the church.  The priest asked if I was Italian.  He said he thought he heard an Italian accent in my French and said that he is Italian.

Above, you can see the stations of the cross on the side wall.

This is the altar.

This is the area behind the altar.  Just in front of the brass cross, you can see the aumbry.

My school

I've taken some pictures of my school and I'll write a little about it.  Alif (American Language Institute in Fez) has classes in both English and Arabic.  The English classes are at night and that's a much bigger program.  The street fills with traffic as Moroccans come to take evening classes.  The Arabic classes are during the day and I would estimate there are fewer than 50 students.  We are at all levels.  Classes are small.  There are 5 students in my class:  two nineteen-year-olds, one twenty-two year old, one twenty-six year old and me.  Classes meet for four hours per day (two hours with each teacher) unless there are fewer than three students.  Then, the number of class hours is reduced.  Almost all the students are American.  We had a Scottish guy living in the villa with us, but he only did a 3-week course, so he has gone home now.  The school property is surrounded by a wall and there is always at least one guard at the entrance.

 Inside the walls, there is the Alif Garden where students can study or eat lunch.  There's a concession where I buy lunch every day.  I alternate between tajine chicken with vegetables and tajine chicken with prunes.  They also sell dishes of beans or lentils.  Of course, everything comes with a basket of delicious Moroccan bread.  Below you can see the garden with a group of my friends eating at the best table (most sun).  Behind them on the left is the concession that sells the food.

And here is a picture of Karim and the ladies who cook.  Karim takes our orders (in English, Arabic or French) and then delivers our food to us.  None of us can figure out how he always remembers who orders what. The concession also sells:  coffee (made in a very fancy expresso machine), tea with mint, fresh fruit juices and all sorts of tempting cakes.  In the second picture, you can see Karim leaving the concession to bring a tajine to someone.

And, lastly, pictures of my class and my teachers.  In the first picture, you can see Kestrel, Pierce and Nicole.  Ozzie, our only guy, is absent.  This is significant because Arabic uses a different word for you and different conjugation for whether you are talking to a girl or a boy.  Ozzie hurt his ankle playing soccer.  He lives in the medina.  You have seen pictures of what the streets are like there in previous postings - extremely narrow and uneven.  No car could possibly go down it and I can't imagine navigating those "streets" on crutches.  So, he had to be brought home on a donkey.  Unfortunately, no one has a photo of it.

This is one of my teachers, Abdelhafid.  Note that he is wearing his winter coat in class.  Although Abdelhafid lives in Ifrane, which is about an hour from Fez and is a ski resort (There is snow on the ground there now.) he says he is from the desert and likes the heat - not the cold.  He has central heating in his house in Ifrane.  Abelhafid is always happy and friendly and he is a natural teacher.  He's also quite a world traveler.  He has lived in the US (studied at JMU) and France.

And here is my other teacher, Sanaa.  She's from Fez and says that people in Fez don't want heat in their homes (although she sometimes wears her coat when teaching, too.)  Sanaa usually dresses especially nice on Fridays - often in a jelaba as you can see here.  She reminds me a little of Mary Gibson - always nicely-dressed with lovely jewelery and very professional at all times.

Rain and cooking

First, two blog notes: (1) I don't think it's possible to send me an email through this blog, but if you know a way, don't do it.  In order to create the blog, I had to give a gmail address.  I created one, but I don't use it.  It's full of junkmail.  If you want to contact me, send an email to my yahoo address - or post a comment for all to read on the blog. (2) Have you noticed on the right side of the page "my blog list"  The first is Baby Violet's blog.  Her mom is my friend, Lemore.  Violet is so precocious that she started a blog before she even starts walking.  The other two belong to friends who live/lived in this house.  Peter, was here for 3 weeks.  He is an undergrad student originally from NY.  He's traveling with his parents now and then will go to Jordan.  I'm anxious to hear what he says about studying in Jordan.  Nimra is a graduate student planning to go to law school.  She's from Pennsylvania and will be here in Fez till May.  So, anyway, if you want to read someone else's take on life in Fez, read their blogs.  They're very different from mine.
Now to what's been happening since I last wrote:
Last night we made onion bread and Moroccan soup.  Leila, the woman who cleans the house here, gives cooking lessons.  Someone has to go with her in the morning to the market to buy the stuff (Chris did that.)  Then we all chip in for the ingredients and to pay Leila.  Last night's lesson and dinner cost $8 each and there are leftovers to eat tonight (but I think we are going to go out for fried fish instead.)  We made onion bread.  We all kneaded the bread and chopped onions.  Then, you fold the bread around the onions and fry it.  (Everything here has lots of olive oil.)  Jeremie is able to flip them with the pan like a crepe, but I needed a spatula.  The Moroccan soup turned out to be split pea soup - minus the ham of course.  It was okay, but I'm just not a big fan of pea soup.  Nicole took some photos of us cooking.  If she posts them on Facebook, I'll copy them and add them here.

