11/26/11 Some things never change (and some things do)

This evening, I ate a salad drizzled with olive oil. We continued sitting around the table after the dishes had been cleared, and I saw a small puddle of oil on the table. Without a second thought, I wiped it up with my hand and began rubbing my hands together, massaging the oil into my skin.

My visiting friend did her best not to react, but from a quick expression that flickered across her face, I suddenly realized that this is Not A Normal American Thing To Do.

But it's a perfectly normal Moroccan thing to do.

For most of my female American friends, cleaning one's hands involves warm water, soap, and then lotion. The soap and warm water strip the natural oils from one's hands, so women (and, I imagine, some men) rub lotion in to make up for it.

But during the two years I spent in my cold mountain village, we had a different custom. And nobody spent money on lotion except *maybe* some rosewater oils for use on special occasions. But in my village, the cold and dry air keeps skin constantly dry and often chapped. Hands, which get plunged into water for cleanliness and laundering and dishwashing, can get scaly with the cold. So when you encounter something oily, you take advantage of it.

Most of my American friends would never dream of putting oil directly onto their hands, unless it's mineral oil and they're about to give a massage. But olive oil? Rendered animal fat? Not a chance.

But if you think about it, lotion is really just a mechanism for delivering moisture. Most prize themselves on a "non-greasy feeling," but the fact is, they're trying to approximate chemically what natural oils produce, well, naturally.

After Americans eat a greasy meal, they head for the hot water and soap. And maybe lotion, afterwards. After Moroccans eat a greasy meal, they rub their hands together until the oil has soaked into the skin, leaving the hands smooth and soft. (Smoother and softer, anyway.)

This phenomenon was thrown into relief for me when my American family came to visit me. My oldest sister was being feted for having done well on her college entrance exam (which I believe is the International Baccalaureate, or IB). My host family insisted that my biological family join in the celebration, of course.

We all drank tea and ate various celebratory goodies, mostly cookies and pastries. At one point, my mom asked for a napkin. I translated the request (using the French word for napkin, serviette, since there's no Tam word for it that I know of), and one of the many hostesses ran off to find us some.

She came back just as we were finishing up a particularly greasy crepe-like pastry. Mom, Dad, and my sister all hastily took advantage of the chance to wipe their hands. When I was handed a napkin, though, Ama and I laughed as I realized it was too late -- I had just finished rubbing the oil into my hands. "She's not an American girl. She's an Ait Hadidou girl," Ama said proudly.

The unexpected praise caught me off-guard, and made my eyes water with emotion. I know part of it was that Ama had felt threatened by the arrival of my *other* mother, and she was trying to maintain her claim to me -- but she also meant it. I'd actually succeeded, at least in that moment, of being truly accepted by this community I'd lived in for a year.

All of this came flashing back to me tonight, as I found myself making good use of the spilled olive oil. (And by the by, olive oil and corn oil have less smell than most lotions, and are actually more effective at keeping skin moisturized. For what it's worth.)

I've been back for 18 months now. I served for 27. I've finished the re-entry process, for all intents and purposes, but I like the pieces of Kauthar that have survived my re-becoming my American self. I still say "Bismillah" before beginning anything important. I still say (or think) "Inshallah" when talking about the future. I still find hot running water truly miraculous. And, apparently, I still prefer to use oil rather than scrape it off and then have to replenish my skin's moisture.

Ama would be proud.

8/20/10 The "Real Arabic"

I'm settling into a new neighborhood, and therefore still learning my way around, learning the local amenities, etc.

The other day, in my first walk-about, I saw a sign saying "INTERNATIONAL FOODS". At first I walked by, since I was making a beeline for a major chain grocery story I'd heard was just up the road, but I glanced in as I strode by.

It took a couple seconds to register what I'd seen: two women in head scarves.

I stopped, turned around, and retraced my steps. The two women - apparently a mother and daughter, based on resemblance and interactions - seemed relieved and thrilled to have a customer.

I started shopping, and the overeager daughter (whose English is the best in the family, and so takes on the bulk of the customer relations) followed me around the store, chattering nervously. I stocked up in the spice section, because everything was so cheap! (Americans spend waaaaay too much on spices. 4 to 8 dollars for a small jar?? Go to any international foods store and get a small plastic bag with at least as much volume - and usually more - for a DOLLAR. It's still more than spices cost me when I bought them in souq, when this amount would have set me back 2 dirhams, or about 25 cents.)

When I went to check out, the mom and daughter started squabbling about the prices. I think the mom wanted to give me a discount so I'd come back again, but the daughter wanted to drive a harder bargain now.

I didn't catch every word (but then, I never really did in Morocco, either), but I did understand the numbers.

When they said, "Tlat", meaning 3, I echoed it. The daughter looked up at me. The mom had already turned to go into the back of the store, and I don't think she heard.

"I speak a little Arabic," I said. The daughter's eyes grew wider. "Shweeya, mashi bzzef," I added. A little, not much.

"That's Moroccan," she said flatly.

"Yes, I lived in Morocco for the past two years."

"I speak the real Arabic. I can't understand Moroccan."

I admit, I was put off by her high-handedness, but smiled and said, "Yes, Darija is different from Classical Arabic. But at least you recognized it. You understand some."

She seemed to find such an implication insulting, and went back to calculating my tab. I started asking a few questions. Turns out the shop is owned by an Iraqi family who have been in America for two years. The daughter's accent is the lightest Arabic accent I've ever heard. I had to listen carefully to even realize that there *is* one, because I'm so used to listening through much thicker Arabic accents.

By the time I was done, the mom had come back to the front of the store. As I left, I said to her, "Shukran jazillan." Thank you very much.

Her daughter tossed off a careless, "Afwan." You're welcome.

But the mom's face lit up in a way I haven't seen since Morocco, with the incredulous joy of finding a fellow language-speaker. It's a widening of the eyes and a dropping of the jaw and a radiance that suffuses the features. I hadn't realized till I saw it just how much I've missed it. How much I loved surprising people by treating them as members of a shared community, when they expected the condescension of the high-handed tourist to the local peasant (or, in this case, of the citizen to the immigrant).

