Fez, Morocco: The man who warms the sauna
I love encountering the unusual on the road. This moment in the medieval Fes medina is one of my favorites.
Posted this the day itself on Instagram, but definitely worth a share in this site:
Learned an Arabic term in Fez: Hamdoulah/Hamdullah which means “Praise be to God”. Like Insha’allah (God willing), it is said many times a day to give gratitude for all the good and bad things that happened. To illustrate the meaning of the word, my 60-something guide (and former body builder and speaker of six languages) Thami took me to this place on the last part of my tour around the Fes medina.
“The man who warms the sauna,” Thami pointed him to me. “He continuously throws sawdust into the fire to keep the sauna at the ideal temperature. And he only gets two 30-minute breaks a day when they clean the baths for when men and women switch turns. It’s a thankless job, but he does it gladly, he is happy. Hamdoulah.”
Another of Thami’s words of wisdom that stuck that day in Fes: “Life—use it or lose it.”
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