Fez: The good, the bad, and the mentally unstable.

Fez. We've spent a week here, and this is the only time I've had to write about it so I can't include that much detail about what we've done. Here are the important things:

The Medina

We are staying in the old part of town here. It was founded in the year 789. I haven't performed a carbon analysis, but using my analytical skills I estimate that the bathroom in the house where I'm staying was built a year or two after that.

Fez is home to al-Karaouine, the oldest continually-functioning university in the world. It was built in 859, and it's the most renowned and prestigious university in Africa.  From the outside, it looks really beautiful. But women are still not allowed to study there. Natch.

I'm writing a 15-page research paper about the ideological, legal, and cultural ways that Islam oppresses women, and I am having nooo trouble finding material. I know that in some ways Islam promotes equality, but in other ways it really sucks. This makes me a little bit grouchy.

The Tannery.

The medina here is "believed to be the world's largest contiguous car-free urban area." (wikipedia). It's even bigger and even more beautiful than the medina in Marrakech was. For one thing, the buildings are white and yellow (not pinkish gray), and they look really beautiful contrasting with the blue sky--it's been cloudless and hot every day here. It also feels a lot more real. There are tons and tons of shops, but the shops selling touristy things  and the shops selling everyday essentials are all squished together. Fez has the oldest and largest authentic tannery in Northern Africa. There, they make all sorts of leather products out of cow, goat, and camel. We went and checked it out and it was realllly cool. My god did it smell bad though. When we went in, they gave us each a sprig of mint to smell while we walked around. This helped a lot, but it made me feel very snobby.

"Ohh, yes, dahhling, simply smashing chamois camel leather, excellent graining, smells like putrid hickory, mmm splendid yes."

I really like the medina here, and the medina seems to really like us. Everywhere we go, men make us offers, either shouted or whispered, ranging from marriage proposals ("Hello princesss. Berber husband? How many camels for you?") to offers for a proverbial roll in the donkey hay. Hashak. I spent the first couple of days here being perpetually creeped out, but I've gotten used to it. My friend Jessie came up with a really genius strategy for deflecting the creepers: Everything they say to you in English, you respond to. Within a sentence or two, their vocabulary has been exhausted, and then they will usually leave you alone after that. Brilliant.

So we've been exploring the medina, we saw the tannery, did a couple tours, saw a really cool artisan pottery place, and went on a day trip to Meknes. Every now and then the medina gets overwhelming, so we hop in a cab to the new city, which is a lot more civilized. We usually ask the driver to drop us off at McDonalds ("If you would be so kind, sir, to deliver us to our place of refuge; our culinary embassy; our sacred place of cultural and spiritual repose.") Hey, they have really good icecream, and there are great internet cafes right down the street.

All in all, Fez has been interesting, educational, and enjoyable.... except for....


Shmeagle.


The home that Jess v.2 and I are staying in could not be more different from the family we stayed with in Marrakech. There are two distinct and significant aspects of it that make me hiiiiighly uncomfortable, so I'll address them individually.

1. Concerns regarding hygiene, plumbing, and irrigation.

As I mentioned before, we are staying in the olllld part of a town that was built in 789. The house is ancient. Jess and I are staying in a separate-but-still-kind-of-attached apartment that was described to us as "being renovated" a.k.a. abandoned.

The bathroom smells like gamy, fetid fetus. In an interesting architectural twist, there is a pane-less window between my bedroom and the bathroom. So sometimes I can wake up and smell the boweljuice.

How do I know that the apartment is abandoned and not just being renovated / between occupants? Because about five minutes after we'd arrived, Jess v.2 took a healllthy shit, after which we discovered that the toilet was not connected to any running water supply. Katie and I literally had to use our latent plumber skills, take the top of the toilet off, and fiddle with some nuts and bolts and screws, to get the thing to flush in any meaningful way. You learn something every day.

