This past week I’ve been working on my end-of-grant paper. Some days I am so productive: analyzing data and writing up a storm. Other days I just edit: add this, delete that. Today I got an early start, and I’ll be honest, it was getting me down. The public education system in Morocco is, as a whole, dispiriting.

I took a break with the noon(-ish) call to prayer on my roof. Fridays are to Muslims what Sundays are to Christians, and the noon call to prayer is the important one. Usually a handful of mosques will not stop with the short, 30 second call to prayer but continue for 15 to 20 minutes or more with what is probably various verses of the Quran.

The rest of the week the city is very much alive: the clanging of brass craftsmen making pots in Seffarine square, the constant pounding of construction, the low hum of activity from Rcif market, occasionally music from a neighbor’s party. Women are on their roofs hanging laundry and smoke rises from the fajars where pottery is fired. Friday is a day off, though, and the afternoon is a time to spend eating couscous with family after going to mosque. Today I had my snack on the roof, feeling like the last person left in Fez.