random recollections and reflections

There’s this interesting phenomenon, which isn’t unique to Morocco (nor is it a problem amoung Muslims), but it comes up time and time again called “blame the Jew.” I noticed that some Moroccans like to point out people’s races, their class, and their religious background. It’s not taboo here and you won’t be called racist or prejudiced for making comments, even if they are. Every time Jihane talks about her one Jewish friend, she always emphasizes that he’s Jewish. “You know, the Jewish guy...” She also always points out when people have a different skin colour. “That black person…” and I have to come up with completely neutral responses to mask the thoughts that are buzzing inside my head. I prefer not to explain my feelings towards such statements since they’re influenced by my academics, many musings, and my real world experiences.

Back to “blame the Jew.” I was having some conversation with a Moroccan friend of mine one day about Middle Eastern politics and the word "yahoud" crept into the conversation. She explained to me that all of the Jews hate us, so we should hate them too. I then responded that that was far from the truth and I have many Jewish friends back home who have a variety of opinions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and love Muslims as well. “NO WAY!” she bursted out in a high-pitched squeal. It’s if her whole life she believed the world was flat and I had just told her it was actually round. “It’s true,” I said. She then had me explain what I meant and I listed individuals I knew who have diverse opinions on the matter. I even youtubed something to show her the evidence of activist groups in America. Making the smallest bit of difference by changing one opinion helps. I like chipping away at the top coat of paint.

I’ve traveled three times in the past four weeks and each time that I leave Rabat, I have had to retrieve my suitcase from atop the highest cupboard in the house. Yes, it is precarious and yes a bit tedious and scary, but it is actually quite amusing at the same time. When I asked if I could put my suitcase in a safer place, I got a long la (no) and a rationalization that there is simply no where else to put it without making the apartment look cluttered. So in order to get my suitcase down, first Jihane or la bonne (the maid of the week – we’re still trying to find one that’s trustworthy and reasonable) will grab a chair from the kitchen and wedge it in the corner of the room in front of my closet door. Then someone brings a cushiony footstool and places it on top of that. We usually look for a volunteer who will climb the Tower of Pisa, broom in hand, and beat my suitcase to death until it falls off the top of the cupboard. Somehow this is an effective method and a great family bonding experience. Everyone usually ends up on the floor laughing or crying by the end of it.

One evening I was sitting alone in the bedroom dutifully doing my homework when I heard the doorbell ring. Little did I know what I was letting into our apartment. “Oh! My sister is here!” Mama Rached informed me. It all seemed fine and dandy at first. A small hijabi woman walked in with her much larger son and sat in the living room like people normally do. I resumed my previous position until the little lady walked in the room. “Come, my son wants to talk to you about religion.” Nervousness crept up my spine. What was I to do? I guess she knew that there was one more Muslim in the house and I thought maybe it was harmless inquiry. So I joined her and her son in the other room. He conducted the entire conversation and asked me why I’m in Morocco and about my background. Then he asked what I thought about Islam in Morocco and I explained it tends to be more conservative than what I practice, for instance, the women mostly stay at home and wear hijab. And he told me I certainly am allowed to have ambitions outside the home but why don’t I wear hijab (the veil)? I told him that I feel it is a personal choice one can make for various reasons, but I hadn’t chose to wear it myself. Then he told me that it isn’t a choice, but women must wear it. It’s absolutely obligatory. I continued to disagree and he asked me if I have ever read the Quran and told me that it’s written in there and I said that my father and I are of a different opinion. He backed off slightly when I mentioned my father, but it was only because I named a higher authority than myself and he told me he wasn’t trying to question my father. Somehow his opinions are more valid than my own. Then his mother chimed in with her social nudging, “It’s obligatory.” I came up with an emergency plan and told them I needed to get back to my homework. A series of inauthentic apologies ensued and I only know they didn’t mean it because they continued to pick at other members of the house that night.

There’s a real law in Morocco that bans non-Muslims from going inside the mosques. We brought this issue up in our Women’s Studies class one day and my professor explained to us that it was a colonial law made by the French to prevent the Christians from converting to Islam and yet Morocco still practices it, but it takes on different meaning today. It’s easy to have distorted interpretations of this law, since they test any person who wants to enter the mosque to see if they’re a real Muslim. They usually ask you to recite verses of the Quran. This brought up questions of Moroccan identity and government. I’ve heard of these people that Moroccans call "more French than the French" and they work in the government. I understand what they meant when I looked at the laws in Morocco. Some of the non-Muslim girls in our group disguised themselves and made it into the mosque anyway. Others planned to memorize some verses of the Quran to sneak through.