We have no shower. Instead, there is a closet under the stairs (love me an HP reference) with a squat toilet in it. You derobe, stand above the flush toilet in naught but your sandals (lest you should stand where some ancient inhabitant may have relieved himself), and our host mom brings us big steaming buckets of water, which we pour on ourselves, soap up, and rinse. Voila! Clean- or something like it.

2. Concerns regarding Shmeagle

The first evening we were there was the wurstle. This lady who was in charge of organizing our homestays personally delivered Jess v.2 and I to where we would be staying. We met the mom, 14-year-old Mohammed, 11-year-old Najia and 5-year-old Tisam, but we were not introduced to the dad--even though he was sitting right in the enormous open-air living room ("riad") while we walked through it. Nor were we introduced to the palid, silent man sitting with him.

Later that night...

Turns out the dad is quite the religious man. He cornered Jess and I and started yelling in colloquial Moroccan Arabic about Allah-knows-what, but I kept hearing the word "Quran"over and over. His voice is raspy and scary, and when we don't understand what he's saying (aka 100% of the time), he just says it louder and louder, over and over. Charming!

Also, the pale man we saw (who I had assumed was a visiting friend or relative) is the live-in uncle, Shmeagle! Here's a fun quiz:

1) Is Shmeagle:

a) mentally retarded
b) crazy
c) a deformed and maniacal hobbit, or
d) all of the above

2) At any given time, is Shmeagle most likely to be:

a) half concealed in a dark corner, staring at Jess v.2 and I
b) lurking in the dark hallway between their apartment and ours
c) staring at us while picking at his feet / shuffling idly through a deck of cards.
d) all of the above


Pat on the back if you picked 1.d and 2.d!

sometimes he stands on the other side of one of the (inexplicable) interior windows and watches us eat.

No further comments, except that I am realllllllllllly excited to be home. I like Fez, my tolerance for all things creepy and bizarre has gone wayyy up, but I'm ready to sleep in my own bed (where there is no window into the bathroom), shower without wearing shoes, and to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner without feeling a pair of eyes on me, and the whisper of,  "My preciousssss."










Disclaimer for those who may be concerned regarding Jess v.2's and my safety: the door to our apartment deadbolts. 

Games, Trains, and Big Naked Group Baths

Our stay in Marrakech is officially over. So far Fez is absolutely absurd, but before I get into that, here are my final reflections on the Red City:

1.     Soccer Hooligans

On Thursday night, around 11 p.m., I was lying in bed when all of a sudden I heard chanting, singing, and horns beeping in unison.  It was coming from the Plaza, about  a 10 minute walk from  our house. I didn’t think much of it; kinda just ignored it and went to sleep. I didn’t know it yet, but this was the pre-pre-pre-game.

On Friday night, around 7 p.m., I was in the kitchen with Jess v.2. We were making dinner for our host family, and our mom Zakia was in the kitchen helping us, when all of a sudden, I start hearing the chanting, singing, yelling, blaring music, and musical car horns again. Then Zakia informed us that this was all in anticipation of the Morocco-Algeria soccer game, which was going down the following night, right in Marrakech. Apparently this game was to determine who would get to play in the African Cup. Also, apparently Morocco and Algeria (which are neighboring countries) are bitter rivals, not unlike our beloved Redsox and those soul-less, talent-less vermin the Yankees.  So what we were hearing was the pre-pre-game.

(On a separate note, the pizza we made turned out kinda rancid. Of course our host family pretended to love it, but Ouidjienne’s face every time she took a bite was worth 1,000 words.  She would hold her breath, and slowly bring the pizza to her face. Her expression as she chewed was that of a person stranded on a lifeboat who is eating their ex-companion out of sheer need to survive. Then, using every ounce of willpower she possessed, she would stop herself from gagging whilst she swallowed, and then she’d give us the thumbs up. True to character, though, she still ate 6 pieces.)

sitting on top of a moving car / dancing in the street

Anyways. Saturday was the day of the big game. We were by the medina early in the morning, waiting to catch a bus out to visit a Peace Corps site for the day. As early as 9 a.m. there were big swarms of fans walking around, yelling, singing, wearing the Moroccan flag as a cape, and taking pictures. We all decided then and there that we had to get together to watch the game later that night.