As I walked out the door, the mom rushed forward a few steps to call, "Salaam-u alaykum!" Peace be upon you! With a big smile, I called back, "Wa alaykum as-salaam." And also with you.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Kauthar. :D

8/18/10 Yuf Kauthar

A few days ago, I spoke to my host mother for only the second time since leaving Morocco.

I miss her.

And she misses me.

My little brothers and sisters mostly miss my cookies. :) Or at least, so Ama tells me. "They like Hassan [my replacement Volunteer]," she assured me, "but they liked you better. He doesn't bake us cookies. They miss your cookies.

"Today," she continued, "Mohammed [my oldest brother] was reminding me that when you came for l-ftor, you always brought cookies. Usually chocolate chip cookies, and sometimes ones you bought in Souqtown. 'Kauthar was better than Hassan is,' he said. 'Her cookies were great.'"

We shared a laugh. I confess I felt a little smug that, while Hassan has moved into my old bedroom in Ama's house, and my old apartment on the other side of town, he hasn't completely supplanted me in the hearts of my family members.

But if he figures out my secret chocolate-chip cookie recipe, that may change... ;)

8/1/10 D'oh!

Homer Simpson made famous the staccato "D'oh!", the exclamation of surprise and embarrassment and recognition-of-one's-own-failings, often accompanied by a face-palm.

I've had a fair number of D'oh! moments in my months back in America.

Moments where my Moroccan expectations don't line up with my Western reality, and leave me feeling like I've got egg on my face.

Like the time I headed over to my favorite coffeeshop in Amherst, MA, USA. Starting my day in a cafe/coffeeshop feels entirely normal to me, since I started most Souqtown mornings in my favorite cafe there, sipping a cup of hleeb b shokolat (hot cocoa, or literally milk with chocolate). That cafe also had the cleanest bathrooms in all of Souqtown, so I often arranged my mornings such that I could take advantage of them. Of course, being the cleanest and best in a small rural town still didn't include such over-the-top, luxurious amenities as toilet paper or soap, so I was always careful to bring my own. This particular sunny day in Amherst, as I strode through town en route to a delicious hot beverage, I suddenly realized that I'd forgotten to put any tissues in my pocket. I stopped in the middle of the street and started to turn back. And then - D'oh! - I realized that American bathrooms HAVE their own toilet paper.

A month later, I made breakfast for my sister and her housemates in northern California. I made one of the staples of my Moroccan mornings, pancakes. In the past two years, I've made enough pancakes to have long since memorized the recipe (which I take disproportionate pride in). So this sunny California morning, I scooped out the floor, sprinkled in the baking powder, poured in the milk, cracked the egg, tossed in the salt and sugar, measured the oil, then dusted in my favorite sweet spices (cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and ginger) and whisked it all together. Humming under my breath, I ladled the batter into the frying pan, grateful that my sister's house, like my Berberville home, has a gas-powered stove. At least *something* is familiar. Round about the fifth or sixth pancake, I poked a finger in the dough and took a taste. The instant wrinkling of my features must have been comic. The batter was almost inedibly salty. I ran through my mental list of ingredients and confirmed that yeah, I'd used the right proportions. So whence the Dead Sea saltiness? And then - D'oh! - I remembered how, when I first started cooking in my Berberville kitchen, I found that I had to put three to five times as much salt into everything as I was used to, because the kosher salt (halal salt, technically) available there is soooo much weaker than the American variety I'd grown up with. So my mental Moroccan recipe included over a tablespoon of salt for each cup of flour. A TABLESPOON. While the recipe, made with American ingredients, should have needed no more than a TEASPOON. ::sigh::

Another time, in the same kitchen, I was making spaghetti for two. My sister walked in and asked why I was boiling the water in a 10-gallon stockpot. I blinked, looked at the pot, looked at her, looked at the pot again, and said, "Because it was the pot on the drying rack." Sis pulled open the cupboard doors to reveal at least a dozen pans (with their lids!) of every shape and size. Speaking as slowly as I'd been thinking, I said, "I'm used to making do with whatever pan is around. Most of my PCV buddies only own one or two pans, and most Moroccan housewives only two or three. You just ... use what you've got." My sister stared at me, her expression a mix of bemusement and compassion. "It really never occurred to me that there might be another pan around," I concluded, sheepishly. D'oh!

I swear, I became a good cook in Morocco. But nearly every time I've tried to prepare food here, I've run into another D'oh! moment. The ingredients are different. The tools are different. I'm 7,000 feet lower in altitude, so even the air is different. I've gone from being a skilled cook to barely able to boil eggs. ::sigh::

Shweeya b shweeya, little Volunteer, shweeya b shweeya...

6/24/10 Missing Morocco

So I've been in America almost a month now. (One month tomorrow, actually.)

And I already miss Morocco.

I don't miss everything. I don't miss the ice-cold tap water, or the never-ending language confusion.

But I do miss ... so many little things.
I miss my baby brother's smiles.
My host mom's hugs.
And her cooking.
Especially her couscous.
I miss seeing people light up when they realize I speak their language.
I miss the pace of my self-structured days.
I miss walking. (Here, all transportation is car-based.)
I miss having people understand me when I speak Arabic or Tam. ('Cause I still do speak them both, if I'm not thinking about it; just now, my sister asked me a quick question, and my reflexive answer was, "Isul l-Hal." Which I then had to translate to, "Not yet.")

And I miss the physical intimacy of Morocco.

I know I've talked before about it, but it's probably been a while, so here's a refresher:

In Morocco, you have to greet everyone you see. And by "greet", I mean touch and speak to. If you walk into a crowded room, you take a minute to walk around and greet everybody. (Unless it's really crazy-crowded, in which case a quick wave at the crowd can suffice.) If you pass a friend on the street, you stop. Extend a hand. If it's an opposite-gender friend, a quick touch of the fingers passes for a handshake, and you ask about each other's well being, then move on. If it's a same-gender friend, you grasp hands, kiss each other's cheeks, and keep hold of each other while you ask about each other's well being, the wellbeing of each other's families, friends, etc. Then you might even kiss cheeks again before saying goodbye.

And when you're sitting in a room with someone of the same gender, you sit *with* them. In each other's personal space. Usually touching them.

I miss that.

The firm press of a friend's/sister's/neighbor's leg against mine as we sit cross-legged against a wall. The weight of a little one leaning back against me.