Since I have been here it has only rained one day until today.  I really like the chance to get warm in the sun in the afternoon, but Morocco is in a drought.  The farmers are worried about their wheat.  Two weeks ago, the king directed the mosques to pray for rain.  I think they have been praying for rain every Friday since then.  I even saw on the website for the Catholic diocese of Rabat that they have a prayer for rain, too.  It has a picture with umbrellas falling from the sky (without Mary Poppins)
http://www.dioceserabat.org/
So, today, the skies were a little gray and five of us decided to go for a walk after lunch and explore a part of Ville Nouvelle that we hadn't really seen.  When we had been walking for about 15 minutes, it started to seriously rain.  We went in a cafe for a while, then came out when it stopped raining,  Of course it started pouring again as we walked home.  We got totally soaked.  My clothes are hanging from the railing on the stairs.  Pierce's shoes got totally soaked, too.  At least, my shoes miraculously stayed dry.  The sidewalks here get very slippery when it rains.  They seem to be made with ceramic tiles.

Win a Three Night Stay in a Riad in Marrakech

Here's a link to win a 3 night stay in a gorgeous riad in Marrakech.  Unfortunately, I don't think it includes planefare, which is the most expensive part for those of us who live in the US.
http://africageographic.com/safari/blog/competitions/win-a-3-night-stay-in-a-luxury-marrakech-riad/
The answer to the question about the BBC program is "Eating in the Sun"

The Alif Villa

I had planned to go to the desert this weekend.  It looked like a fantastic trip.  You get to eat delicious food, sleep in a Berber tent, watch the sunset over the sand dunes and ride a camel.  Unfortunately, you have to cross the mountains to get there and the road is currently impassable because of snow.  So, I'm going to write about the residence where I am living.
Alif (my school) has a villa around the corner where students can rent rooms.  Currently, there are about 12 of us living here.  In front of the house is a lovely garden - with irises growing in January - and a sunny porch where we can do work in the afternoon (nice and warm)

We have a shared kitchen where we often cook together.  There is a small room off the kitchen with a table where about 3 - 4 people can sit and eat.  It has a microwave and toaster oven.  There is another room off the kitchen with computers and a table.  In front of that is the living room (I have already posted pictures of that) and in the other directions is my room and Stephan's room.
kitchen:

Upstairs, there are more bedrooms and the showers.  Down in the basement, there are more bedrooms and the washing machine.  (I didn't take any pictures in the basement.)
shower:

This last picture is the roof.  We hang our clothes to dry in the sun and sometimes we study up there in the afternoon.  And for all this, I pay $10 per night.