 

Sure enough, after our day trip,  we all met at a café in the Plaza to watch the game on their huge flat screen. The game was at 9, but our group started trickling in at 6 and we were all there by 7, to make sure we would all have seats at our table. While everyone was waiting for the game to start, some of us went outside (having decked ourselves out in Morocco gear) to check out the pre-game madness, and here is some of what I saw:

roller-blader holding onto a moped going 25 mph

2 mopeds get in an accident, gasoline is on the road, so they light it on fire.

lots of obnoxious fans.

Back inside, it was game time, and things had gotten significantly livelier.  As the ref blew the first whistle, I ordered my first beer in almost a month. Even with the exchange rate, it was more expensive than a beer back home. I don’t think the quality was actually that great, but I’ve never tasted anything so refreshing. That, plus the fact that Morocco went on to cream Algeria 4-0, made it all in all a pretty satisfying night.

So that was the game, wanna know what the post-game involved?

craziness.

Part II: Jess and I Pay a Professional to Clean Us: Hilarity Does Not Ensue. 

“Hamaam” is a really big thing here. It means, essentially, a Turkish bath. Lots of families, especially in the Medina (historic part of town), don’t have great plumbing (spoiler alert! More of this in Fez). So lots of Moroccans take care of all their personal hygiene at the hamaam. After the High Atlas, we were really disgusting and putrid smelling, so some of the girls and I decided to go to a hamaam. Our “friend” Yassine (acquaintance? Would-be suitor? Misguided errand boy?) works as a receptionist at a “hamaam” in the medina, so he made us all an appointment there. But, as it turns out, that hamaam was for tourists and totally sucked ass. What the hamaam is supposed to be is 3 sauna rooms, each hotter than the last, with clay walls and running water taps, and you go in there and cover yourself in this oily-black soap, and then take this scrubby-pad thing and literally scrub the shit out of yourself (or your friend does it for you, or you pay some lady to). Then you can hang out in the nice hot rooms, chit chat, and afterwards you drink fresh-squeezed Oj. Sounds nice right? That’s the real hamaam.

Fake hamaam was this: we paid about $18 to get herded, two at a time, into a tiny creepy 3x7 room on the roof of this spa. We were supposed to go in naked except for these white paper thongs they gave us (I kept my bathing suit bottoms on—sorry,  but if something looks like it could double as one of those disposable face-masks that dentists wear, it’s not going anywhere near my holiest of holies). So there were 2 stools in this tiny room, and one “hamaam assistant” who dumped buckets of water on us and then gave us the briefest (and yet most invasive) of rubdowns, while she had the door partly open so she could chat with her friend who was mopping outside. Also, she was inexplicably wearing Mickey mouse pajamas, with her thong showing (not made of paper, thank god). But anyways, it was weird and uncomfortable, and as always when I’m extremely weirded out and uncomfortable, I just started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop.  I tried to play it off like I’m really ticklish, but I think she definitely realized that I’m just super, super immature.

Since then, we have gone to real hamaam, and it is awesome.

Also, if you like reading about uncomfortable cleansing scenarios, stay tuned for the Fez post.


Trains


On Monday, we all boarded the train to Fez. It was about an 8-hour ride, but I love trains, so no complaints here. It was a compartment-style train, typical of trains in Europe. Jess, Emily, Jessie and I got into a compartment for 4 people. We watched the country go by, and the medley of interesting characters who came to sit in our compartment at the various stops along the way. Memorable people:
1) mean, smelly old women who stared at us and whispered to each other. Keep it down, ladies.
2) nice old lady with henna all over her face and hands.
3) several creepers:
   3a) the man who would not shut up
   3b) the man who asked us if Professor Fraunholtz was "like a daddy to us" (language barrier, or more         sinister?)
   3c) the man who tried to squeeze into our compartment when there were already 7 people in there, and I just looked at him and said, No.

