Gouda's Cheesewheel

Morocco April 9

Sorry I haven't written since I got back to Rabat on Thursday. Mostly I've been reading the books I brought along: Neopatriarchy and Beyond the Veil; not the most stimulating titles but Beyond the Veil is actually pretty inspiring in my opinion. I brought Neopatriarchy along to the country but never got the chance to read it--too many small children following me EVERYWHERE. But lets see, I guess you'll all want to hear a little about the Moroccan rural community at large (and if you don't, skip to the next paragraph). If you happen to have a Moroccan map handy, the village where we stayed was just outside of the town of Boujad, where most of the youth attended school (if they attended school at all). By "village", I really mean "loose cluster of houses in the countryside," but it essentially functioned as a village since everyone knew each other. To give you an idea, the most common means of long-distance communication was yelling from the tops of hillls (although I spotted some youths with cell phones, too). We students stayed 2 to a family. We have mostly girls in our group, but I took one for the team and stayed in the household that had agreed to host one boy and one girl. The boy was my friend Steve, so it wasn't so bad, except that he can really get on a person's nerves sometimes, so I was glad we lived right next to the house where Emina and Liz were staying (our host fathers were brothers). Both the families had four children each, only my family only had one boy (the youngest) and I could tell that he was valued above the girls. It made me angry when I finally realized this. From what I could gather, only one of the girls attended school. Somewhat humorous and somewhat sad, they tried to offer me their other girls (two seperate occasions). I think they were kidding, but somehow I suspect that if I'd accepted, I'd now have an adopted sister/daughter accompanying me on my return trip. Hard to tell. To our good fortune, there happened to be a wedding in the village the weekend that we arrived. This was exciting for me since I'm doing my project on weddings, except that is wasn't exciting when I actually got there; lots of food and sitting around in big rooms full of women. Traditional community, so there was a lot of sex segregation in situations like that (i.e. the men where in a seperate tent). Later I learned that if I'd come back in the evening, I'd have seen dancing and exciting things. I was angry that I hadn't come back. Other events of the week included chasing down a runaway cow, consuming lots of tea and dairy products, throwing a lot of rocks, and trying desperately to understand what my family was saying (usually to no avail). I cried once or twice. It was hot most of the time. But now I appreciate Rabat oh-so-much. And I am riddled with liberal guilt. And my digestive system is not at peace, but I guess that's almost normal.

So, new paragraph for those who skipped the last one. Yesterday went to the bazarre (it's a special event, I guess) with my mother in search of a scarf and baboosh (shoes) to match my new djellabah. Found a scarf, but no baboosh On the topic of weddings, there was one last night in our neighborhood. Two, actually. I heard that Sophia and Meryem had gone in so I threw on my djellabah and scarf and attempted unsuccessfully to join them; the lack of success was mostly due to my inability to tell which wedding they had entered, and my apprehension to just go in without first spotting them. I have no concept of wedding decorum here, so needless to say I was a little scared. In any case I gave up and ended up wandering the streets with Khadija, thinking maybe they hadn't gone to the wedding at all and that we might find them. Eventually ran into Abdellah and went back home. I was disappointed and embarrassed. Late at night I heard music and I went out into the street in time to see the bridal procession walking away (around here that amounts to a group of people surrounding/following the bride, who is carried in a sparkling basket-type thing and dressed in all sorts of finery), so I felt that was almost adequate retribution.

Well, I've other things to say but they're in no particular order and I've already talked everyone's face off I think. I'm nervous/antsy for ISP time. I don't want to leave my host family but at the same time I do. Tension. Rawr. Well, until next time, Adieu.

Much love and missing EVERYTHING
Greta

posted by Greta @ 6:06 AM