Inside the Ben Omar family home in the old city, or medina, of Marrakech, we find the mother and a daughter on the edge of the courtyard. Lalla Hajja, as the mother is called honorifically (in honor of the fact that her husband and she have performed the holy pilgrimage to Mecca and performed the pious acts of observance there) is wearing the typical Moroccan woman's dress, known as a caftan, which women wear inside the privacy of their own homes. Because she is a good, middle-class lady, when she goes outside the house she will wear a billowing overgarment, the djellaba, and will wear the veil. Chema'a, the daughter, is a fourth grader in public school. Because she is young, and still not of puberty, she does not need to wear the veil or a djellaba. However, when she approaches the age of marriage, she may well elect to wear the djellaba and veil.

Behind them, a door into a room adjoining the courtyard lies partially open. The door you see here actually is party of a bigger door you also see but may not at first detect. The entire blue wooden structure is a door which can be opened up, as it often is during summer. On the other hand, the small doors within it can be open, providing a variety of temperatures and amount of light within the room inside.