Anyways, now we are in Fez and it is totally, utterly absurd. One more week in Morocco!

Whitey Westerner & the Five Day Atlas Hike

I'll cut to the chase here. For those of you (poor, inexperienced souls) who have never spent 5 days in the High Atlas Mountains, here is a basic run-down of everything you need to know.

1. Berber Traffic Jam

No matter how you use it, size matters.

Day 1: we are enjoying a pleasant chartered bus ride up to the mountains, and are getting pretty close to our destination (a deserted ski resort, from where we will be starting our hike, into lands uncharted where no vehicles can venture) when the bus inexplicably stops. A preliminary investigation reveals the source of the traffic jam: a gigantic boulder that was dislodged from the heavens, plummeted to Earth, and is now blocking 97.25% of the winding mountain road. Fortunately, they have a CAT on the scene, which is working on excavating the boulder and the surrounding dirt. Unfortunately, at the pace that that's going, it would be just as fast for our bus to turn around and drive in a complete circle around the world, arriving at our destination from the exact opposite direction.

Cozy indeed.

What we ended up doing was getting all our food and bags etc, hauling them to the other side of the boulder, and a local bus (which was stuck on the other side) very kindly gave us a lift to our destination.

2. Berber Travel

The village we were hiking to, called Tidili (pronounced: Tiddles) was a 3-hour hike from the nearest road you could drive a car on, and from there about a half-hour drive to the nearest town. This is just the way it is. At one point, we asked our awesome Berber guide, Aziz, what would happen if someone in Tiddles got hurt or sick and needed medical attention.

us: Is there a doctor in Tidili?

Aziz: no

us: what happens if someone gets seriously hurt?

Aziz: he needs to go to the hospital.

us: doesn't that take a really long time?

Aziz: on a donkey, he can get there in 2 hours.

After this conversation, I wore my bike helmet everywhere I went.

Hashak.

3. Chez Berber

Picture, in your minds eye, where we all thought Osama bin Laden was living (before they found him in a posh Pakistani suburb). Congratulations! You have just envisioned a home in Tiddles.

Couscous Friday in the Berber Hilton

4. Berber Hilton

We were staying in a "ghit", which is basically a mountain hostel (the Atlas mountains are a very popular summer destination for European hiking enthusiasts). It had 3 rooms: one room for the boys, and two rooms for the girls. Except one of the girls' rooms also had to be used as everyone's dining room. I'm really glad I didn't have to sleep in that one. I'm a very messy couscous eater.

5. Berber Plumbing

That empty closet-looking thing was where everyone (except me) peed & pooed.
Gross.

6. Berber Bubble Bath

The "indoor plumbing" in Tiddles was a real punisher of the nostrils. As a result, I took alllll my business outside. And guess what? It was awesome. One day, Jess, Emily, Jenn & I went hiking up the river, looking for a place to wash ourselves. We walked wayyy far; at least a mile past any signs of civilization. The cliffs flanking the river got steeper and steeper until all of a sudden-- hello!-- 40 ft. waterfall up ahead.

The water pressure was significantly better than in West F.

Trip Summary:

20+ miles of extreme hiking

2 River Baths:

1 Morning spent dragging this skinny cow about a mile up a steep rocky cliff

1 Afternoon spent doing laundry in the river:

1 School wall rebuilt:

4 new friends:

The End.

Taxis, the Grubster, & God

 I've had some relatively profound thoughts in the past couple of days (nothing drastic, you know, just a drop of scotch in my Fanta-filled brain bucket). Before I bestow upon you my keen insights, however, here are some more casual observations about Morocco.

I don't need you or your brand-new Benz.

