Tuesday, March 18, 2014

One Woman's History in Morocco Month

Since we've returned, the question of "What was it like to be a woman in Morocco?" has come up almost as often as "What was the toilet like?" and "Did you get sick a lot?" and "Can you drink the water there?"** In honor of Women's History Month, I thought it might be fun to share a little bit about what it was like to be a woman in Morocco, for me.  

**Before, though, let me just say this: not so bad, just a few times, and yes--- most of the time.

When we first arrived, we spent four months living with host families.  We integrated into Moroccan culture and our host families by embracing fairly strict gender roles.  After eating a meal, I headed to the kitchen to wash dishes, and Pete spent time vegging out and watching television.  On the weekends, I could frequently be found sweeping floors, hanging laundry, and shelling pees.  Pete helped as much as our host mother would allow him, but more often than not he was shooed out of the kitchen.  Basically, he has to do the dishes for the rest of our lives together to make up for the amount of time I spent hunched over the sink.


Delivering lunch and then using the hot food to warm my hands.

But, truthfully, I didn't mind helping in the kitchen.  My Moroccan Arabic was so limited, and washing a few plates was a tangible way for me to say thank you.  Thank you for allowing me into your home, thank you for washing my clothes, thank you for teaching me new words, thank you for sharing your life with me.  

Couscous lessons from Malika
Once we moved into our own place, we divided housework more evenly.  But anytime we visited Moroccan friends, I immediately found myself drawn into the kitchen with the other women.  I sat on a stool while women stirred pots of harira.  I held babies in my lap while their mother chopped onions.  I was able to enter an intimate sphere of womanhood that I've never fully felt in the US.  We talked about our husbands--- the good ones and the bad ones--- while we fluffed couscous.  Farida applied kohl makeup to my eyes and told me about how much she wanted children.  Habiba showed me how to dance as lamb simmered in the pressure cooker.  Sana made jokes--- so many jokes!--- as she talked about the women's exercise classes she taught.  Fatima served me warm bread with butter her mother had churned that morning.  Malika tossed food scraps to the sheep while wrangling her three curious children.  

A lot of my time in the kitchen was spent sneaking couscous to this cutie.

Teaching Kate how to prepare msmen.

Measuring rugs with Fatima.

Watching Sana weave
Hiking with Fatima
I don't want to romanticize what it is like to be a woman in a country where the role of women is quite different than the role of women in the US.  But I can say that it was an intimate experience, one I will treasure forever, and one I am grateful to have had.  In the privacy of the kitchen, I felt connected to women in a profound way.

Love this girl.
In public, being a woman, for me, was more challenging. Despite my conservative dress (I've really learned to rock the dress-over-jeans look), stares from men made walking around town fairly uncomfortable.  Sexual harassment, especially when I was walking around with other women, was rampant.  Occasionally Pete would leave for a few days to attend a Peace Corps training.  In the US, this sort of separation would have me exclaiming, "Sweet!  Girl's weekend!!!"  Instead, I felt anxious and isolated---- and I didn't like feeling that way.

There is an excellent PSA from Egypt that demonstrates what kind of harassment a woman might face walking around alone.  I'm fortunate that my experience with sexual harassment was fairly limited, but it did contribute to our early return.

In addition, I frequently felt like I was fighting in public.  Fighting for the attention of our landlord who preferred to talk only to Pete.  Fighting for a fair price on the cab ride between our town and Marrakech.  Fighting for a seat on a bus, preferably next to a woman.  Fighting to catch my breath in the chaos that is Marrakech.  Being out and about left me exhausted, and I grew to yearn for the comfort of our small, quiet home.

Occasionally, though, public interactions led to private hospitality.  Once, while riding on an over-crowded transport, a woman overheard me speaking in broken Arabic to the driver.  She was sitting next to me and started to ask me questions.  She was patient with my language skills and thrilled to find out that I lived in the city she was traveling to.  She was going to visit her daughter and her daughter's new baby.  Her daughter's husband was very ill, she told me, so she wanted to go help out as much as she could.  By the end of the ride to our town, Pete and I were invited into her daughter's home for tea and snacks.  We stayed for several hours--- they simply refused to let us leave--- and shared cup after cup of tea with them.  I could sense that things were challenging in their home.  The new mom was exhausted and worried over her very sick husband, but that didn't stop her from preparing pots of hot, sweet, sticky mint tea.  These people, these moments, are what I will choose to carry with me from my time in Morocco.



I'm incredibly proud of my female friends in Morocco and the ways in which they are working to improve themselves, their families, and their community.  My friend Sana is working on opening a women's-only gym in our town so that women will have a more comfortable place to exercise.  Fatima weaves rugs and teaches herself English through books and television.  Malika helps her children with their schoolwork and then spends extra time teaching herself English. Amina runs a women's couscous co-operative to provide income for widows and divorcees.  My European female friends run a facility that brings guests to Morocco to learn about Moroccan culture and to provide social services to the surrounding communities.  I have felt the strength and will of women in intimate, powerful ways, and I am grateful to have been a small part of their lives.  I hope to continue to connect with women and tap into our power to make this world a better place, together.



4 comments:

  1. You know I love all of your entries, but this one is particularly beautiful. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

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