Tuesday, March 26, 2013

(Invisible) Moroccan Friends

A minute to catch our breath in Rabat. Site Announcement received, Community Based Training completed, Language Proficiency Interviews passed. Swearing-In tomorrow, Shipping Out the next day.

It's an exciting time. Thursday we move to our home for the next two years. We'll be about an hour south of Marrakesh, in a town of around 10,000 in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. There's much to look forward to, and plenty to chew our fingernails over.

But I wanted to tell about the Moroccans who took us in during CBT, nameless and faceless on the blog for the sake of their privacy, but for us an indelible part of our first months. (Just as an aside, it is incredibly strange and depressing to feel so beholden to this "pics or it didn't happen" age we live in. The power of the internet to define what feels real makes me want to cry).

It was striking during our last weeks with the host family how profoundly they conveyed, in spite of the language barrier, that our saying goodbye would be bittersweet. We returned home after site announcement and delivered the news that we'd be eight hours south and west, and our two wonderful English-speaking host cousins paused wistfully before launching into the pep talk about how great (but hot!) Marrakesh is. Our host mother wanted to learn the name of our new host mother, and just repeating it throughout the day, reminding us and herself, seemed to comfort her greatly. Again and again, they brought up the previous volunteers, and we were admonished that when we leave we should not cry like they did.

One evening this week as we all sat around after dinner moping and dreading the inevitable,  our host father decided he didn't like the look of it one bit and he gave us a rousing speech, worthy of halftime at the Rose Bowl, standing up and gesturing broadly, pacing and pounding the table. "Do not be sad! Life will be good for you in Marrakesh," he told us. "Remember when you came to Morocco? And the Peace Corps gave you a piece of paper, and you read our names? You didn't know who we were, but now we are family. So you should not be sad. Did you cry when you left America?" "Yes," Britt told him, "A lot." But he wouldn't hear of it. "Everywhere you go in Morocco you will find good people," he said. "Well, not in Casablanca. But in Marrakesh, you will find good people. And life will be good for you because you have each other."

That last week we took family portraits and exchanged gifts (you'd better believe there was more peanut butter involved) and Britt let our host mother cover her eyes in dark black "khl" eyeliner just to make her smile, and we made promises to return, Inshallah. And the morning we left, there were tears, lots of tears and runny black "khl" on top of everything else, and none of it was really at all big enough to properly thank them, but it came across, as the important things seem to here in Morocco.

Our last week in CBT, our LCF taught us how to cook tajine. He's secretly an awesome cook.



Tajine party on the roof.
Pre-tears, obviously.
They probably have cows where we're moving, but just in case.
Miss it already.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Great Expectations

One of my mantras right now is this: nothing goes the way you think it will go in Morocco.  So far, it’s been helpful to keep this in the front of our minds as we make “plans” and come up with “activities.”  As long as we recognize that things will not likely go as planned, then it’s easier to avoid a major emotional breakdown.

Take, for example, last night when we cooked dinner for our host family.  First, Pete and I took a shared cab (called a grand taxi) to the market by ourselves for the first time without our teacher.  Then we went to the souk (open-air market with food and random goods) BY OURSELVES and purchased all sorts of things: bananas, carrots, onions, garlic, and everything else we needed for tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and chocolate/banana/peanut butter smoothies for dessert.  Sure, a few vendors may have ripped us off, and sure we were sold some sort of spice that certainly was not basil----- but we shopped in a market in North Africa and were able to use our Darija to buy some food for our Moroccan family.  And I’m pretty proud of us.

Back to dinner.  Here is where “nothing goes the way you think it will go in Morocco” comes in:

1.     We thought we were going to cook dinner just the two of us, and we even made a new playlist to rock out to while we chopped and stirred.  Yet host mom wanted to be a part of the cooking, too.  We don’t blame her--- I wouldn’t even trust us alone in a Moroccan kitchen right now--- but it changed our expectations for the evening.  However, between correcting our cooking skills and bossing us around a bit, she did hum along to a Magnetic Fields song that she’s heard Pete play on the guitar--- and that was awesome.
2.     Our creamy tomato soup ended up being chunky tomato soup as host mom was hesitant to put the soup in her blender.  No sweat.  Chunky tomato soup still tasted pretty good, all things considered.
3.     We know that host mom loves peanut butter now, so we were excited to make chocolate-peanut butter-banana smoothies for dessert.  But she was also hesitant to put peanut butter in her blender, so we sadly agreed to leave the best part out.  THEN, at the last second, she caved (she loves peanut butter, what can we say) and slipped just a small scoop in the blender.  Success!

Dinner is just a small sampling of how we are slowly learning to just roll with the punches here.  We’ve heard that in the Peace Corps, you will feel your highest highs and your lowest lows, sometimes in the same day.  It’s true.  A few days ago, we had our “lowest-low” lunch---- some unidentifiable part of a turkey served alongside a mixture of chopped liver and olives.  Yet, that same night, I had one of my best nights here so far.  Host mom pulled out a drum and played traditional Berber beats while ordering us to dance in the living room.  We danced like monkeys, laughing and confused, and soaking up the special moment where we felt like part of the family.  We have just another week in this little town with this lovely family, so we’re trying to soak up the best parts and learn from the hard ones.  In’challah, this is how we will get by here.  

Kas-Krut!  See why snack time is so awesome?

Our CBT group having class outside.

Studious students, classroom of the fields.