1. Taxis 

If you take enough Taxis in just about any country, you're bound to have some adventures. Back in Boston there are no shortage of interesting cab drivers (one guy offered me a Fireball to cure my sinus infection, another gave me a mid-ride cigarette). I have a complicated relationship with taxis because my mother is deathly afraid of them, and conditioned me to be afraid of them as a child, until I grew up and went to college in Boston and realized that taking the Orange line (or, god forbid, waiting for the Green line) is scarier than any cab ride. But I digress.

Here in Marrakech, Jess v. 2 and I take cabs a couple times per day. There is no other public transportation as far as I can tell (although some donkey-hauled fruit carts seem to be willing to pick up passengers). The cabs are dirt cheap here (starting fare is 1.50 durhams, which is, like 20 cents). Some of the cab drivers are really nice; they let me practice my perversely bad Arabic on them. Some of the cab drivers are friendly with subtle undertones of creep ("Are you sisters?" one guy asked us. No. "Are you married?" Why, yes we are!). Some of the cab drivers are jerks. They see that you're foreign and refuse to turn on the meter, and ask for some ridiculously high price. Fortunately, if the latter happens to you, you can practice your toss-bust-split: Toss some (reasonable) amount of money into the front seat, bust open the door, and split. Your chances of getting hit by another vehicle as you sprint away from the cab are only about 15%. Aforementioned asshole cab driver is probably not willing to take that risk himself by chasing you; so he will drive off, looking for his next group of hapless tourists to try to screw.

The toss-bust-split is the most important trifold maneuver I have ever learned; far more important than stop-drop-and-roll (which, incidentally, will be useless when I am burning in hell for writing all these terrible things).

The other day, a kindly old woman in the front seat of a cab (they will often take 2 groups of passengers if they are going in the same general direction) offered me a piece of fresh-baked bread out of her handbag. I should have taken it.

2. Greatest Kid Ever.

Fierce.

First of all, let it be known that as I was writing the first paragraph of this entry, Ouidjienne ("WEEd-jen") crept up behind me and literally startled the shit out of me. It's like she knew I was going to write about her. Maybe ESP is one of her many talents, which include (but are not limited to): belly dancing, singing, meat-chomping, bullying her younger cousins, drawing epic masterpieces, playing dress up, ignoring the existence of language barriers, running around in circles, and (when necessary) pouting. Remember Angelica from the Rugrats? Ouidjienne is her x1,000,000. She's that outrageous. Unlike Angelica, though, Ouidjienne has a soul. So much soul.

I have 2 new great passions in life: watching her dance, and watching her eat. First of all, she is seriously one of the best belly dancers I have ever seen. The kid has mad rhythm; I'm serious. She does things I've only seen before in Shakira videos. Her hips wriggle, she shimmies her shoulders, flicks her wrists, weaves her head to the beat. Pure gold.

Me, Layane, Ouidjienne, Jess v. 2, Inez

Secondly, she feasts like a starved Caveman returning from a month-long Caribou chase. Here's a metaphor for you: When normal people eat, it's like they are dipping their toes into the pool. Ouidjienne does so with a running-start bellyflop. Food coats her arms up to her triceps, her fingers ooze, couscous settles in gracefully above her eyelids, leftovers live in her hair, and the knees of her pants are stained with tomato sauce. Tonight we had meatballs, and each one of her fingers were like little mini skewers. Awesome. 

When her plate is removed from the table, a perfect halo of food debris remains. Gnawed bread, chicken bones, vegetable outcasts and sauce droplings are testament to some great battle that has occurred. It is the Chernobyl of cuisine, and 

I love it.