When I first got to Morocco, I found myself oppressed by all the constant touching. I craved personal space and alone time. I still need both of those things, but now only in moderation - and I now find myself craving the friendly physical contact that is so readily shared in Morocco.

And couscous.

I really miss Ama's couscous.

6/12/10 On Re-Entry

I'm readjusting to life in America.

I still looooove hot showers, but I no longer flip out when I see *hot*water* emerging from the wall.

Tonight, I attended a fancy dinner, and while I did flip out over the leafy greens* (there was spinach in the salad, and swiss chard in the couscous!!), the table-full of flatware didn't bother me. (It helped a LOT that we only had one fork, one knife, and one spoon apiece.) We did each get two glasses, but there was still enough white space on the table that it didn't feel overwhelming.

Grocery stores are still overwhelming.

As are jumbo stores like Target and Walmart.

When I know I'm going to one of those, I plan ahead, take deep breaths, and carefully limit my field of view. I very deliberately shutter myself - add invisible blinders, so to speak - so that I don't see enough to freak me out. If I don't, and I let myself see the entire Temple To Consumerism, my pulse speeds up, my gag reflex engages, and I kinda hate America for a minute. (Seriously, people, how many kinds of white-flour-and-corn-syrup combinations do you need to eat breakfast??)

What else...

I almost never walk down the middle of the street anymore. Which is good, 'cause my friends kinda thought I had a death wish for a while, there. It's hard to make Americans understand that I'm more used to seeing sheep, donkeys, and pedestrians on roads than cars.

I still swoon over all the vegetation in America. I'm in the San Francisco area now, and I can't get over all the flowers and flowering trees. The air smells like perfume. The good kind of perfume. I'm breathing flower-laden, sea-level air...after two years living above 7000 feet, in near-desert conditions, this much oxygen (and *freshly*generated* oxygen, at that) kinda makes me permanently ... high. Happy and loopy, anyway. :)

I'm still bedazzled by how fast internet is in this country. I can upload photos in no time flat. I can watch streaming videos (which never worked for me in Morocco - they'd spool a few seconds, then get caught in a buffering loop they'd never emerge from). Ooh, hey, I bet Hulu will work for me now! I gotta get on that...

I'm still hopelessly out of touch with pop culture. Thanks to Facebook and PlanWorld, I've *heard* of shows like Glee and Dexter and all those vampire teen shows, but I've never seen a single episode, or even a preview for one. I've watched (far too much) downloaded movies and TV shows, but since I haven't watched American TV in 28 months, I really have no idea what's been popular. Who's Megan Fox, and why is everybody raving over her?

I don't trust my sense of style. I've spent two years trying to look like a potato. (It's far and away the easiest way to disguise the actual shape of my body: lots of layers of bulky clothes.) I've also spent two years in a different fashion culture, where women wear nightgowns as outfits, bathrobes as coats, and sequined capes as attention-getters. I think sequins are pretty, now. I know when I first got to Morocco, I found them tacky, but now they're just so shiny and zween!, which is why I no longer trust my own taste.

Alarm clocks. Unless I had a transit/bus/train/plane to catch, I haven't set alarms for two years. I tend to wake up when the sun makes it up over the mountains, around 7am in the summer, 9am in the winter. That's early enough for anything I needed to do. This whole obnoxious-noise-wrenching-me-from-sleep thing has GOTTA GO.

I'm still a little afraid of the dark, but more willing to recognize it for what it is, laugh at myself, and head out into the shadows anyway.

So, yeah, I'm adjusting. Bit by bit, day by day... Shweeya b shweeya.

*I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but there are no dark greens or leafy greens in Morocco. The closest substitute is beet tops, and only if your veggie guy doesn't cut them off before putting the beets out for sale. There's no spinach. No broccoli. No kale. No collard greens. None of the frilly, nutritional kinds of lettuce. No lettuce at all, except for iceberg lettuce in the most expensive tourist restaurants. I'm hereby adding dark green veggies to the list of Stuff I Didn't Know I'd Missed.

6/1/10 Stuff I Didn't Know I'd Missed

When I was in Morocco, I didn't miss too much *stuff* from America. I've never been particularly materialistic (which drives people nuts when they want to know what to buy me for Christmas), and whenever people offered to send me care packages, I'd draw a blank as to what I wanted from the USA.

But now that I'm here, I keep seeing things and remembering how much I like them. I'm delighted to be reacquainted with things I didn't know I'd missed.

Like pretty cars. Most cars in Morocco look ... weathered. They're the rugged old cowboys of cars, the ones whose leathery, lined faces tell stories of thousands and thousands of hard, sun-drenched days. Replace sun damage with dents and dings, and you get the idea. But here in America, I keep seeing shiny MiniCoopers and classic Corvettes and VW Bugs (new and old, but all shiny and well-maintained). Cars that just make me happy.

And root beer. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed root beer until a year ago, when I was in the home of our Country Director, and he had a bowl of American sodas on the table (courtesy of the Embassy Commisary), and the root beer made my eyes bug out of my head and I found myself bouncing with excitement at the very idea of drinking some.

And bookstores. OK, I did kinda know how much I missed bookstores, but it wasn't till I walked into the Barnes & Noble on M St. in Georgetown - a store where I've spent many, many a happy hour - that I realized just how much. Smelling that unique scent of paper and ink, faintly overlain by odors wafting down from the upstairs cafe...hmmm... I felt positively lightheaded with glee. I spent hours wandering among the shelves, reacquainting myself with the printed English word, discovering what Americans are (apparently) buying these days, and rolling my eyes at the enormous Twilight exhibits. Bookstores make me happy.

And TREES!!!!!

I love my Berber village, from its scrubby prickly ifsi bushes to the top of its brown mountains, so I hadn't let myself dwell too much on what it lacks. Because while we do have poplars lining the stream/river banks, and a handful of apple orchards, Berberville is otherwise naked of trees. And nearly naked of grass. But here in America, trees are EVERYWHERE. So's grass. I'm getting drunk off all the fresh oxygen, and reveling in the profusion of green everywhere. These aren't carefully cultivated and irrigated lawns, or lovingly transplanted and handwatered trees...America's hillsides burst with a wild explosion of vegetation. (Well, eastern America. The great West is different, but I haven't gotten back out there yet.) I just can't get tired of it. I hope I never take it for granted, this profligate profusion of photosynthesis...

