Notes on My Daily Moroccan Life, Part 8.

How many seeds do you think there are in big pomegranate? 100? 500? According to Google, there are over 600. Why are you sharing this fact with us, Madeleine? How, oh how, could this ever be relevant to your life in Morocco? Well, let me tell you. Pomegranates are in season right now, which means my host mom is buying a lot of them. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. The other day, she handed me one to eat and I commented on how red and juicy the seeds were. Then she cut open another pomegranate and convinced me that it was even redder. Then the third one was even juicier. The 4th one was the prettiest that she had ever seen -- “look how the light hits it!” So what does all of that mean? I ate 4 huge pomegranates. Over 2400 seeds. And it was delicious.

At home in America, my parents always called me a slob because I spill food everywhere. Imagine this: there’s a nice, hot frozen meal in the microwave. It’s ready. I go to take it out, and within a second, the container is facedown on the ground and my food is no longer safe to eat. The sauce is everywhere. That is normal in my life. All of that information is for frame of reference, so you know how crazy it is when I say that my sweet elderly host mom is messier than me. When she eats pomegranates, somehow half of them end up on the floor and my host sister reprimands her because she cleaned the floor yesterday! Come on! If we are eating pomegranate seeds and my host sister isn’t there, then my host mom will drop some on the floor, search for them halfheartedly, give up, and tell me that I didn’t see anything. When my host mom eats couscous, some ends up in her eyebrows. I kid you not. I love her!!!

There’s a kid in my class who is (jokingly? I think?) very in love with me. We’ll call him Ahmed. He is super short and a nice kid, and every day he proposes to me, tells me that he loves me in 3 languages, etc. When I say that I don’t have the papers (for him to be American through marriage… I’m joking with him), he tells me that he loves me for me. It’s so funny. In class, he blows me kisses, and the other day, one of my male friends made a heart with his hands to me and Ahmed gasped so loudly and dramatically, I cried of laughter. I know that my last post about the #meanies may have concerned some of my readers, but I assure you that some people do like me. Maybe too much!

I befriended a lady in my gym the other day because somebody’s phone was on the counter and she asked me (in German) if it was mine. I AM NOT GERMAN!!! Anyways, that common assumption aside, apparently she used to be an English teacher and now she works for the UN. She even went to a UN meeting in NYC 3 years ago! She was super kind to me and curious about why I chose Morocco, and then this sweet sweet stranger said that she’s proud of me because Darija is hard and I am so young. Little interactions like this make my day.

Some kids talk about generally-taboo things in the Muslim world, like sex and drugs, but some kids are super conservative. It really depends on the person. For instance, in school the other day, one boy was throwing a pen cap at the boy who sits in front of me. One of the caps hit me in the head, so I pretended to be mad and threw it back. It went back and forth for a bit, and then the cap landed on my boob and kinda stayed there. The kid was MORTIFIED. He stopped throwing the pen cap, and later messaged me to apologize. He first apologized in Darija and I know how to say apologies, but assumed that I was wrong in reading it as one because he hadn’t done anything wrong. So I asked for clarification, and in English, he said, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done today.” I thought the situation was hilarious, but he felt so bad. Everybody’s different.

In this culture, if you invite someone out, you must pay for them. I heard this a while ago, but because I mostly just go to my friends’ universities, hang out with them in school, or hang out with my language partner at program-funded events, I had forgotten about this rule. Well, the other day, Mira met a nice university girl who invited her to coffee. Mira generally invites me and Leah along to things as well, so we came too, and suddenly this girl was paying for all of our coffees/sodas and our shared crepe. I felt very weird about this and she refused to accept our money, so instead Mira was smart and said that next time we’d invite her out somewhere expensive.

Allow me to set the scene. It’s 8:45am, Saturday morning. Amideast, Kids 2 English Class. I hear “Teacher Madeleine!” and walk over to the child. He puts his hands around my ear and whispers, “there is so much mafia in America.” He is very proud of himself. I tell him, “Yes, there is.” The end.

Things I miss:

Gum (that doesn’t lose its flavor after 40 seconds)

Running outside

My pig

Wearing tank tops and shorts in public

Getting my eyebrows threaded (doing things to your eyebrows is haram)

G2 pens

Driving a car

The other day, my language partner pulled me aside when I was hanging in her university’s art club and gave me two gifts. One was a small piece of soft bark that she said I should soak in water for 5 minutes, then use to scrub my teeth because it’s very healthy for them. A cool cultural gift. The second was an empty notebook, which she explained will be my homework notebook. I must write about my day, every two days, in Darija Arabic, and send her a photo so she can correct it and also give me advice, etc. Then, she gave me the greatest gift of all: a reminder of what matters and what doesn’t! She said that I should go to sleep every day comparing myself to who I was yesterday, and that’s it. She said that she is proud of me for coming to Morocco at all, nevermind learning the language and staying here for so long. I have a very VERY good support system here. I’ve never had anything close to a sister (except Anna Walewski… love you!) but my language partner is like my sister. I am so appreciative!!!

It has rained a lot lately, and it has made me indescribably happy. Yesterday, it was pouring rain all day long, and every time there was thunder, we could hear all the younger kids in the classes downstairs screaming their heads off. It was hilarious. Plus, rainy days in cities all look the same, with taxis splashing through puddles and tons of umbrellas bobbing down the street, so for just a second, I felt like I was in New York City.