3. God

On a more sobering note:

It's impossible not to think about God here, if only because of the language. Every saying-- hello, thank you, you're welcome, bon appetite, hopefully, thankfully, etc.-- invokes the name of Allah: God. Some of the things about religion here are really beautiful. I like hearing the call to prayer (deep, rhythmic, sustained) 5x per day. I like the mosaics on the church walls (in Islam, any depiction of a living thing or object in a mosque is considered idolatry: the decorations are all geometric patterns and calligraphy). And even though I feel like a fraud saying them, I like all these expressions with "God" or "Prayer" in them. Kul shee bekher, al hamdulAllah Everything is good, thanks to God. So peaceful, so passive. 

Also, the other day this really lovely Muslim woman talked to us at school. She told us that everything in life has 5 layers of meaning, the first being the most obvious, and the last being known only to God. I really like that.

BUT

We also had a "dialogue" with a group of Moroccan students about our age (3 of them, 3 of us, 1 moderator). The topic this time was religion. We were supposed to come up with questions to ask the other group. And you know what? Team America came to the table 10x more informed, and with more thoughtful questions, than did the Muslims. Those kids were brainwashed. Not one of them had anything insightful or meaningful to say about their beloved religion. You know, their wonderful guide to life, that makes their women wrap their heads in 100 degree heat, that grants twice as much inheritance money to sons as to daughters, that tells men that they can have 4 wives and can marry a foreigner (but a woman legally cannot marry a non-Muslim man). If you are a Muslim and all this is okay to you, you'd better have some pretty damn compelling reasons to compensate for it. None of them did. 

"I know Islam is the perfect religion," one girl said.

Guess what? That's not good enough. 

Of course, this was just a tiny (and skewed) sample of a much, much larger Moroccan Muslim population. I'm positive that other people have more informed, thoughtful, meticulous reasons for being Muslim-- I've met people like that. But it's sad and kind of scary that these kids (and I'm sure there are many more like them), who sit through 2 hours of Islamic studies per day in public school, who pray five times per day, who renounce partying and tattoos and sausage, are so unspiritual and so mechanical about their religion. When they spoke about it, I heard recited lines. Not faith. 

Icecream, Cat Stevens, and Kisses for Grandma

Sometimes, it's really fun to pretend that you're 7 years old. That's what I did yesterday.

In the morning, we did a tour of some 1000-year-old ruins (the Saadi palace and Saadi tombs, in case you're interested-- Anyone? Anyone?). But, hello, listening to a lecture outside is 100x better than listening to a lecture inside because there is more to look at than just your professor's sunburnt face and his illegible scribbles on the whiteboard. For instance, at the Saadi palace there were about a zillion storks, with their nests built up on the surrounding walls. So, while the Prof lectured, I half listened, and with the other half of my brain I watched the storks, and looked at the palace ruins, and tried to imagine it in its full glory with myself living there as princess.
Or something.

I don't think so.

The rest of the afternoon was eventful; Jess v. 2 and I got lost in the somewhat shadier parts of the old Medina. There were no tourists there. We got some unfriendly looks, but the worst thing that actually happened was a guy tried to charge me 10 durham for a Coke. C'mon, buddy.

Then things got really crazy. We went back to school for a Gnawa music performance. Gnawa is a type of dance/music/song that originated in Ghana and was brought up to Northern Africa by slaves. It was more or less the coolest thing ever. These guys in long, traditional robes sat and played these cool instruments, and then one by one they did this very groovy dance that was somewhere between barefoot tapdancing and Justin Timberlake circa 2004, and it was even more entertaining because most of them looked like a Moroccan version of Snoop Dogg. Also, this old guy was playing a very old-looking sitar. Turns out he recorded a song with Led Zeppelin in the '70s-- no biggie. I got his CD after. Incidentally, this was not the last time that classic rock would come up that night. Stay tuned.

After the concert, we went out to dinner at Haagen Dasz. The 21-year-old part of my brain, the one who knows what adult-onset diabetes is, and who is also aware of the possibility of having to wear a bikini eventually, was suggesting, "Don't eat ice-cream for dinner." But my inner 7-year-old thought it was a swell idea.

Little did I know....


