stay with me, go places: 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.