I’ve been in Morocco a little over two weeks now, and I’ve noticed that everything’s not as different as you might expect. Of course there some differences in everyday living, like what food is eaten, when it’s eaten, how it’s eaten, who it’s eaten with, but then there are also common themes of life that seem to cut across cultural differences. Here are just a few that I noticed this last Saturday when my host sister Omnia, her two kids (1 and 6), and her husband came over for a lunch (which started promptly at 2:30) of kefta tajine and several different salads.
1) Kids can be handfuls and act mischievously anywhere around the world. Take subject 1, Yassine (age 1). While we were sitting in the salon before lunch watching a show like Amazing Race called Fez-Dakar Express, Yassine was grabbing everything he could get his hands on while one of the adults would shout out “la” (no) about every other minute. Then there is Subject 2, Hussein (age 6). After lunch a big group of the family piled into a tiny car (myself included) to go shopping for some new clothes Omnia, who is a French teacher at an elementary school nearby, could wear to school (I didn’t realize that we were going shopping for women’s cloths when I agreed to go into the city with them, but as you will see, it all turned out for the better in the end). While we were waiting for Omnia to try on her new clothes, Hussein was busy collecting as many tags from the blouses and dresses on the racks as he could. Latter, when Hussein, his dad, and I proceeded to have coffee at a café, he dumped his booty into a flower pot on the café’s terrace and then poured someone’s leftover coffee all over the tags. I thought that this would cause a huge uproar with Hussein’s dad and the café staff, but it seemed like no one except me even noticed what Hussein was doing.
2) In general, women take forever to shop and get ready no matter where they are from, even in a more conservative Muslim society like Morocco. Before arriving I thought that because Moroccan society tends to be more modest than in the US (e.g. most men wear pants, most women never wear anything above their knees, and both men and women rarely wear clothes that reveal their shoulders) that women wouldn’t care so much about their how they look. How wrong I was. Even thought my host mom, mama Nezha, always wears a hijab when she leaves the house, she usually takes 5-10 minutes to pick out what she’s going to wear, decide which hijab she’s going to put on, and apply lotion and other beauty products to her face.
3) The cars of newlyweds also get decorated in Morocco. I discovered this insight into Moroccan culture by watching a florist stand and an army of male employees decorate cars with ribbons and bouquets of flowers to the cars of newlyweds. Normally, I probably wouldn’t have noticed what the florists were doing, but because I had nothing else to do while waiting for Omnia to buy here clothes, watching the florists at work across the street from the clothing store was the best way I could think of to pass the time (besides trying to make sure that Hussein didn’t get into too much trouble).
4) Finally, the day ended by learning that just like in the US, there are people in Morocco who think that President Obama is a Muslim. When I returned home from the café with Hussein and his dad, I was surprised to see (although by now I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, because it happens all the time) a random Moroccan man with a huge mustache sitting in the salon drinking coffee and eating these incredible mini chicken and almond pastilla (I hope to learn the recipe so that I can make them when I get back to the states). When I sat down, the news was just starting and there was a story talking about Obama, which sparked a very intense political monologue by the mysterious – and very loud – Moroccan man, which was occasionally punctuated by comments from mama Nezha and Omnia. I couldn’t really follow what he was saying because it was in rapid Darija, but from the few words I did pick up, he mentioned how good Obama is, something about the political economy of oil, and what was going on in Libya. Towards the end of the discussion, mama Nezha asked me to make sure that Obama is a Muslim, because his first name is Barak, which I think means “blessed” in Arabic. I then proceeded to explain that President Obama is not a Muslim, but his grandfather was, which ended in a disbelieving look from mama Nezha. I’m not sure how widespread this misconception is, but it could be one of the reasons that President Obama is so popular in the Middle East and North Africa – there is a perception that he is a fellow Muslim brother.
I hope this blog entry was at least a little bit interesting; sometimes the most exciting adventures can happen in the most ordinary situations, if you just pay attention to them and appreciate what’s going on. At least that’s how things feel in Morocco right now. Just coming home and finding strange people having tea in the salon or going to the grocery store to buy some cheese and be a real adventure. Maybe after the trip to Fez this weekend this will change, but I don’t think so. No matter where I am, I’ve always found that everyday life can hold as much wonder as the most epic adventure.
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