When we got back to the house at 11 p.m., it was time for Layane's family birthday party (as I mentioned, her 16th birthday was a few days ago). Her extended family- aunts, uncles, cousins, & more- occupy the other floors in the apartment building, so we all congregated on the 2nd floor for cake. Note to my fellow mammals: If you're going to have a pile of ice cream for dinner, you'd best not have frosted coffee cake for dessert. I almost pooped my pants.

But more importantly, how do these people stay up so late??? The family birthday party, which went until 12:30 or so, included little 4-year-old cousins, who were running around like someone had slipped an adderall in their Juicy Juice.

Aside from the narrowly eluded pants beshitting, two very entertaining situations arose at the party.

1. Kisses for Grandma

So we were all hanging out in the living room: mom, dad, Layane, me and Jess v. 2, aunts, cousins, and their extremely elderly & frail (but sweet) Grandma. Ouidjienne, Layane's totally outrageous 8-year-old sister, was upstairs putting on her fluffy white party dress and makeup (??).  When Ouidjienne came down, she was so busy twirling about and kissing her aunts hello-- they do cheek kisses just like in Europe-- that she forgot to kiss her poor Grandma hello. Grandma was just sitting there on the couch all lonesome. So I beckoned to Ouidjienne, and I whispered to her (in Arabic, because she doesn't speak any English at all), "Your Grandma," and then I did a little pecking motion. Sorry I don't know how to say, "You forgot to kiss your grandma, quick, go kiss her hello." I thought it was pretty clear.

What Ouidjienne does is, she goes over to Grandma, who is sitting (at most) 10 feet away from me, kisses her, and goes, "This is from Elena."

Grandma looks confused (why is this American girl using her granddaughter as a kiss sherpa?), and says something in Arabic.

Then Ouidjienne scuttles back over, and says to me, "Grandma says thank you."

.... Good job.

2. Cat Stevens


Towards the end of the night, the whole family is sitting around in the living room, finishing their cake (them) / trying not to fall asleep (me and Jess v. 2) / trying not to spew torrentially all over their couch (just me). Everyone was talking in fast Arabic dialect, so I couldn't understand shit, but I started hearing, "Cat Stevens" over and over. ex:

aunt: wala lala zhubki kbuba Cat Stevens shmushmush.

cousin: zibi Cat Stevens khuna khuba jubs.

mom: wa, yik shtran lizkhaard Cat Stevens, mumshin yumju Cat Stevens?

I got excited, because as it turns out, I quite like Cat Stevens. I thought maybe the family was secretly a clan of classic-rock afficionados. We would have so much to talk about. So when there was a lull in the conversation, I asked Layane all excitedly, "What are you guys saying about Cat Stevens??"

"His children are converting to Islam," she tells me.

Oh.

A Whole New World

Everything since we got off the plane in Marrakech has been kind of surreal. So much has happened in the past 6 days that I can't possibly condense it into a linear narrative, so instead I'll just share some of my initial observations about Morocco.

1. Sensory Overload

Everything here is louder, more colorful, smushed together, hotter, older, and smellier. We are staying in Gueliz which is a nice part of Marrakech, and was built by the French when they occupied Morocco (up until 1956). It's a modern city... kind of. Sometimes there are sidewalks; sometimes there are gigantic dirt holes. The traffic is a swarm of demented bees. You are as likely to get run over by a donkey as to get hit by a car, and even more likely to get hit by a moped with 3 people and a baby on it.

Hashak.

It is dusty, dry, and hot here (for the most part, it did rain one day). Somehow, every smell (good or bad) is stronger. They get together, hatch a plan, form an extremist coalition. Your nostrils are assaulted. Sometimes you smell cumin and jasmine and mint. Other times you smell putrid hot donkey poop and diesel (equally disgusting). When you walk by the markets where they sell fish and meat, you might pass out if you don't hold your breath.

I'm pretty sure they eat muskrats here. Either that or cats. There are so many cats everywhere. Mangy, scrawny scavenger cats. Most of them look like they might have a distant cousin who is a hyena.