So, yeah, it's fun to rediscover all this. I think it's part of my generally positive disposition that I tend not to miss things when they're gone, but I'm still sooooo grateful to have them in my life again! :D

5/30/10 Cross-Cultural Moments

Some RPCVs have told me that re-entry to America is the hardest (or at least *one* of the hardest) part(s) of their service.

So far, my return has been smooth, but maybe it'll get harder as I get more settled in a routine so different from anything I've lived for two years. For now, I still feel like I'm on vacation. I've lived out of two backpacks for the past three weeks, and have traveled at least once every 2-3 days.

A few things surprise me - these plastic flat things y'all call phones (dude, what happened to the buttons!), the speed of cars on the roads, the willingness of folks to drink alcohol *in*public* - but I know those will seem normal soon enough.

But I do keep having moments of cross-cultural ... surprise? disorientation? confusion?

Little things, only lasting a split second.

Like when I hear a voice 5-10 feet away, speaking in American-accented English, and my head snaps up in excitement. ("Ooh, somebody I can talk to! From **America**!") And then I remember that oh, yeah, that's not extraordinary anymore. I'm *in* America.

Or when I see some long-inaccessible treat, like root beer, and get all excited, and feel that I have to buy it immediately. The other day, I wasn't hungry or thirsty, but I felt like I didn't buy the a can and stash it in my bag, I might not see another can of root beer for months or years. And once I'd convinced myself that yes, I can buy root beer *whenever*I*want*to*, I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer availability of everything.

Or when I was halfway to the coffee shop where I'd said I'd meet a friend, and thought, "Oh, no, I didn't bring any tissues with me!" ...and then realized, Oh, wait, they'll *have* toilet paper in their bathrooms.

Or when I talk about the Moroccan city you know as "Marrakesh", and it takes me three tries to come up with the American-accented version of the name. (My Peace Corps buddies and I call it Kesh, which is how I think of it, but if I'm talking to a non-PCV, it's MarrrROKsh, and here I have to remember that it's MARE-uh-kesh.)

Let alone all the times I drop Arabic and Tam words into conversation, and then can't figure out how to translate them. For two years, everyone I've spoken English to can understand these handy little words, and now I get blank stares. Safi. Baraka. Inshallah. Marhaba. These words are *useful*, precisely because they don't have a direct translation. Their idiomatic connotation is the thing I mean to express...and I end up communicating nothing. Sigh.

So, yeah, there are a few bumps upon re-entry. But so far, I'm mostly just thrilled to get to see so many friends and loved ones again. :)

5/23/10 Twenty-Seven Months

[[Yes, there will be lots of posts about COSing. Most are written, and just need to be typed up. But I'm only getting 2 hours of sleep tonight as it is, so I'm not typing them now. Just some thoughts from today...]

I've been out of touch for 27 months.

Not out of communication. Thanks to the miracle of teh intarwebs - with its gifts of Skype and email and Facebook and oh, yeah, my blog! - I've stayed connected to my loved ones.

But I'm out of touch with developments in America.

I hear about the big stuff. I watched Election Night and the Inauguration. I've heard about the tea bagger movement and the various economic crises.

But I've missed the other stuff. Like what movies have come out, and who's the latest "It Girl", and other things that honestly, I didn't mind missing.

I've also missed the recent waves of technology.

How much can change in 27 months?

A lot, it turns out.

iPhones. Dude, people can check their email and surf the web with their PHONES now. What's up with that!? Sitting in a cafe in Holland Park, London, I can confirm my flight and figure out how to get to Gatwick at 5am. Plus, with their built-in GPS and Google Maps and Enhanced Reality, people may never be lost again.

Computer chips embedded in ATM cards. This one's a bugger. I've been spending the remnants of my Peace Corps stipend, transfered into local currencies...but in order to get more funds, I need to use the ATM card attached to my American bank account. Problem is, my cute little twenty-seven-month-old card doesn't have one of these chips...which means that 90% of ATM machines reject it. Whoops.

Kindles. Which are just SO COOL. ::drooling::

How much can change in 27 months...

And in non-technology changes:

* The host cousin who was a silly 15-year-old when I arrived in Berberville is now married. MARRIED. (She's 17, he's 18. She met him the day before the wedding.)

* The host cousin who was a thoughtful 18-year-old is now married AND HAS A BABY BOY. (She's 20, he's 30. She met him TWO days before the wedding.)

* My host mom had a baby.

* My sitemate's host mom had a baby.

* My host aunt had a baby.

* My American nephews grew up from being a munchkin and an anklebiter to being a kid and a munchkin (respectively).

* I learned enough Tam to carry on complex conversations with nearly anyone. Well, any one of the 50,000 or so people who speak it. =/

* My American friends and cousins got married, had kids, graduated from their doctoral programs, and changed careers...without me being there.

Twenty-seven months.

In which I learned to walk down the middle of the street, how to eat *anything* with my hands, how to handwash anything, and other lessons that won't be terribly useful in the First World. (That first one has nearly killed me a few times already. Dude, you can't take me *anywhere*.)

Some cravings that have already been met:

* Mexican food

* Leafy green vegetables (including broccoli!)

* Seeing a movie on a screen larger than my laptop

* Lots and lots of cheese

* Root beer (including a root beer float!)

* Wearing a tanktop in public (and I have the sunburn to prove it - skin that hasn't seen sunlight in two years is *sensitive*, it turns out)

The "reverse culture shock" has begun. And will hopefully be of very short duration. :) 'Cause if I've learned nothing else from Peace Corps, it's how to deal with the unexpected with grace.

5/6/10 Word of the day: Dwr

Like many words borrowed from Arabic, dwr has just three key letters. And it's related to dur, which is spelled the same in Arabic (where o, ou, u, and w are all varying transliterations of the same character, "wew").

Dur means turn. As in, "Taxi driver, please dur right here." But if you linger over the central oo sound, stretching it from dur to duu-wer, it shifts meaning. Dwr can be used to mean "turn all the way around in a circle", but it's most commonly used to mean "walk around" or "wander" or "go walkabout".

Today, my visiting friend and I dwr'd town all afternoon.

