Today I woke up and had my first successful poop. It was interesting. It makes me want Turkish toilets. Its so much easier to squat because everything just comes out right away. I also realized that eating with your hands is much more amazing than with a fork. It’s similar to being barefoot in the grass. You feel more connected. You enjoy it more. The food tastes better when eaten with the hand.
Food is eaten off of one big plate in the center of the table. Its really cool because it is a communal plate and everyone eats with their hands. Everything is about sharing in a way. Rooms are shared. No one has their own room. There is just one big living area with a couch lining the walls and a table in the middle. You sit on the couch and eat. You push the table away and sleep. At night, everyone sleeps on the couches as if it is their bed, head to toe.
The act of sharing is very central here. Nothing is yours. You are not as attached to your things as we would be. Of course this must be taken loosely because people still have their own dress or something like this. But in general, if you leave something about, it is not yours, it is everyone’s.
Another aspect of sharing is public utilities in the neighborhood. There is a public oven where people can go if they do not have their own oven. You bring your baked goods, pre-made, and then they bake it for you there. Similarly, there is a public shower known as the Hamam. It is were everyone goes to bathe. Yes there is water and they can wash themselves at home from a bucket, but the Hamam is a group activity, a place where everyone can go and use the facility. They go together and wash one another, men and women separate.
Arabic Words
Coolee- eat
Baraka- that is enough
Today we walked around the town of Azrou. It’s beautiful. It’s full of browns and tans, the streets and the buildings. The houses climb up the mountainside and the mountains themselves tower over and around the place. As you go down toward the center of town it becomes very chique with cafes and little boutiques yet still with its own Moroccan accents. The view is beautiful. Walking around in the day was incredible but in the evening as the sun was settings between the mountains all of the people came out of their houses and the town came to life. Kids played soccer in the streets, mothers and babies were walking around, men sitting at cafes talking and drinking coffee. The sun is hot during the day, so life, even business, can sometimes start later in the day and go all night, explaining the idea of dinner at 3 am. More beautiful than people coming to life, a land full of green trees and tan ground slowly turning golden. The evening prayer call sounds and you truly know youre in an incredibly beautiful place: a picturesque world.
Anass, his brother Amine, Sam, and I walked until the sun had set and then sat at a café to enjoy Poms, a Moroccan apple soda. We talked about politics and the view that the world has on the Muslim world. We talked about the congruity between religions and how through time it is politics that has corrupted these things. It is believing the words of our government that has led us to make assumptions about one part of the world when we wont even take action in other areas of the world if it doesn’t benefit us politically (par exemple North Korea and Nazi Germany).
I also realized through listening to Anass talk about politics in his third language (English) that the only thing stopping me from being fluent in French is that I have doubts that I am fluent. In the U.S. we think that it is necessary to perfect something before trying it. We teach language as something to be practiced after you have learned it. Anass speaks with confidence even though he makes grammar errors. He keeps talking. He doesn’t stop and think. He gets his point across and I completely understand him. My French isn’t as expansive as his English but I know the rules of grammar and how to speak already with structure. It doesn’t matter. Just speak it. So that’s what is happening, what has been happening, and what will continue to happen. I feel comfortable and ready to speak French whenever because I know the language well.
Tonight for dinner we ate some amazing food. It was like spaghetti noodles, chopped up with cinnamon, sugar and a ground up nut paste. It was delicious. Every bite I couldn’t help to continue exclaiming…mmmmmm!!!
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