Chefchaouen

We left yesterday (Saturday) morning for Chefchaouen.  It's a four hour bus ride.  The bus was very nice (heated!) and it stopped at a restaurant at the half-way point.  There was a woman selling Moroccan pancakes with honey  Valeria and I split one.  We got to Chefchaouen around noon.  We found a cheap and fairly nice hotel.  Valeria and I shared a room.  There were two bathrooms on that floor, but the shower was icy cold along with the room (2 blankets helped).  We did quite a bit of climbing.  Chefchaouen is in the Rif mountains.  Its name means horns in Berber because of the shape of the mountains behind it.  It was founded by Jews in 1471 when they were fleeing Spain.  Now all the Jews have gone to New York and Israel (according to a Moroccan carpet merchant).  The buildings are all painted blue.  Apparently, they were originally painted blue by the Jews because of something in the bible, but Nathan's explanation (one of my traveling companions) was that perhaps one day they were all sitting around stoned on hashish and said, "Hey, let's paint the whole town blue."  Anyway, it is very interesting to look at.  It's a maze of little streets.  They are all paved with cobblestones and painted blue.  None of the streets in the center of town are wide enough for even a mini-cooper.  They are also quite steep.  Kids run up and down them and I kept wondering how many skinned knees they end up with.  We did lots of climbing.  Everywhere you go, you can climb up and see a beautiful view.  Also, it's very close to Tangier and Spain, so lots of Spanish tourists come there during the summer.  We would ask questions in French and people would answer us in Spanish. 
 I bought two berber carpets!  They are being shipped.

1: our bus   2: our hotel  3: a street with kids playing   4: man in bus station (LOTS of Berbers wearing jelabas with hoods up here)   5: a little shop

Cheeseburgers!

We had our first quiz this morning - pretty hard.  I wouldn't call it a quiz.  I'd call it a unit test.  Anyway, it's good - keeps me studying.
This evening, we grilled burgers.  Peter thought he would need to buy a hibachi, but Leila (the woman who works in the house - cleaning, etc) said we had a barbecue.  It turned out there was a big one in the side garden.  None of us had ever gone there.  Leila cleaned it out for us and showed Stephan where to buy charcoal.  There's no lighter fluid and people were worried that we wouldn't be able to light the charcoal.  It's real charcoal - bits of wood in variable sizes.  Fortunately, I remembered that Ganam used to start charcoal on the gas stove in the kitchen because he didn't like the chemicals in the lighter fluid.  So, we placed small piles on the stove, started them and then transferred them to the barbecue.  It was very successful.  We even had buns, ketchup and Vache Qui Rit cheddar cheese (surprisingly good!)

Some of the others left at 10:00 to go to a bar.  I declined.  I need to get ready to leave tomorrow.  We need to get a taxi at 6:30 and get to the bus station at 7:00.  I won't be taking my computer with me, so the next time I'll be in touch is Sunday night.  I will take the Moroccan cell phone and my ipod touch in case they have wireless internet (which seems to be more common in Morocco than in the US!)

Barbecue pics:

Thursday - remember I'm 5 hours ahead of you

So, Lemore said enjoy the Italian dinner because you guys are at happy hour, but we had our Italian dinner tonight - Thursday.  Danny and Peter made pasta with merguez (little sausages) and vegetables.  They also had some very tasty croutons in it.  Tomorrow night - still ahead of my happy hour buddies - Danny and Peter are planning to grill on the roof.  They are going to Marjane tomorrow to attempt to buy a hibachi.  They want to grill burgers! (Probably not cheeseburgers because Danny and Peter are Jewish, but I haven't asked them how kosher they are since there's no pork here.)  We'll see if it happens.  (MacDonalds is walking distance if we need it.)
Four (maybe 6?) of us are going to Chefchaouen this weekend.  It's supposed to be very beautiful.  We've gone through lots of debates on how and when to go.  There are no classes on Friday afternoons, but there are also no buses at that time.  It's possible to hire a grand taxi to take you there anytime you want (four hour drive), but it's expensive.  I think our final decision is to take the bus on Saturday morning.  I like that plan because then I could do all my weekend homework on Friday afternoon and leave town knowing all my work is done for Monday.  Chefchaouen is supposed to be very beautiful.  I'll try to post pictures.  So, if I leave Saturday morning, I probably won't bring my computer with me.  I'll post pictures when I get back to Fez.

Independence Day?