We are in Africa, after all.

The sky is too blue here. I suspect government involvement. Morocco relies heavily on the tourist industry. As a result, people are constantly trying to sell you things. Some of the things you want to buy, like these really good counterfeit Rayban Wayfarers (equiv. price: $7).
Other things you definitely don't want to buy, like the "traditional" Moroccan garment with Miley Cyrus' face superimposed on it.
Or do you?

2. The People

So far, all the Moroccans I've met have either been super nice, or rude but harmless. I was resigned to getting hassled a lot by strangers in the street. But the worst thing that has happened have been a few catcalls, which honestly are kind of funny, given that I was expecting much worse. No one has ever approached me, and most of what they say is in Arabic or French so I can't understand it anyways. One very enterprising young lad declared, as our group walked by him in the historic Medina this morning, "Teeteeeez." Way to cross the language barrier, my friend.

But by and large, the people here have been incredibly friendly. Our host family is amazing. The dad is so cute and nice and fatherly. Not at all what you would expect from the stereotypical strict, patriarchal society. He speaks pretty good English, and offers up lots of interesting tidbits and advice about Morocco. The mom is lovely and sweet, but she speaks no English (we use lots of hand gestures; turns out my Arabic sucks pretty bad). Neither she nor the girls wear the hijab (head scarf). Layanne is newly 16- her birthday was 2 days ago! Two of her best friends are also hosting girls from our trip, and last night we surprised Layane at her friend Sara's father's restaurant. The restaurant was gorgeous, and the food was delicious (apparently the chef used to work for the royal family- that's the royal family of Morocco, not Kate&Wills). We had so much fun. It was in this beautiful courtyard that opened right up into the night sky. The only thing between us and the moon was some orange trees.

The family's 8-year-old, Ouidjienne, is absolutely insane and will get her own post soon, because she cannot be described by a brief phrase or two.

3. The Food

I am going to be plump as a dumpling by the time I leave here. They eat lots and lots of carbs. Some mornings, our host mother makes us these thick fried crepe-type things that you spread fig jelly on, roll up, and eat with your hands. Otherwise we have this yummy homemade whole-grain bread. They give us yogurt after every meal (if you want to reject the offer of more food, you say, "Baraka," and hold your hands up in surrender. Sometimes this is an effective dodge tactic; other times it isn't.)

There are 2 important foods here. One is tajin. They are this funny-shaped clay pots that you put meat, veggies, and sauce in, and then cook it on the stove throughout the whole day. Everything comes out savory and smushy and delicious. We have it almost every day. Usually the meat in it is lamb ("lehem"). I might be done with meat for a while after this trip.

The other important food is couscous. This is the drill on Friday afternoons: Everyone goes to mosque and prays, and then everyone goes home and stuffs themselves full of delicious couscous. Like the tajin, there is usually lamb and veggies and sauce involved. Yesterday our host mom made it with chicken, squash, eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and lima beans. Delicious. It did however induce a level-7 carb coma.

I lied: there is one other very important food here. It is the pastries. I first tried them with tea (they drink this mint tea all the time here- it is suuuuper caffeinated and they put about a cup of sugar in each glass). There are all these different cookie-ish pastries, made with almond paste and honey and pistachios and cinnamon. SO ADDICTIVE.

Nom nom nom.

The other day was our host sister Layane's birthday so Jess v. 2 and I wanted to get her some pastries as a present (Jess v. 2 = Jess version 2, the other NU girl staying with my family, different from my roommate Jess back home). We met this really nice woman Aisha at the language center, and she very kindly offered to take us to a traditional Moroccan bakery. She drove us there, insisted on paying for our cookies, and then drove us home. We got a kilo and gave them to Layane. Then after dinner Layane and her family each had 1 or 2 cookies, and Jess v.2 and I took down about half the box.

Happy birthday!