Our town.  Can you see cows?

Pete and an adorable friend.  They get along famously.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Care for some 'American Chocolate' on your hardboiled egg?

Some interesting things have gone down on the two-way street of cultural exchange lately here in Morocco. A couple of weeks ago, we cooked dinner with our upstairs PCT neighbor Carly, for our host families. We tried to make a classic Miricanya breakfast-for-dinner with pancakes, omelets and hashbrowns, though for obvious reasons, we couldn't include that MVP of the breakfast table, bacon. Perhaps that should have warned us off, because the less said about dinner, the better. On the one hand, no one was poisoned by the food we served. On the other hand, we knocked the lid to the stovetop down on three frying pans while cooking, sending a skillet of boiling oil and the hashbrowns crashing to the floor.

The only unqualified success of the night was the peanut butter Carly bought for the pancakes. Our host family dispatched the jar with an efficiency I've only seen in my own family of world-champion peanut butter addicts. We picked up another jar this week in Fes for our host mother -she calls it "American Chocolate"-and she seemed thrilled. Thrilled enough that during kaskrut last night, first she ate it with her fingers and then off the knife until finally she smeared some all over half a hardboiled egg.

But that image is a nice one to keep in mind, because we know we must do something of equivalent weirdness every day. So every day a Moroccan watches us eat a hardboiled egg smothered in crunchy peanut butter. I'm okay with that. It's probably delicious.

We wanted to show you Bs'hara, a garlic and fava bean soup that is our favorite Moroccan lunch. These are the ruins.
Last Sunday we visited Moulay Yakoub and did a little hiking. It was the zwinest day so far in Morocco.
It made us miss California. It doesn't take much.
Our CBT: Carly, Britt, me, Melanie, Lemon and our LCF, Ahmad.
The master naturalist, doing what she must.
The Darija word for "Peas": Jlbana. Had jlbana bnina.
Our happiest moments in Morocco are meals. Just like in America.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Kul!


Is it March already?  Time is always strange like that: the weeks feel endlessly long yet insanely short at the same time.  We have learned the phrase, “I will adjust” in Darija, and it proves to be helpful both to say and to remember from time to time.


One thing we are adjusting to is the amount of food we eat each day.  There is breakfast: bread, olive oil, and coffee.  Lunch happens around 1pm: usually some sort of tagine or lentils served with a salad or French-fries (or any sort of fried vegetable).  The main dish is eaten out of a common plate with bread instead of forks.  Delicious, homemade bread.  Kas-Krut (snack) is one the highlights of my day.  It’s usually served around 5-6pm.  Typically, we drink sweet mint tea and eat more bread (mlwi or hersha (sort of like cornbread) or anything else delicious and home made).  Finally, around 8 or 9pm, we eat dinner.  This meal is smaller than lunch, and we often eat something like spaghetti (made with ground lamb) or noodles with hot milk (which, on a cold day, is way more tasty than it sounds).  Every meal is served with olives, and fruit is offered as dessert.

The most important thing to mention about food, though, is the enthusiasm in which our host mother shares it with us.  The word she says the most is “Kul!” which  translates to “Eat!” and sounds like "cool!"  She says it incessantly.  We never eat enough to satisfy her.  Here is how our table conversation usually goes as we are wrapping up a meal.  Mind you, we are speaking entirely in broken Darija:

Host mom: “Kul!”

Britt: “I’m full, thanks be to God.”

Host mom: “Kul!”

Britt: “No thank you.  I’m full.”

Pete: “Yes, me too. I’m full, thanks be to God.”

Host mom: “Kul!”

Britt: “You eat.  I’m full!”

Host mom: “You are not full!  Kul!  Eat more bread!”

Pete: “No thank you.  I’m full!”

Host mom (gets up from table to get more bread from kitchen): “You are not full. Kul!”

We force ourselves to eat a few more bites.  We understand that her fierce desire to feed us is a way she can shows us she cares about us when language just doesn’t exists, but it can be overwhelming at times.  Take, for example, yesterday’s conversation at kas-krut:

Host mom:  “Britt, kul!”

Britt: “No thank you!  It’s enough.”

Host mom: “No, kul!”

Britt: “I’m full, thanks be to God. “

Host mom: “Full?  What did you eat this afternoon?!  Kul!”

Britt: “No! Lunch.  You. Good food.  I ate a lot.”

Host mom: “You went to the hanut!” (a hanut is like a snack stand, sort of)

Britt: “No!  I ate a lot today.  Lunch.  Later, dinner.  I like dinner.  Little kas-krut.  Later, dinner.”

Host mom: “I will see you if you go to the hanut!  Kul!”

Britt (sighs and tears a small piece of bread): “No hanut.  Good food our house.”

And it’s true.  The food is so, so good.  So we roll up our sleeves and dip more bread in the platter.  We go for morning runs as often as we can stand it (it’s cold!), and I try to watch our host mother cook in the kitchen so I will be able to prepare meals for us when we live on our own.

If you were worried for a second about us being so far from home, know that we are well-fed and well looked-after.   We are lucky to live with such a patient host family, and we feel so lucky to have each other.

Right now, it’s time to go “Kul.”  Again.  Thanks be to God.

Also, a smattering of photos from our past few weeks!

A beautiful walk home from school:


Sometimes we hang out with cute kids:


Check out how excited Pete looks!



Sometimes we eat outside:




Sometimes we perform for our host family. Good thing we have two years to practice!