Notes on Daily Moroccan Life

I learned, when being briefed on homestay behavior, that if your host family has a maid/cook, this person often eats the meal leftovers or gives it to her children. So, if that is the case, one must eat a small first plate, get seconds (you must eat more than one plate or it's offensive), and then leave some on the plate for the maid/cook and her family.

Moroccan food. Man. I don't even know where to begin. I guess I could start with the most important meal of the day, breakfast!! My host mom wakes up to make me and my roommate breakfast, and it never disappoints. It's common to eat cake for breakfast (yes, I mean actual cake... like birthday cake without the frosting), so we have had that pretty much every day, although the average Moroccan diet has SO MUCH sugar that I've started to develop canker sores and have thus avoided the cake in my breakfast. I eat fresh figs, orange slices, peaches, or grapes (sometimes all of the above), and these fruits are also the most common dessert food for after dinner. In fact, in darija, the word for "fruit" is just the French word for dessert. My host mom also makes us fried eggs, which is very uncommon here because they really only eat them hardboiled. Then there's msemmen, which is served at almost every meal, and is basically slightly sweet, flaky flatbread with a bit of salt. So simple, yet I've never tasted anything like it. I eat this with "Laughing Cow Cheese," which is also very popular here. It's a very balanced meal, as they all generally are. Perhaps heavy on the sugar and carbs, but I'm not complaining. My favorite dish is called pastilla, and is a chicken patty with powdered sugar on top. After the first bite, I thought it was weird, but after the second, I was in love.

In most Moroccan cities, the main meal is lunch, but in Rabat, usually both parents work, so their dinner is more significant. From what I've experienced, lunch and dinner start with a dish of salad (pronounced "shlah-duh"... un mot facile!) made up of sliced and halved cucumbers, and small pieces of tomato. Usually, pepper and a little (shweyya) garlic are also added for more flavor. That's my favorite part of Moroccan food. Its flavor. I've eaten a lot of good food in my 18 years, but nothing compares to the vast variety of strong and GOOD flavors that every element of every meal has. Then there are little personal dishes (usually, but sometimes communal) of delicious rice salads, sfoof (which is an almond-butter-ish texture, and comes in unappealing brown clumps, but tastes like heaven/honey and nuts), and little dishes of hardboiled eggs or cold eggplant salads. You must know that most of the food served will be consumed using bread rather than utensils. Even if forks and knives are readily available, bread will always reign superior/more popular. That said, each meal has at least 2 types of bread, also known as khubz.

The most famous main dishes are tagine and couscous. Tagine is technically a brown dish/plate, but anything inside is called tagine by default, and is almost always a sauce mixed with cooked vegetables and meat (l'hm). Because Eid, a major Muslim holiday, just happened, I have consumed a lot of tagine containing sheep and goat meat. I love my sheep babies at home, but their kind sure taste good.

Tea. I love the tea. I am served sugary tea at every breakfast and lunch, and also when I’m just visiting inside somebody’s home. It is sooooooooo good, and I am always in the mood for it. Sometimes I don’t know the flavor, but usually it’s mint (nana), and if you go to the Souq (the huge market here in Rabat), you will see huge bunches of mint leaves being sold there.

In the Moroccan countryside, most people use rocks to clean themselves after using the bathroom, rather than toilet paper. Others use their hands, and then wash their hands after. Toilet paper is just becoming a thing in the city because most bathrooms have bidets, or something of that sort. The family that I eat lunch with has a squat toilet (which is where I had my first good bathroom experience since arriving... 4 days previously), and next to it is a shower head which I assume acts as a bidet. I use the squat toilet, rinse the drain-type-thing with a bucket of water, and then use the kleenex that I carry around with me. I wouldn't know how to go about using the shower head...

Ablution is when Muslims wash their feet, hands, face, and ears before praying.

Because of the French influence on Moroccan life, it is custom to kiss everyone in the room on each cheek, sometimes multiple times. In my week of greeting people, I've found that most people choose to do one kiss on one cheek, and then either one or two on the second cheek. It's also rude to not give that greeting to everyone in the room when you enter, even though it can get super tedious. Although it is not always the case, I have found that females kiss other females and shake hands with males. But, some very devout Muslim men think it is haram (against Muslim law) to touch a female who isn't your wife, so instead of shaking your hand, they will put their hand on their chest which respectfully says, "salaam" (hello), but is much more conservative. The response is to mimic the gesture.

If you are a female and wear shorts in public in Rabat, it is likely that people will assume you are a prostitute or that your parents don't care about you. I packed 5 pairs of running shorts in hopes of joining a females-only gym, and my host mom says that I can wear them in the apartment as well, even though my host dad is around. He does not find it disrespectful at all, especially since his two daughters, Safa and Marwa, are my age and do the same.

The salon is the nicest room in the house because it's for guests. The salon in my host family's house is the most beautiful room I've ever entered. There are cushiony benches lining the walls, beautiful small tables for tea and helluwa (sweets), and colorful drapes and rugs. My host family in Sale has cushions and blankets lining the walls of their salon instead, and a coffee table that we all eat around.

Moroccans generally shower twice a week, sometimes every six days. Everybody is extremely careful with their electricity and water usage. For instance, the showers in my family’s apartment are only ever cold. We are constantly reminded to turn off the light when we leave a room, even if we are coming back in a minute. My host sisters lay in their beds in the dark while on their phones because they don’t need the light. Whenever I leave my room for the day, I unplug all of my electronics (which is just my phone charger, but still... I can’t forget).