At noon, we headed up to Ama's house for lunch. (Bread, mashed potatoes, and tea.) We hung out there for a while, then came home just long enough to grab a drink of water and change shoes before going for a walk through the fields. We wandered behind the caid's palace (perched on a jutting outcrop in the middle of town), down by the river, over to a nearby village, and back. We passed clover patches (which we promptly paused in, to hunt for four-leaf clovers), buttercup-filled meadows, dandelion fields, poplars, weeping willows... The perfect spring weather simply iced the cake of our perfect spring walk. :)

We got back, grabbed more water and a mikka of baby clothes (and I changed out of my mud-spattered pants!), and headed up to see the world's cutest 3-month old, who lives up on top of the caid's outcrop.

NB: My little brother is 10 months old. They're not in competition.

His mom fed us bread, jam, and tea.

Then we walked back down, swung by the house again, I picked up yet more baby clothes, and headed off to see a newborn. (And his mommy, my cousin.) First, though, I swung by Ama's house, so we could go over together.

An hour in a room full of chattering women, and I was finally free to go home. After eating a pancake, and jam, and tea. And a plate of aHrir (Moroccan mac & cheese, aka the food always served when a baby is born).

As I kicked off my boots, I told my friend, "I'm ready to not leave my house for a year." Or ever eat again.

Dwr-ing is fun, but 7 straight hours of socializing? Whew.

5/5/10 Best Pizza in Rabat

When PCVs go to the Peace Corps office in Rabat, we're often there for the whole day, which means we run into that critical lunch question. Over in the center of town, there are millions of food options, but back in the office's neighborhood, pickings are slim.

My first trip to Rabat, most folks advised me to visit the Ministry of Transportation's cafeteria. It's cheap (10-15dh a plate), but only has about 4 options on the lunch menu, so gets repetitive awfully fast.

Fortunately, another ministry (I'm honestly not sure which, but it's across the street from the PC office) has opened a huge cafeteria, with about a dozen options. Every day, you can choose between shwarma, pizza, salads, tagine, roast chicken, and some daily special. If you don't get a drink, expect to spend about 20dh.

But if you walk out the back door, and head towards Agdal, a bunch of other options appear. There's the usual assortment of sandwich places, plus a sushi restaurant and a few other fancy spots. My personal favorite, though, is a pizza joint.

Run by an incredibly nice guy who lived in the US for 15 years, the pizza is the most authentically American-tasting I've found in Morocco. It's not cheap - about 40dh for a medium, which will fill you up if you're hungry, or two people can split a 65dh large - but it's delicious. He flies in the ingredients from America, for the most part, with a few coming from Europe. His pizzas have real mozzarella, real mushrooms, real... real everything.

I promised him I'd tell my friends, which I have, and now I'm telling the rest of you. Next time you're in Rabat-Agdal, stop in at L. Y. Pizza!

5/4/10 Final? Tea Party

Yesterday afternoon, my family came to visit me. They don't do it often, and Ama gave me plenty of advance notice, so I'd be sure to have tea on hand. :)

I made zucchini muffins (using the pumpkin muffin recipe, and substituting one squash for another - they came out delicious, possibly because I quintupled the spices) and had hot water on the stove, so I could make the tea as soon as they arrived.

One of the local teachers came by, too.

I'd choreographed that.

He'd asked to come by to pick up some books I'd promised him, but I really don't like having men in my house - even really nice guys like him. So when I knew my host fam would be here, I invited him to come, too, so there'd be plenty of folks here.

They showed up, and began munching the muffins and drinking the tea.

He showed up, did the same, and waited for me to offer the books (being too polite to ask for them).

After a few more minutes of chatting, he went on his way.

I then brought out some of the things I'd found, in the course of packing, that I'm giving to my host family. Some stickers and sidewalk chalk I'd meant to give them before, some hats and jackets inherited from previous PCVs, stuff like that.

We continued munching and chatting for a bit before Ama said, "Would you like us to go, so you can get back to work?" I've learned something about Moroccan indirectness, so I answered, "I do have a lot of work, but you can stay as long as you like." She packed up the kids and off they went. :) When *both* parties understand the subtext, it's actually plenty direct.

Of two dozen muffins, I ate 3 and kept 3, and sent the rest off with them. (Well, the rest that we hadn't eaten already - three adults and four kids can go through a lot of muffins!)

Everybody left happy, which gives it points over my first (rather disastrous) tea party. :)

5/3/10 I < 3 my Ama

So yesterday, I happened to mention that I'm bummed not to get another Ramadan in Morocco. I know that might surprise some of you. Fasting all day isn't easy, and as it inches closer to the summer**, going without water (let alone food) all day will just get harder.

But I don't mind the sacrifice, and I do reeeeally love Ramadan's l-fdor food. L-fdor means "the breaking of the fast", aka "breakfast", and is the name for the morning meal, most of the year, and for the first meal eaten after the sunset call to prayer (aka l-Moghreb) during Ramadan.

L-fdor, during Ramadan, consists of olives, dates, aghrom n tadount (fatbread), harira (tomato and chickpea and lentil soup), milliwi (a sort of oily crepe, also known as lmsmn), fresh-squeezed orange juice, and peppermint tea. Plus lots of cookies. It's all delicious.

As Ama knows, my favorite part is the aghrom n tadount - literally bread of fat, commonly called fatbread by PCVs. I call it Moroccan pizza. Like a calzone, it's thick bread filled with deliciousness, in the form of herbs, minced vegetables, and tiny bits of sheep-fat that melt into the bread as it cooks. Mmmmm.

So yesterday, during our conversation, I mentioned that I'm going to have to find some Moroccan friends, and/or a Moroccan restaurant, and go there during Ramadan. 'Cause I'm gonna miss the food. :)

And then today, when I went up for lunch (an hour late, because I hadn't realized that Morocco has adopted Daylight Savings Time again this year - I thought they'd learned their lessons from the debacle of the past two years), Ama presented me with a giant loaf of fatbread. :D

Her kids had opted for her neighbor's couscous, so even though I was late, there was lots left for me. She and I both had a slice (you cut it into wedges, just like pizza), and then she urged another one on me...and who am I to say no to my Ama? :)

More munching, more playing with the baby, more hanging out with my brothers and sisters... I'm really going to miss these folks, and am just so grateful for every minute I get with them, in my final weeks.