I didn't see any signs of celebration today.  It seemed equivalent to Columbus Day or Veterans Day.  The banks and schools were closed.  Lots of kids in the stores and on the street (a nice sight).  I washed clothes in the morning and hung them on the roof.  Then I went to Marjane with Elizabeth.  We were much more successful with taxis.  First of all, we got in the taxi before we told them where we were going.  Then we asked for old Marjane.  Apparently, there are two.  The old one (which looks the same as the new one to me) is closer.  Also, Elizabeth asked the driver if he would be willing to come back for us at 12:15 (We left at 11)  At first, he said he couldn't because he gets off at 11:30.  Then, later, he said he could ask his replacement to come for us, but we would need to pay the round trip fare in that case.  We said fine.  I wondered how we would know which driver is his replacement, but he said to look at the number on the top of the taxi.  That worked out great.  Also, the driver came up to me in the parking lot and said Salaam walekum.  Moroccans never approach you and talk to you when they don't know you.  This is a good and a bad thing.  You don't get harassed, but also if you want a taxi or something else, no one is going to offer help.  You have to ask for it.  Then they are happy to help you.
I had tons of homework, so I worked on that this afternoon.  Then, Pierce and I cooked dinner for the four of us.  I bought 6 bottles of wine at Marjane so we are well-stocked now.  Jeremy is uncomfortable in the liquor store and I don't think Pierce or I should go there without a guy.  At Marjane, it's really easy to buy wine - just like buying it with your groceries in the Giant.  Other people in the house asked me if the clerk in Marjane looked at me like I was crazy buying 6 bottles of wine, but she didn't blink an eye.  I thought I wouldn't be drinking any wine here, but it seems like I'm drinking more than home because there are always people to eat dinner with here.  It's almost like a party every night.  Tomorrow night Danny and Peter are cooking.  They say they're making Italian.  Tonight Danny and Peter went to the MacDonalds and came back saying it was fabulous!  I still need to get more details.  They had some kind of cheese balls (croquettes de fromage) and their food came in a Happy Meal without the toy.  That's all I know so far.

A holiday

Tomorrow is a Independence Day in Morocco.  Apparently, the treaty was signed in Fez, so the king is coming to Fez.  There are lots of security people on the streets.  I asked our teacher what the king will do.  He said he will probably make a speech on TV.  Fez is one of four imperial cities in Morocco.  The others are Casablanca, Marrakech, and Meknes.  The king has 2 palaces in Fez.  He doesn't use the big one.  His father used to live in that one, but the current king uses a smaller palace which is in Ville Nouvelle.  (That's the part of the city that the French built and it's where I live.)  People say that he will make the big palace into a museum.  Most of what I told you above (except the part about the imperial cities) I learned from my teacher today.  He is very good at saying things in Arabic in a way that we can understand, but it is very possible that I completely misunderstood some things.
So, we have no classes tomorrow.  I do have a lot of homework, though.  And I need to go to Marjane again.  I'm not looking forward to it.  The store is fun, but finding a taxi to take you each way is difficult.  I tried to use my hairdryer and it broke, so I need to buy a new one.  And, of course, I'll think of lots of other things to get there.  I'm also hoping to wash clothes tomorrow.  We have a very fancy washing machine in the basement, but no dryer.  So, I'd like to wash early and hang my clothes on the roof where there's lots of sun.
I don't know whether I mentioned how nice it is to live in the Alif Residence.  There are five students in my class and four of us live here.  We work on homework together or consult each other about assignments.  In the time I studied Arabic in DC, I never really had anyone to talk to about it.  It's fun to have people to laugh at expressions with you and to be able to say, "What in the world does that mean?"

A quiet day

Today was just a quiet day.  I was tired from yesterday, so I just wanted to do some homework and rest.   I'm thinking I may be getting into a routine here now and will probably stop writing every day soon.  There just won't be very many new things. Also, uploading my pictures to Facebook went very quickly, but uploading to Snapfish takes forever.  I think I will just wait till I get home to put pictures on Snapfish.  The people who use Flicker say the same thing.  On Facebook, we are all changing our city we live in to Fez and our school to Alif.  I'll change it back when I get home, but for now, it's fun to have a FB page that says I live in Fez.
I forgot to tell you about the bakery yesterday.  In Fez, each neighborhood has a bakery.  Families bring their bread to the bakery to be baked in the communal oven.  Each family then picks up their own freshly-baked bread.  It looked like it just goes on a specific shelf.  The oven is wood-fired.  The guide said that bread has flour in the middle - good for your heart - and barley on the outside - good for your bones.  He said if someone breaks a bone, they give the person barley.  They also feed the donkeys barley so they can carry heavy loads in the medina.