Getting to know the locals
I must preface this entry with the fact that I am typing on a French-Arabic keyboard. The author takes no responsibility for the horrendous spelling and punctuation that may take place.
So…
As much as I enjoyed the first few days here, Joey and I realized we really hadn’t meet any locals.
-more-
Taking in the city is enough to keep one busy for days. You float along in a dream, barely able to stay clear of overload. Staying away from the aggresive salesmen becomes the first priority. It’s hard to start a conversation in this atmosphere…now add that I speak neither French or Arabic, and you can see the difficulties in getting to know the people here.
Last night Joey and I decided we’d had enough of that…it was time to flex our conversation muscles. We endevored to get to know people…set our challenge…and reached our goal.
The evening started with people watching in a cafe near the main square. We lounged over tea for a good hour, watching the local scene. The streets come to life at night, with locals parading and strutting their stuff. We realized we repeatedly saw the same little man in a brown robewalking past…looking very much like a Jawa from Star Wars. Round and round he walked…appearing every 11 minutes or so. (yes, we timed him.) Finally intrigue won out and we went to see where he went exactly. Not more then 100meters into our espionage expedition we were stopped by a local boy looking to practice english.
Yussef fell quickly into conversation, asking us many questions about the US and the differences between our states (Joey is from Florida) and Morocco. He really wanted us to go get tea with him, but we already had hours of cafe time under our belts. Instead we made plans to meet this evening to further the conversation.
Next we met Abdul and Zakaria. We stopped on the street to look at a tiny kitty cat making an awful racket! No more then 1 month old, I’d venture, the kitty was meowing and screaming…I know not what else to call it. Suddenly there were two other spectators, Abdul and Zakaria. We got to talking and went to watch some of the musicians in the square. One gave us a front row seat and made us part of the show. (We were really the only foreigners milling about at this hour -around 12:30) He played directly to us, gave us mint tea during his show, and decided, when we were ready to leave, that the boys should leave me as a gift!!! All jokes aside, he played and interesting 4-string, local, guitar-like instrument that was really wonderful. I thouroughly enjoyed watching him.
We decided it was time to call it a night, but not before Zakaria and Abdul decided they must show us around the next day (today).
We met this morning, had breakfast and Abdul took us to the Royal Palace and then to his house for lunch with his family. We ate a delicious meal of tagine (really the name of the pot it’s cooked in -potatoes, chicken and spices) with bread and salad…and plenty of smiles and cheek kissing all around. Abdul’s family speaks French, Arabic and Berber. (And this is where I should probably mention Abdul and I communicate in Spanish and I translate for Joey when he does’t get the jist. Zakaria speaks English, as well as French, Arabic, Spanish and bits of various other languages!)
(Joe at Abdul’s house)
Next we went to Zakaria’s house where we drank more mint tea and listened to reggae music…helping Zakaria, where we could, understand some of the lines of the songs. Of course, there are times when I don’t understand reggae, even with the words printed out in front of me…but it was a fun project.
We all just parted ways for a bit of siesta and shower (it’s really, really hot here!) with plans to meet later to go to a bar or club.
It seemed overwhelming at first to meet locals…with the cultural differences, language barrier and so forth…but once we set our minds to it we did quite well. What started as a challenge to myself quickly developed into new friends. Again, the people here are intensely friendly. At first, it seems like they may have alterior motives…this thought a product of growing up in a very different culture… but there has been incredible levels of generosity here that I will not quickly forget.
Ahh…and one last, quick story. Riding in a cab back to the medina we shared a cab with a woman and her 1yr old daughter. The child was beautiful, with bright blue eyes that looked at us inquisitively. I said ‘bonjour’ and tried to engage her a bit but she just stared. Finally she climbed from her mother’s lap to mine to give me a big kiss on the cheek…and another when we about to get out of the cab. I can honestly say that nothing could be sweeter…my heart is officially warmed.
I hope that you may you all share a little bit of the smile that’s on my face right now…
Cheers…
*Liz
Tags: Morocco
LizG