There have also been issues with racism in Morocco for some of my friends. There are two girls from different countries in Africa (Ghana and Nigeria respectively) who were brought up in America and then they came to Morocco for study abroad. They're sort of treated as anomolies. They think that those with darker skin tones descended from slaves, so there’s an automatic stigma assigned to them. And there are "black" people here. It’s not like there’s an absence of diversity. That’s why it’s surprising to see men come up to my friend in the street, get up in her face, and call her "black" as if it’s a dirty word. They sometimes use real dirty words for reasons I don't understand.

There’s real importance given to genealogy here. Not too long ago, everyone and their mother could rattle off the family trees of all the wealthy and influential families in Morocco. The culture emphasizes the importance of family ties for the purpose of knowing who to trust and where the wealth is. The other thing is that people want to know if they’re descendants of the Prophet (pbuh). It’s good knowledge to know. I can ask a random man on the train what he knows about so and so and he can tell me something about their family. I have actually tested this, but it’s only happened once, so it’s not a good enough sample to prove my hypothesis or the words that my history professor uttered about such a phenomenon.

*I will post an extensive blog on the good things I've noticed here and explain some of the issues I touched upon in this blog post. I apologize for offending anyone. It's hard not to make light of things that trouble me everyday.

Eid al-Fitr

It’s hard to begin where I left off. I’ve neglected this blog for four weeks and I’m just going to have to forgive myself this time for my poor memory and negligence. I hope you can be patient with me as well. I’ll start with the weekend of Eid.

It wasn’t a complete disaster. I could taste the faintest hint of mint somewhere in the mouthful I gulped down. It was my first time making tea for myself. I had watched my host aunt, grandmother, and mom make it several times before, but the process takes getting used to. You have to boil a pot of water, place a tablespoon of Chinese green tea in another tea pot, pour half of the bowling water in the tea pot and pour it out, then pour the rest of the water in, add mint, and let it sit on the stove and boil again. Then when it’s ready, you have to add what seems like a pound of sugar, pour tea in a cup and back into the pot at least three times before you serve it. Somewhere along the way, I didn’t do something right. I settled for the weak and watery tea that morning.

I knew that once I started shopping for personal items in Morocco, I’d never stop. The only things I had bought up until last weekend consisted of school supplies and a nice satchel from the medina to replace my old bag. But the day before Eid was special and we simply had to get out of the house.

Things were cheap. I bought imitation Coco Chanel perfume for 20 DH, which is about the same price as a magazine I had bought the same day. The trick is, they use a bit of the real perfume and dilute it with alcohol. I’m not sure how they’re able to produce fake perfume in the capital of Morocco, but it happens nonetheless and it’s as good as the original. I also bought a sweater “avec trop de classe,” according to Jihane, and two pairs of nice slacks for approximately 18 dollars. My suitcases are going to be overweight coming home. I can’t believe things are this cheap.  

Since it was the last day of Ramadan, we were still not permitted to eat in the streets and none of us were fasting for various reasons. While searching for a shop to get Jihane’s nose pierced for the third time, we gobbled down cookies in the confined spaces of the jewelry stores. I chugged a pudding cup of juice with difficulty and delight. They sell things in interesting packages here. And yes, I know that’s a lot of times to get your nose pierced. She keeps changing her nose rings before they’ve healed.

Then I bought my first Moroccan magazine because I desperately missed watching the news and reading magazines. I often don’t have time to spend sitting at school with the shaky internet waiting for my news articles to pop up on bbc.co.uk. (Now that I have internet for my computer, there is no excuse).  I kept eyeing this particular magazine called Tel Quel, an avant-garde journal for literature, which was influenced by the social critiques of timeless writers like Immanuel Kant. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for me to buy this sometimes controversial monthly, so I decided to ask and Fatine prompted me to pay the 15 DH for it. She said it’s “trop bon.” I’m eager to devour its contents when I have a chance to do some leisure reading.

Before returning home, Jihane and I had to fetch a goat for the upcoming holiday. Normally Muslims slaughter a goat for Eid Kabir (or Eid Al-Adha) and keep some for the family and then donate the rest to the poor, but they eat goat for Eid Al-Fitr as well. My jaw dropped when I saw the row of hanging goat corpses in front of the butcher shop. I’ve seen hunks of meat before, but not right above my head and it wasn’t such a casual occasion like this. Jihane pointed up at the slender leg descending from a rouge ribcage. She wanted that one. The butcher’s helper ducked under the counter, with much difficulty, and yanked the body off the ceiling. He folded the body like a garment, wrapped it in a bag, and then carried it to our car and placed it gingerly in the trunk.  

