Another window into small town, Moroccan Life

Since my last blog, I have moved from my host family house and into my own, made a solo venture into Marrakech for the first time, and have started teaching English at the Dar Chabab, but I just walked in the door at 11:30 at night, and couldn’t wait to blog about the experience I just had. 

Earlier today, Tariq showed me a room of his house I had never seen before.  It actually has its own door to the outside (as well as a 5 foot tall door to the inside).  Tariq proudly told me that this was going to be his and his wife’s “home” once they are married.  Its about 10’ by 15’, has no windows, and both doors are solid metal,  but Tariq is so excited about having a small place to call his own.

Then, a couple of hours ago, he, Otman, and another friend came over to my new house and of course custom required that I serve them something.  Needless to say, I have no food or furniture (actually, I bought a plastic table and four chairs on the way to my house, so we at least had somewhere to sit). I bought some cherries (awesome , delicious cherries) in ‘Kech on my earlier trip so I threw them in a pot (I don’t have any bowls), and we sat around on our plastic chairs and drank coke and ate cherries (we killed a kilo in short order, ‘cause you can’t find cherries in Sidi Bouthman, so it was actually a treat).

…anyway, to make a long story longer, along comes “Xamis” (which means “Thursday” in Darija, which seems a little random, but whatever) and yells outside the window and Tariq asks if we can invite him in, so of course, we do, and he has some cherries and coke (Xamis got the overturned bucket, ‘cause that had to substitute for the 5^th seat).  Then everyone gets up to leave and I wasn’t sure whether something specific was going on or if everyone was going their separate ways, but I should have known better, because it was only 9:30 or 10:00. 

We all headed over to Tariq’s house and he opened up his “new” room and Xamis changed into some overalls and pulled out a trowel.  It turned out, it was a late-night “cement-the-floor-of-the-new-room” party (who knew).  Out came more plastic chairs and the four of us sat at one end of the little room and watched Xamis start cementing the floor (it was cemented before, but lots of pock marks and very uneven).

I thought that was the funniest thing and said to myself that I would have to blog about the craziness of what “a night on the town” means in Morocco, sitting around and watching someone cement the floor of a room.  But then it got immeasurably better because Tariq’s dad and brother came in toting more plastic chairs and now there were six of us watching.  Then Tariq goes out and comes back with a table and a teapot full of water, and we all proceed (including Xamis) to wash our hands under the teapot and then sit around the table.

Well, out comes a huge platter of couscous and we all commence to eating couscous in the corner of the little room that Xamis hasn’t yet cemented (at 11:00 at night, no less).  …and I don’t think that was considered the least bit unusual.  After our meal, we had to move the table and chairs so that Xamis could finish cementing the floor, and so that ended the entertainment for the night, so then we all went home.

Maybe you had to be there, but it was soooo random as to be bordering on the absurd, and yet perhaps provides another glimpse of the differences between the two cultures.