ABSTRACT
1995: Khadija roused her daughter, Ilham, from sleep just as the sun was brightening over the rooftops of the three-story apartment buildings here in the center of Fes. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Ilham followed her mother into the small kitchen, where she put a pot of water on the two-burner stove for tea and hot chocolate. Ilham threw a djellaba (caftan) over her pajamas, stepping into plastic slippers that would take her just a few doors down to the hanout, the small dry-goods shop that they visited multiple times a day. There she handed the grocer a few dirhams and received a baguette and two round loaves of bread in exchange. Back in the kitchen, Khadija and Ilham moved easily around one another, piling the tray with bread, small dishes of butter and apricot jam, and thermoses filled with tea and hot chocolate. As the sun poured into the room, they woke Ilham's siblings, the boys who slept in the smaller salon where they would all eat breakfast, and the girls in the bigger salon. Khadija's husband, Abdellah, exited their master bedroom and joined the children at the breakfast table. Noise from the television, tuned to one of the three Moroccan stations they were able to access, filled the room, and the children alternated between eating breakfast and taking turns in the small bathroom.
