I Don't Want to Impose

            This past week my parents came to visit!  I’d been missing them, and home in general, a lot the past weeks, so our sojourn through the 1^st world in Morocco made a welcome break.  Travelling with me allowed them to see parts of Morocco and parts of Moroccan culture that most tourists never get a chance to see.  Travelling with them allowed me to see the Moroccan tourist industry that I can often forget exists here in my corner of the Middle Atlas.  It also let me try my hand at translating, which, I discovered, is both a very challenging and very rewarding activity.  A lot of times my parents would ask questions of my host families about subjects which I’d never asked about, and so I’d have to think hard to find ways of expressing ideas I’ve never had to talk about, or find ways to talk around a word I didn’t know.  Through it I learned a lot.

            I met my parents in Fes.  I’ve been growing out a beard, and wearing my newly bought djellaba (traditional Moroccan robe, you may remember that a few weeks ago in Marrakech I had a second story about buying things in the souk, it was the djellaba story, which I’ll tell below), I hoped to sneak up on them unawares.  Of course it didn’t work; my mom recognized me for me when I was still quite a ways away.  In Fes we explored the old medina and, of course, visited my host family from training.  My two mothers, host and birth, got along instantly despite the complete lack of common language, and soon my host mother was calling my mom her sister.  My families talked quite a bit through me (I was actually quite surprised by how well I was able to facilitate communication), but there was one fascinating moment, which illustrates an important point about the different ways Moroccans and Americans think about guests.  After we’d been at the house for several hours, drinking gallons of tea and eating pound after pound of delicious food my dad, still a little jet lagged, started to need a nap.  They offered to let him sleep there, but he said that he didn’t want to impose.  I realized than that I don’t know the word for “impose” in Arabic.  I’m sure there is one, but when I tried to explain the concept to my host family they did not get it.  Imposing here isn’t something that a welcome guest can easily do.

            On our last day up north we went and explored the ancient Roman ruin of Volubilis.  Volubilis was Rome’s provincial capitol in this part of the world and is located quite close to the Moroccan city of Meknes, about an hour out of Fes.  What makes Volubilis a great site today are the massive amount of beautiful mosaics left in place, something you don’t often see at this scale in European sites.  It was a great side trip, but as usual I have to let the pictures do the talking.

            After Fes we went down to my village, travelling in a grand taxi where my parents bought out all the seats, a far more comfortable experience than the typical grand taxi ride where there are six passengers.  My host family in town fed us lunch, cous cous followed by a tagine followed by pomegranates.  My parents were quite stuffed.  Later we stopped by the artisanal cooperative where my host mother and my English students taught my parents all about the traditional Amazight arts they do there.  I was actually a little stunned, I didn’t know how accomplished some of my younger students are.  One of them, just sixteen, showed us a kaftan (traditional gown, mainly for weddings) she’d recently finished—it could easily sell in a shop.  Hopefully it will soon.  After meeting my boss I took my parents to my regular café where we met up with my English-speaking friends, finally giving me a break from long days of translating.  One thing that struck my parents was the realization that one of my friends had had from hosting couch surfers.  He’d realized, in a way that Americans take for granted because we grow up with it, that people with different backgrounds really do live in very different ways and that his culture was just as abnormal to them as theirs was to him.  We take it for granted in America that everyone knows this, but, of course, in a country like Morocco this is not something that naturally occurs to kids as they grow up.  People, at least in the countryside, have to have a special moment to learn it.

The Badi Palace in Marrakech

            The next day we went down to Marrakech, which I have to say I liked a whole lot better on the return trip.  Part of it was that this time I got to see more of the sites and get a better feel for the markets.  Another part is that the weather was less hazy, so we could see the high Atlas Mountains from most of the city, whereas last time I’d just assumed the mountains were too far away to see.  This time we saw the ruined, 13^th century Badi palace, the nearby Saadian tombs, the fabulous 19^th century Bahia palace, a medieval madrassa more striking than either in Fes, and of course the market.  Again, of course, pictures will do most of the work describing it.

