From that souk walled with floor-to-ceiling shelves of
everything leather, I could see the Chouara tanneries of Fes el-Bali where raw
hides are stretched, cured, preserved, dyed, and transformed into the bags and
jackets that surrounded me. The tourists, abuzz with excitement at the
unbelievably cheap prices of those goods, barely looked at the workers stomping
around in a honeycomb of earthen pits, each filled with liquid of different
colors. The pestering American-accented voice of the Moroccan man dogging us to
make a purchase was more disturbing than the fetid stench that permeated the
room from the tanneries below.
The Chouara tanneries of the old medina of Fez dates back to
the 11th century, and the tanning process has hardly changed since. The skins of camels, cows, goats, and sheep
are first soaked in water mixed with cow urine, pigeon droppings, quicklime,
and salt.
Once the skins are thoroughly steep in the mixture, they
are laid out to dry.
After drying, the skins are immersed in the colored stone
wells, where the skins are dyed in the natural colors of indigo, mint, poppy, henna,
pomegranates, and turmeric.
It is hard to believe that such place exists until today
and that it continues to function as it did thousands of years ago, yet it
does. It makes me wonder whether preserving such place—where workers toil in
substandard conditions--is worth it.