Monday: Woke up early, checked in at the post office, bought my weekly groceries (since Monday is Souk day in my town) and then was supposed to pick up my new desk. As it turns out, the co-op was selling bread, so I sold with them. What was supposed to be only 2-3 hours turned out to be an all day thing, with us not leaving souk until dusk (around 6 pm). Needless to say, I didn't get to pick up my desk but I was exhausted from the day so I didn't mind.
Tuesday: Maria (my closest friend in the village and also the VP of the co-op) and I woke up at 6:15 am and grabbed the bread the women had been cooking since 3 am. We headed to Tighreirt (tear-reart) in the back of a stripped construction work van. I didn't think it was possible, but all in all there were 25 people in this van. Yes 25, thats not an exaggeration, I counted. Maria and I both kissed the ground when we finally got into town (a 45 minute ride away).
Maria and I posted up right in the middle of a walkway into souk and sold our bread. This time it only took us about 4 hours to sell 100+ pieces but it was not without its emotional costs. First of all, this souk was 100% men, except for the beggars. This made Maria and I stick out more than normal. More than one man approached Maria and asked how much it was to "rent" me. They thought I was a prostitute. Awesome. The ones who weren't trying to pay me for sex were helping me do math like two times three is six. Ten minus six is four. At first I thought this was just their way of helping a "poor foreign girl out" but then I started to get really frustrated, especially when they were doing the math incorrectly. One man wanted 10 dh change back from a twenty dirham bill when he bought 12 dh worth of stuff. It was funny that these men felt the need to help me do simple adding and subtraction when that would never happen in America. Finally around lunchtime we sold out of bread and headed to a fellow volunteer's house, Tiffany, for lunch. Tiffany made us some delicious lentils, eggs with cheese and even Crystal Light. It was cool to see Tiffany and show Maria another volunteer's place, plus Tiffany is way better at Tashlheet than I am so I enjoyed listen to her and Maria talk. At 1 pm we caught the bus where more crazy men started at Maria and I, only to have the money collector on the bus pick a fight with Maria. It was quite amusing because Maria kicked his butt. Needless to say, we only paid 4 dh for a 5 dh bus ride.
When we got back into town we convinced Maria's brother Mbark from Rabat to pick up my desk in town with his car. Success, my desk was finally delivered to my house. The truth is that the desk I very specifically designed is actually much taller than I wanted, but it will have to do for now, at least until I can get a local guy with a saw to come make it shorter. That may be a while.
The most adorable little girls ever.
Wednesday: See previous post. Mabroke Eid.
The sheep.
Thursday: Wedding day. At 7am I get a knock on my door. It was my friend Aiesha and she was inviting me to come to a wedding at her families compound. I have been hesitant about attending other weddings in town mostly because they are long, loud, crowded and involve lots of staring and question asking in Tashlheet or Arabic I don't understand. It usually ends up with me sitting by myself against the wall while the children stare at me and ask questions. This time thought it was Aiesha's family and Aiesha is like my second mother, I couldn't miss out. Around 1 pm Aiesha send her daughter, Hannan to come get me and off we went. Of course it started out exactly like I expected with lots of staring, lots of questions and lots of women. The good news this time was that my Tashlheet is getting better so I was better able to understand and answer the multitude of questions. Even thought I tried hard, the children found me and instantly became attached. After about an hour of them being a little too close for comfort I faked a trip to the bathroom and found my co-op women, decorating the wedding room. I got to help hang wedding rugs, place plastic flowers and keep children away. About 3 hours in, I asked Aiesha if I could go home and change clothes since everyone else at the wedding was "dressed up" for village standards and I was just in jeans and a jacket. After about 5 minutes of meeting, the co-op ladies decided it was time for me to wear a Tukshita (a traditional Moroccan wedding attending attire). My reluctance was overturned immediately and then we headed to dress me like a Moroccan Barbie doll.
The theme of this entire day was the different cultural concepts of beauty. In America the bride wears a beautiful (and expensive) white wedding dress that normally shows some skin and took months if not years to pick out. The bride at this wedding was wearing a white Tukshita, similar to the one I wore, with plain white Moroccan style shoes. Her head was covered with a white scarf and she wore eyeliner. This is probably the same white outfit that all of the girls in her family wear. The groom was in slacks, a white dress shirt and a white Jellaba. All of the women in attendance were wearing their version of their "sunday best". This is a little difficult to explain because these type of clothes just aren't sold or worn in the states but all outfit comprises of a multitude of layers, keep that in mind. On top is a dressy type floor length, long sleeved dress of sorts. Its usually made of some shiny material and decorated with sequence. On top of that is a pleated, elastic wasted skirt made of some synthetic material in a bold floral print. It is preferable if the dress underneath and the skirt over it clash in just about every way possible. Since its getting colder outside, the women are wearing crazy patterned socks in either stripes, checkers, floral or camo print. Their heads are covered with a tight fitting scarf and the whole ensemble is covered with a large white scarf that is draped over their heads but nearly hangs down to the floor. The whole outfit is put together with a thick black line of eye liner, only for the married women. The unmarried girls wearing something similar but its generally better fitting, better matching and looks more "put together".