** The lunar and solar calendars not aligning perfectly, the Muslim calendar shifts 11 days each year, with respect to the Gregorian calendar we all know and love. This means that my first Ramadan was the whole month of September (2008), my second was the end of August and most of September (2009), and this year it'll be most of the month of August. Could you go all of August without drinking water during daylight hours? In a country without air conditioning, where you work in the fields all day? Yeah, Ramadan is hard.

4/24/10 Squished Muffins

The ubiquitous mikka bags aren't *just* litter - they're also picked up and used for various purposes. For one, they're usually cleaner than the ground they're sitting on.

So if you're a Berber lady, and you want to cop a squat somewhere, you might reach for the nearest mikka and sit on that instead of the dirt.

Or, if you see a mikka sitting on the edge of somebody's front stoop, you might choose to sit there. Right there. Even if the mikka is suspiciously puffy looking. Like it might have something in it.

Like maybe a pan of muffins, fresh out of the oven, wrapped in 2 mikka bags to protect them for the coming hours of transit rides.

It was my fault; I'd wandered a few feet away, and was chatting with friends. And then I looked over and saw an aHandir-wrapped woman lowering herself onto my muffins. My freshly baked, still warm, delicious pumpkin muffins. I squawked a protest, but not before she'd sat on them and squished them flat.

In retrospect, I kicked myself for leaving a mikka right on the edge of the stoop like that. Of course it would look inviting. But silly me, I thought that a plastic bag, located next to a big pile of luggage (on the ground in front of the stoop), would look like it belonged to somebody.

::sigh::

Epilogue: The muffins still tasted as good, and they reinflated OK. Leaving them in the pan was definitely the right call - if I'd just dropped them into a bag, they'd never have survived the trip.

4/26/10 Ice Cream in Morocco

You'd think a desert country would be filled with cold treats.

You'd be wrong.

If you want American-style ice cream, you're limited to the biggest cities. I've been to a Haagen-Daaz in Marrakesh, where I was so bedazzled by the *glass* *dish* and *spoon* and *napkin* and other amenities that I actually snapped a picture:

In the Jm3 al-Fnaa in Marrakesh, you can get ice cream cones that slide down deliciously, but which always make me feel thirsty. (Maybe extra rock salt was used to make the ice cream?) In Essaouira, you can find gelato by the harbor. In Rabat, a gelaterie is located across from the train station. (You can also get a cone or shake at McDonald's, found in every major city, but would you really want to? They taste just as plastic here as in America.)

There are also pseudo-ice cream dispensers in most of the moderate-sized cities, where for 1DH you can get a cone with a swirl of cold squishy stuff that *looks* like ice cream but tastes like dirty water. (COLD dirty water, though, so I've gotten it more than once, on blisteringly hot days.)

And then there are the ice cream bars. Remember ice cream sandwiches, and chocolate-coated ice cream on a popsicle stick (what are those things called again?), and push pops, and nutter butter cones? They all have analogues here in Morocco.

My personal favorite is the Magnum. Usually available (where you can find it!) in Double Chocolate or Double Caramel, this is the brass ring of Moroccan ice cream options. I've spent many an hour wandering a strange city, questing for a Double Caramel Magnum. Mmmmm. Imagine the usual chunk of ice-cream-on-a-stick, dipped in caramel, dipped in a hard-shell chocolate coating, then dipped *again* in caramel, and again shelled in chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.

When Magnums cannot be found (sadness!), I'll settle for a MaxiBon. This half-ice cream bar, half-ice cream sandwich combines my two favorite cold treats into one delicious snack. Tip: eat the bar half first, because it's easier to hold the sandwich half. Especially if it's *really* hot, and the whole thing will melt in something less than five minutes.

Oh, and be prepared to haggle. Smart hanut owners know that Magnums and MaxiBons make the world go 'round, and they charge accordingly. Don't be surprised if they ask for 20dh apiece. Never pay more than 18dh, and do your best to get the price down to 15dh. (I know the difference is less than 50 American cents, but it's the principle of the thing.)

Bon Appetit!

4/20/10 Sprinks' Camp Photos, cont.

And now for the social side of Spring Camp.

When we weren't leading classes or clubs or otherwise responsible for something, the five PCVs could often be found in a cafe or one of our rooms or in the cafeteria, talking and laughing and playing cards. And most of the time, "playing cards" either meant Spoons or else ERS, dubbed "Double Jack Action" by RoRo and "Double Jack Slap" by me. 'Cause the easiest way to win? Slap a pair of jacks. Like this:

Alternatively, we might take a walk into Emerald City's town center, in search of note cards or art supplies or masking tape or ICE CREAM.

Note the remains of the MaxiBons we all got. Mmmm, MaxiBons...

And of course, we also socialized with the kids. Students. Young people attending the camp. Some we got quite close to over the week. On the last day, as they waited for their parents to come drive them home (and what does it tell you about the socioeconomic status of the campers that they all have parents with **cars**), several pulled out notebooks and asked us to write them farewell notes. Which we did, of course:

...So that was Spring Camp. L-mokhiam. English Language Immersion Camp. Call it what you will...I call it my favorite week every March. :)

4/09/10 Women's Hour

After hearing from my host dad just how much Ama had missed me, I fully intended to go over to their house for lunch. When lunch rolled around, though, I was in the middle of something, so placated my conscience by promising myself that I'd go over for teatime, around 4:30 or 5.

Instead, they came to me.

At 4:30, I heard a knock on the door.

I trotted down the stairs and found Ama. I started to invite her up, but she instead urged me to come out. My cousin Lucky is getting married tomorrow (which I knew*), so preparations have already begun. We went over to Lucky's house, where I was fed milk and tea (since they know I don't drink coffee) and sponge-bread and lmsmn (sort of naan-like crepe-y bread) and chatted with the women of my family. In addition to the full spread of my 3ttis (ie, all Baba's sisters-in-law), Baba's own 3ttis were there.

So they asked me the usual spread of questions - are you married? do you have children? when will you find a man? - and I gave the usual answers. (Not yet, not yet, as God wills.) Then someone brought up my impending departure. Yes, I'm leaving soon. Yes, the time is close. Yes, very close: about a month.

And then came the rapidfire attack:

"So will you get married when you go back to America?" an 3tti wanted to know.

"As God wills," I evaded.

