Coffee Talk

Sunday, Mma served me coffee. I was determined to be a good guest, so I braved a sip, despite my life-long antipathy for the stuff. I discovered that it was so crammed with milk and sugar that it was basically a coffee-scented Steamer. I drank it down, and felt proud of myself. Then, yesterday, they served me qahwa b sukar – coffee with sugar. Turns out the milk makes a biiiiig difference. I managed to force down a glass, with help from large amounts of bread and jam…and looked up to find the glass refilled. I crumbled. I told Mma (by way of French-speaking Teen Bro) that a doctor had instructed me to never have more than one cup of coffee a day. Okay, so it was a bald-faced lie. My bad. But Mma knew I’d been sick earlier, so this seemed plausible. I could have said that I’m not allowed to drink it at all, but I didn’t think of that, plus I was still considering how best to be a gracious guest. (I know it’s hard to claim ethical considerations while I’m lying to my host mother, but, well, so be it.)

Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. Between my mediocre French, Teen Bro’s mediocre French, and whatever he told Mma, today she served me sweet hot milk. My favorite café beverage after chai. So I’m pretty much in heaven. Oh, and later, Little Sis asked for the same, which Mma described as “Like Eliaz*”. Which gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies.

* After several attempts at my name, they’ve settled on calling me Eliaz. Apparently, Elias is a boy’s name (but not pronounced like I’ve heard it before – more like Ee-lee-ass), but Eliaz (Ee-lee-az) is a made-up collection of syllables that they invented just for me. When they write it out in Arabic script, it’s Iliaz. I might ask my next host family (at my permanent site) to pick a real Moroccan name for me…or maybe I’ll stay Eliaz. Who knows.