Notes on My Daily Moroccan Life, Part 7.

While teaching English to the youngins last week, we were learning description vocabulary for people like “tall,” “skinny” etc. and the kids learned “hair” and said “Teacher Madeleine has hair limuni” (limuni = orange) and started chanting, “hair limuni” over and over again. It was so ridiculous and funny.

Last week, Jeremy and I were walking from school to our lecture in Agdal and a man ran across a busy street, yelling something at us. He was mumble-yelling in multiple languages like he was drunk, and what I understood was that he wanted our photo. I thought he meant a photo with us, so I said “la” (“no” in Darija) without making eye contact and kept walking. He aggressively lunged toward us and yelled “pourquoi” (“why” in French), and then Jeremy realized he may have been asking Jeremy for the photo that he just took of the shrub clippings on the street, so he stopped to try to clarify what the man wanted. But, more than that, he was giving me a way out. Jeremy is the only male in our exchange group so he’s heard us all talk about creepy men who have bothered us, and knew that this aggressive, probably mentally-ill man was making me really uncomfortable as a female. I walked away and looked back at them every now and then to make sure Jeremy was okay, but Jeremy is much bigger than this guy and they were in plain sight of everybody driving down the busy street, so I figured Jeremy was fine if I left completely. Especially since they were walking slowly in my direction and I did not want to have to interact with this guy. I met up with Jeremy later, who said that the guy was indeed not very sane, and that he was glad I left quickly when I had the chance, but that he was fine. Name a nicer kid than Jeremy. You can’t.

Anyways, after this, we had a cultural course at Amideast together, where Jeremy recounted what happened and our teacher Colleen asked us why we felt like we owed it to people on the street to respond. Apparently it’s a very American thing to want to be polite and say thank-you when strangers on the street call you pretty, or answer questions like “where are you from,” and I really never considered this before. Colleen said that most people in the world ignore strangers, and that Americans are the exception.

In other news, I was walking down the street in downtown Rabat, trying to find a movie theater where I was meeting a couple of my Moroccan friends. All of the sudden, this Moroccan guy, a few years older than me, starts walking next to me and asking "ca va?" over and over again. I don't respond, and after a few seconds he says, “my sexual preference is ginger,” as if the G in LGBTQ is Ginger. I accidentally laughed (so much for not acknowledging people harassing me on the street), and he asked if I was lost. I thought he would assume yes if I didn’t respond and then try to help me, so instead I said, in full Darija, “no, I know where I’m going and I’m late. Please leave.” And he did! Just another weird encounter in the life of me.

One of my greatest feats in Morocco has been making my elderly host mom laugh until she cried. The other day, she was talking about a ditzy former student that she hosted, and I was trying to figure out what word she was using (it was the Moroccan word for ditzy) so I moved my head around and rolled by eyes back a bit and asked if that’s what she meant. That movement was apparently very funny to her, and then she did it so I was laughing as hard as she was, and then we both kept doing it until we were crying into our salads.

Also, the other day she asked what I learned in school, so I looked her in the eye, straight-faced, and said the Darija equivalent of “shameful words.” She knew that I meant “bad words” (I could have said that, but chose not to for reasons I can’t articulate), and thought that my alternative wording was hilarious. Then, this sweet older woman asked me to tell her what bad words I learned. While sitting at the dinner table, eating food that God had blessed. So naturally, I did. I told her the Darija equivalent of “go f*ck yourself” and “balls,” and both times she laughed really hard, repeated them a few times, and then said, “never say those again.” It was a very entertaining experience.

The temperature has dropped a tiny bit this week (it’s not 75 degrees instead of 78-80) and everybody is wearing down jackets, acting like they’re going to get frostbite. Meanwhile, I’m still dripping sweat in class.

I did a difficult ab workout in my gym the other day and I forgot to do one exercise with my left abs and obliques so the next day, my right side was extremely sore and I thought I had appendicitis. I do not. I am a fool.

My SVT teacher at school likes to pick on me and ask questions that put me in a tough position, like what I think of my peers when they fall asleep in class, or if I understand anything that he’s saying because I “always look confused” (bored, sir; I’m always BORED in SVT because I’ve taken bio and AP bio… I’m not confused), so I always assumed he thought I was stupid. BUT, the other day I was talking to the director of my school in the hallway and my SVT teacher approached and told him -- the principal! -- that my Darija had improved a lot! Definitely a highlight.