"When you get married, you need to invite Ama and Baba and all your 3ttis and friends to America to come to the wedding," 3tti Rqiya announced.

"If God wills," I dodged.

And then Ama stepped in. "I've told Kauthar that when she finds a man, she just has to bring him here. We'll throw her a wedding like Lucky will have tomorrow." She gestured to the decorations (mostly taHruyts) already in place for tomorrow's festivities.

This seemed to reassure the 3ttis. "Oh, so she will find a man in America," they told each other. Repeatedly.

They were addressing their remarks to each other, not to me, so I didn't respond.

"And you'll bring your man here?" they asked, seeking confirmation.

"As God wills."

"Oh, that's good." "We'll meet your man." "That's very good." Their voices overlapped each other, while I gave my heartiest, slightly pained smile.

By the way, this was all happening at the slightly slower-than-normal speed that the older women have learned they need to adopt if the foreign girl is going to understand them. Berberville's women are famous for their rapidfire delivery. Even my tutor and friend, an intelligent and educated women who grew up just over in Souqtown, has trouble understanding them when they're at full speed.

So they've learned to slow down if they want me to listen and respond. And I've learned that if they are speaking at full velocity, it means they don't want me to understand.

So when Ama rattled off a machine-gunned sentence, I knew it was for their benefit, not for mine. And once I'd heard the whole thing (and taken a second to process it), I understood why. She'd said, "And FYI, the man she brings back might be black. Just be warned."

The 3ttis burst out in a chorus of shock and indignation.

Ama reiterated her point, and I nodded confirmation. She and I haven't talked about this in months, maybe years, but at some point, race came up, and I said that yes, I might marry someone of color. She was surprised (though much less so - or at least less visibly - than any of these women), and I'd told her that my sister and I have both dated men of color, so yeah, anything's possible.

I rarely discuss race with Moroccans, because I know I'm probably not going to like what I hear.
And while I can try to rationalize to myself that different cultures and different countries will of course have different attitudes, it's still hard for me to like anyone who's cheerfully racist. I have a Black Studies minor, for pete's sake. (Plus, yes, the cliche is true, lots of my closest friends are non-white. As are an ex or two.)

So I rapidly girded myself up for this battle, and smiled cheerfully at my 3ttis while they railed at me. I won't reproduce their comments, because it would only hurt some of my readers. Here's my response, interjected among their remarks: "Maybe someone white, maybe someone black. Only God knows. And no, 3tti, I *don't* have 'the good color'. Just ask Rebha, here, who called me a matisha [tomato] my whole first summer. I'm too white. It's better to have some color. Besides, it's all in God's hands."

Our conversation was abruptly interrupted by the news that my sister had just been hit by a car. After a flurry of panic, it quickly became clear that the car was going the routine 5 km/hr that our barely-paved roads require, and that while she was shaken up, she was completely unhurt. (Alhumdulillah.)

But the conversation never got back around to me and my future honeybun, for which I was grateful.

After another few minutes of assorted chatter, Ama and I said our goodbyes and then went to our separate homes. After making plans to go to the wedding, of course. :)

Oh, and why did I call this post Women's Hour? Because in the hour or hour-and-a-half I spent there, I didn't see a single man or boy. (Well, not counting my nine-month-old baby brother.) I knew that weddings themselves were fairly gender-segregated, but I hadn't realized that the preparations are, too.


* When I arrived home last night, I saw my 3tti Rebha sitting with my cousin Lucky (names changed) on their stoop. I greeted them, told them about my travels, etc. They promptly informed me that Lucky's wedding, which has been impending news for months now, is scheduled for Sunday. See, here in Berberville, when folks get engaged, they don't really "set a date". Instead, they just publicize their intent to marry, and then wait a while. I've never figured out exactly what they're waiting for, though I'm sure that saving up money for the wedding plays a role. (It's haram - forbidden - to borrow money, which means that nobody takes out loans for homebuying or weddings or anything else. You just wait till you have enough money. That's why nearly every house you see is in some state of ongoing construction - whenever a windfall comes in, they'll add a room/floor/throw pillows.) I've been asking for months when Lucky's wedding will be, and always get the answer, "Later, inshallah." Accordingly, every time I travel, I accept that she may well be married and gone before I get back. But luckily (hey!) enough, I'll be here for the wedding! Expect pictures tomorrow. :)

2/25/10 On Toast

Sorry for the long silence - I spent a couple weeks traveling the country. Hopefully, I'll post pictures and stories from that trip in the next few hours/days/weeks.

First, though, a reflection... I've been wandering through old photos, now that my internet connection (though still slow) is dependable enough to post pix to Facebook. I came across a few images that I'd promised to post here, and promptly forgot all about.

Like this one:

When I took the picture, last May, it was to celebrate the extraordinary experience of eating a western-style meal with all the western-style amenities. Lest my American readers are blind to them, lemme tick 'em off for you:

1. My own napkin - folded into a triangle, no less!
2. My own knife, fork, and spoon
3. My own water glass
4. A *tall* water glass
5. A giant glass of orange juice
6. Toasted white bread
7. Sunny-side-up eggs

What makes these items so extraordinary? Lemme 'splain. No, is too complex. Lemme sum up:

My friends and neighbors here in bled Morocco simply don't share Americans' devotion to material culture. Ever since the 1730s, Europeans and Americans have displayed wealth through tableware. Hence the "silver" in silverware, and the fancy dishes for company, etc.

That trend passed Morocco right straight by.

Food here is served communally. There's one dish, in the middle of the table. It's often a tajine, otherwise usually a couscous platter. Everyone eats out of it. If it's couscous, you either roll the semolina into a ball in your hand and pop it into your mouth or you can eat it with a spoon. Tajine is eaten with torn-off chunks of bread that you use to grasp the meat or vegetable, tear/squish off a bite-sized bit, and pop into your mouth.

My host family owns forks, but they only bring them out when my mountain-guide host father is entertaining tourists. Spoons are used for couscous. Otherwise, we simply don't use tableware or flatware. And as for glasses? There's one big plastic cup, capacity about half a liter (about a pine), that sits next to the one big bottle of water. If you want water, you ask whoever's closest to the cup and bottle to pour you some. Then they pass the cup to you, you drink, and you either set it down near you or else pass it back.