Saadian Tombs

Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakech's chief mosque

My dad at the Bahia Palace

            I don’t believe I’ve ever given a description of the process of shopping in a Moroccan medina.  It is completely centered around the process of haggling over a price, in the most polite way possible.  I’ve found, in the past, that I’m not particularly good at it—I give up too early—but this time, with my parents’ money, I was quite effective.  I guess I’m better when not shopping for myself because the fact that I really want the thing doesn’t cloud my judgment.  The bargaining process almost always begins with the seller naming a price way too high for the item (this is not always the case, that rug seller I talked about in my last post in Fes gave my parents such a good price on a rug that we didn’t haggle at all, and then he threw in a couple of blankets on top of it.  He also offered me cous cous next time I’m in Fes).  Let’s say, in this case, it’s my djellaba, just because it is one of my better bargaining stories. 

I replied that 600 dirhams was far too much, I am a poor volunteer and can’t afford prices like that.  He emphasized the superior quality of this djellaba, and showed some of his cheaper ones to make the point.  It’s very nice, I agreed, but I am still poor.  He offered 500 dirhams.  I still couldn’t afford that.  Well, what could I afford?  How about 250 (a ridiculously low price, but he knew I knew that)?  He couldn’t do that; he claimed he wouldn’t make a profit.  He offered 450, which I said was still too much.  See, look, it doesn’t really fit me all that well, I will need modifications done.  He will do them for free, and it was just 400 dirhams.  I was sorry, but it was still too much.  I started to walk out of the shop, slowly.  He let me get about ten feet away (a little further away than most times, I was nervous), and came out offering 350.  Deal.  This seller was very funny; afterwards he complimented my Arabic and asked if I was Muslim.  When I answered no he said I should convert so that I could go up to heaven and meet nice people.  People, he said, not like himself!  I paid half then and the next returned the next day to pick it up with the modifications, and after a brief moment where he pretended not to remember me we laughed over the long haggle, I paid and and departed wearing my new robe. 

This process is continued ad naseum every time you buy something.  Sometimes it lasts quite a long time—my new pleated belt was such a fierce fight I thought I actually might be cheating the guy, but he was smiling at the end.  That probably means it’s the only time I’ve actually gotten the real price.

 

The Madras

       

          My Arabic shocked quite a lot of people on this trip.  The hotels my parents took us to are unused to Americans who can speak Arabic, and I think that they really got a kick out of the butchered attempts I made at their language.  I find that my language is actually at its best in Fes, probably because that’s where I initially learned it.  In fact, in Fes people will often ask me if I study in the university there (many Americans and Europeans do).  Generally they’ll address me in Fusha (Modern Standard Arabic), because that is what most Americans who do know Arabic know.  They are doubly surprised when I ask them to use Moroccan Darija with me.  One somewhat surprising observation, while the men were always very excited to hear me speaking Darija and wanted to have conversations only a few of the female employees of the hotels were all that interested in speaking more.  I wonder if they thought I was trying to flirt with them.

The High Atlas

            After Marrakech we travelled on to Essaouira, a beautiful portside city that has a fabulously complicated history.  A Frenchman from Brittany built the fortifications under the pay of a Moroccan sultan, so the city looks, at times, as if it would fit in on the English Channel, but with a Moroccan medina thrown in the middle.  The sultan, so impressed by the mix of styles, named it Essaouira, or well built (at least according to the Lonely Planet guide).  For a long time it was a Portuguese possession, named Mogador, and during the French protectorate it reverted to that name.  Jimi Hendrix, along with other hippies and beatniks, visited it in the 60s, and it has been a popular haven for western artists, musicians, and hipsters ever since.  I’ll let the pictures explain why, though if I could share the taste of the fresh fish and seafood the pictures would be out of the job.

Lunch

Mom watches the port

Look at that surf

            Now I’m back in site, and I’m excited to finally really get to work once this weekend’s holiday is over.  I’d leave you with a Joha story, but the only one I’ve heard recently is much to dirty to post.  Yes, dirty.  I didn’t know it until the other day, but there are some quite smutty Joha stories, along with the family friendly ones I’ve been telling.  As I want this blog to remain PG I’ll instead leave you with a guarantee that I’ll find another story for next post!