I was pranced over to Aiesha's house and dressed in a maroon and gold Tukshita. The fabric was beautiful but I felt like a fool. My head was covered in a huge white scarf and my eyes were covered with a thick black line of eyeliner. When I say I felt like a fool, I felt like a big fool. The Tukshita is essentially the shape of a brown paper sack with a string tie at the waist. I do not have the most petit of frames and am usually very cognsant of the type of clothing I wear and the way it makes my "shape" appear, just about everything I wore was the opposite of attractive on me. This is the way I felt, anyway. Aiesha took me to a full length mirror and I burst out into laughter, I couldn't believe I was going to be wearing this in public. Despite what was going on in my brain, Aiesha loved it an pranced me back to the party. The women almost died of excitement. This is not an exaggeration. They couldn't stop telling me how beautiful I was, how I looked so much like a "woman" (ie a married woman) and how they could get me married in no time wearing this outfit. The pinnacle was when the one man in town that speaks basic conversational English saw me and said "Wow! You look so beautiful." I almost burst into laughter. Inside I felt about as ugly as I could possibly feel. I felt so out of place and awkward in my own skin and this man was telling me in English how beautiful I was, it was almost more than I could handle.
The rest of the day I got lots of compliments and lots of questions about whether or not I was married (typical for a normal day, but I was dressed in "married women" clothing). The one giant benefit is that I covered my head and face with that giant white scarf and the men had a harder time distinguishing me from the rest of the women, so they left me alone.
The wedding was a good time and I enjoyed hanging out with the ladies and seeing a couple show affection towards each other (completely shameful in any other context). I never saw them kiss, but I did see hand holding and thats a big step, believe me. I was lucky enough to have my picture taken with the bride and groom but the groom harassed me the entire time I was sitting there about why I wasn't a muslim. Annoying. Before I left he wished me good luck with my soul. Super annoying.
The wedding was packed.
My participation in the festivities ended when about 80 people crammed into a small room and started dancing and singing Berber music. It was fun for the first hour, but after a while sitting on the floor of a room with 80 other people in a Tukshita just wasn't going well for my mental sanity. I left when the men/ boys started throwing money at the women who were dancing. Sort of like a village version of a strip club I suppose, but just a little too off for me.
Directly after the wedding I headed to Maria's house and the entire family got quite a kick out of seeing me dressed in my Berber best. Oh man.
Dressed in my "Berber Best" with the bride and groom.
Friday: I had been promising my host family for quite some time that I would come over and have lunch with them. This is always an ordeal so I had sort of been blowing it off but Friday morning my sister showed up and told me I was coming to lunch at 1. So I did. As it turns out, I was right, it was quite an ordeal. I got there are 1 pm exactly with the beginnings of a headache. Friday is like the Sunday of Christianity or the Saturday of Judaism in Islam. After Mosque all of the men came back to my host family's house for lunch (since women don't attend mosque in my town). As it turns out I helped cook, serve and clean up cous cous lunch for 45 men. The women (ie my host mother, my host sisters and I) finally ate about 3:45 pm. At this point I had the worst headache I have ever had in my life, so I headed home. It was cool to see my family, chat it up with most of the extended family and eat my sister's AMAZING cous cous.
Saturday: After a morning of intense LSAT studying I was ready for a break so headed to Maria's house to see all of the kids. Since lots of family are in town for Eid, so are the kids. When I got there, my counterpart informed me that we were having lunch at fellow co-op ladies house. I was reluctant but came back at 2pm to head out. As it turns out we didn't leave until about 3pm. When we got there the most amazing spread of breads and dips were out. We followed that with a delicious tajine, cous cous and finally some cookies and tea. It was really a great lunch and the reason I even mention it is because it was the first time I felt really comfortable in a situation like this. I had enough language to converse, enough culture to understand the order and process of things and felt like I was really contributing to the conversation instead of just being a bystander. I felt like I really belonged.
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