One serving platter.

One cup, which is usually off to the side somewhere.

This is how I'm accustomed to seeing tables.

So when I first visited the restaurant known among PCVs as Toast, and ordered Toast (that's why we call it that), I was so bedazzled that I took a picture.

A couple of them, actually. Here's another one.

She has her own tray, identical to mine. Except for the hot beverage. I think she got coffee, where I got hot chocolate. Oh, and her tray has a bottle of olive oil. We each get our own salt and pepper shakers, but there's never more than 2 bottles of olive oil per table.

But she has her own *two* giant glasses of chilled beverages. Giant because here, the only glasses I routinely see are tiny tea glasses. They're about the same volume as shot glasses, but shaped slightly differently.

But the centerpiece of the meal - eggs on toast - is identical. Toast. Toast. Such a routine thing that it's boring, right? I can't even remember the last time I made myself toast, even before Peace Corps. (Of course, I've never owned a toaster, so that's probably a factor...) But after a year of (delicious! chewy and home-made) round flat-loaf bread, simple toasted white bread seems nearly miraculous. Fried eggs - yeah, those I can make for myself. And routinely do, although I've never seen a Moroccan eat eggs any way but scrambled or hard-boiled.

So I went to "Toast" - actually an Italian Pizzaria, but PCVs mostly just go there for breakfast - and ordered Toast, and got my own tray-full of Americana.

...And now, another year later, I'm marveling again. Not at the western amenities, but at how differently I now feel about them.

In the four days I just spent in Rabat, I didn't go to "Toast" once. (Peace Corps put us up in a zween hotel that offered free continental breakfast, but still.) And the western toilets, that a year ago I rhapsodized over? Yeah, Rabat is full of them...but I don't care.

This is the step beyond wllf-ing, beyond becoming accustomed to something. Without really noticing, I've reached a point of placid indifference. I truly don't care whether I use a squat toilet or a western one. It makes no difference whether I eat with bread or with a fork. I share the communal drinking cup, even when I'm just eating with PCVs and we could all get separate glasses if we wanted.

This is my life. And I'm living it - not enduring it, not tolerating it, not accepting it, but just living it - one day at a time.

:)

1/21/10 Recipe: Vegetable Curry

Not exactly Moroccan cuisine, to be sure, but still, it's something I cooked that was deLICious, so I thought I'd share with y'all. :)

2 large green peppers
1 large red onion
1 bunch green onions (scallions)
2 small tomatoes

Sauce:
2 T olive oil
1 T turmeric
3 T red curry paste
2 T curry powder
2 T cinnamon
1 T "Indian Spices" (probably garamasala, but it's called "Epice Indienne", so who knows)
1/2 T ginger
1 t salt

3 T fish sauce
170mL can of condensed milk
2 T peanut butter

1/2 C jasmine rice

Chop the onion and peppers into fingernail-sized chunks. Cut the dried tops off the green onions, and slice the green stems down to the bulb root, in 1/4-inch slices.

Heat the olive oil. Sprinkle the turmeric. Add the vegetables; saute. (I keep about 1/8 of the onion back, to toss in towards the end for a nice crunch, but that's entirely optional.) Add the rest of the curries and spices; toss to coat. Once the vegetables are sauteed and coated, add the liquids. Stir, and leave to simmer.

In a separate pot, start the rice. (The time it takes the rice to cook will give the sauce time to develop.)

When the rice is almost done, add the tomatoes (cubed) and any reserved onions to the sauce. Check your consistency; if you want it thicker, add more peanut butter. Thinner, add more fish sauce. It should have the consistency of a nice thick bisque.

When the rice is done, serve. You can present it on plates with the rice on the side, or in bowls with the rice under the curry. It's delicious either way. :)

Serves 3

(Huge thanks to Jamal, whose recipe this is built from.)

1/23/10 Playing For Keeps

The other day, I played cards with my little brother.

When I lived with my host family, we did this pretty regularly, but in the year and a half since I moved out, it's become pretty rare. I can't even remember the last time we played cards together.

I taught my little brothers and sisters some of my favorite (and easy-to-explain) card games, like Go Fish, and UNO, and Crazy Eights, and I Doubt It. But their favorite game, then and now, goes like this:

Dealer gives each player four cards. Player to the right of the dealer goes first. On each turn, each player puts down one card into a common "pool". If the card matches a card already in the pool, collect both cards and store them. If the card does not match a card already in the pool, it stays there until collected in a later turn. When all cards have been matched, count your stored cards. Whoever has the most cards, wins.

The game moves quickly, as each player either tosses a card into the pot or swoops down to grab one that she knows she has the match for. There's no real strategy, no advantage to speed or deftness; each turn, each player will either match a card and keep 2, or leave a card behind.

That's it.

It's remarkably simple, so it works with players of any age (which is good for a family whose kids range in age from 19 years to 6 months...not that the six-month-old is much of a cardsharp yet).

So my little brother and I were playing. He beat me two games in a row. I congratulated him each time, but after his second victory, Ama asked, "So what does he win?"

I didn't understand the idiom she used. (She might have said "What are the stakes" - I really didn't catch any of it.) She saw my blank stare and tried again. "You have to take him down to the souq and buy some candy or soda or something." This I understood...as in, I understood the words she said, but didn't understand what they had to do with anything.

"You want some soda?" I tried. "What kind?"

She sighed, and tried again. "You can't just play cards to *play*. The winner *gets* something. So you should get your brother a soda or something."

This time I got it. And I laughed. Apparently, we play for keeps here. Who knew that a simple luck-based game was played for high stakes?

I looked over at my little brother. "How about I bring some cookies over tomorrow." He grinned. Everybody loves my cookies, made with real American chocolate chips and brown sugar.

Ama wasn't so sure. "Cookies? I don't know...you should get him a soda."

I looked at my little brother, whose eyes were still shining at the prospect of chocolate chip cookies (which I haven't made in at least a month, and maybe two or three at this point...I don't remember). "Which would you prefer? Soda or cookies?"

He didn't hesitate. "Cookies!" he said quickly, with bright eyes and a big smile.

I grinned back at him. "OK!" I cheerfully agreed.

The next day, I brought two containers of cookies. One for the cardsharp, one for the rest of the family to share.

Cookies...now there's a currency I like. :)