He came out of the woodwork and stared at us for a good five minutes before Jihane burst out in anger, “What do you want?” She pierced through his skull with her eyes. He stood there and flailed his arms about, muttering voiceless words. “People are sick here. There are so many insane Moroccans,” Jihane informed me. The man just wanted to provoke Jihane’s anger, it seemed. He certainly lost all of his marbles and maybe that’s exactly what he wanted from us, hence why he waited outside our car for so long. He was admiring the marble-like jewelry we wore around our necks. After that we delivered the goat to Jihane’s father and returned home.

When we got home that evening, my host mom and aunt had tea and sweets waiting on the table as usual. This time my host aunt had made cupcakes, but they were no ordinary cupcakes. They were upside down with the bottom carved out and filled in with chocolate chips. The cupcakes didn’t have any frosting, but if you turned them over, you could recognize them immediately. She made another set of cupcakes the next day… still upside down, but with frosting and sugar sprinkles.  It was delightful to taste something slightly familiar and foreign at the same time.

The first half of Eid day was a disaster. For one, I had to eat a raw potato, consume lots of useless medicine, and drink some unsettling tea. The whole morning till mid-afternoon I was plagued with an overwhelmingly upset stomach. I prefer not to give the gruesome details, but I’m sure it was a result of drinking some not so fresh hot chocolate.

When I recouped a bit and gained most of my strength back, Jihane and Fatine took me out of the house. People don’t do much on Eid-Al-Fitr because they’re so tired as a result of fasting all month. It’s a time to spend at home with family and comfort food, as if we didn’t gain enough weight during the month. That night, however, we did something completely new. I met some of Jihane’s other friends at a café and we went back to one of their houses for an impromptu dance party. We shared all genres of music and let loose. I welcomed the change of pace with my hands waving in the air. 

My host mom invited this woman over for the last night of Ramadan and she decided to stay for three days after that, completely uninvited. I kept asking my host family if they knew her and all of them shook their heads, but let her invade in on their personal space nevertheless. They wouldn’t forget their manners for a moment, but chose to complain in the bedroom instead. “She says the most random things and she never stops talking.” I learned that she doesn’t have any family or friends who are very privy to her. We all felt bad for her, so we let her join in on our séance, eat meals with us, and tell us far fetched stories about her supposed life. I enjoyed her mostly because I got on her good side and she told stories in the most fascinating way. It didn’t matter whether anyone heard her or not, she trudged through her stories and only stopped for sips of tea. She also had the most bizarre dance moves I have ever seen. I saw more body parts shake than I have ever wanted to see.

The next day I met up with some friends at a café in Hiariad (affectionately known as diarrhea). I met some Moroccans with very good English skills and we talked about Moroccan myths and superstitions as well as good American films and novels for a long while. I learned that the reason why I’m not supposed to whistle in the house. Apparently it means I’m calling the devil and he’ll probably come. Then I also learned that many Moroccans will not take a shower at night because they believe the hot water that goes down the drain will disturb the Jinn (or genies) living below them.  Now I never know when to take a shower since my host mother refuses to let me take a shower before I leave the house. She’s convinced that the reason I’ve been sick so much is because I wash my hair, blow dry it, and then go out all day. I either risk getting a cold in the morning or waking the demons at night.  

Another Moroccan myth speaks of this malevolent female jinni that traps men by seducing them with her overpowering beauty.  And women are often associated with evil charms in this country. That’s often an excuse given for why they should be covered up, for they may prevent a man from living a pious life. Of course, she’s at fault for his dirty thoughts.

The girls seemed to be as amused by these myths as Afshan and I were and we begged for more until it was time to leave. Our next challenge was to find a taxi that would stop for us and be willing to take us where we needed to go. Lo and behold, there was a queue of taxis waiting to take us home. We got in the taxi closest to us unaware of the ensuing consequences. The taxi driver in front of us confronted our taxi driver, which resulted in a fiery dispute between the two.

 “What is going on?” Our Moroccan friends were watching with nervous smiles on their faces outside the taxi. “Well,” they said. “This taxi driver is mad because he has been waiting for a long time for someone to come and you got into this taxi and he just came so the other guy is mad and he is picking… It’s picking a fight? Yes, he is picking a fight with this driver.”  They did their best to explain the cultural nuances and said that if we really felt uncomfortable, we should get out of the car.  So of course we did. There was a point where the driver’s body odor got too intense for me. He kept reaching over me to wave his arm angrily at the guy outside the car. We got home safely that night, but we were a bundle of nerves the entire way home.