Coffee and cigarettes

October 12 11:30pm
(A warning: I do bad things in this. Dance mommies.... don’t let your dance kids read this).
In Morocco, the proverb “This too shall pass” will only get you so far. Sometimes, you just get down. Like when your family won’t talk to you, and when your sister, who used to be your friend and giggle with you about boys, hasn’t really spoken to you in a week and gets perennially upset whenever you need her to translate rapid Arabic for you. Yeah, so Morocco can be tough sometimes.
But that’s when friends enter, and save the day I was having just such an icky night (family not talking and Fati being ridiculously moody; we’ll let that all slide........ they were fasting), and I decided to text-message Katie-from-Brooklyn to save me. Katie-from-Brooklyn is a ball of sunshine who takes great joy in describing in detail her “Egyptian” disease (that nice vomit/diarrhea thing) and her Moroccan sister’s 14-day constipation. “Poop ” It’s just a funny word. It’s especially grand when you over emphasize the “ooooo” and make the final “p” sound like a mix between “p” and “b”. Try it. It’s fun.
(Tangent: Katie’s Egyptian disease has subsided, and her sister finally pooped today, praise Allah. Katie recounted the story to me:
“So I went home today, and my sister told me she had pooped.
“Hamdulilah Was it amazing? ? Did the poop just rocket out of you?” she acted out her excitement. Katie is always excited, and always makes me laugh when she says poop.
“It was okay,” her sister said, awkwardly.)
So Katie and I took a walk and I vented about my moody Moroccan family, and we ended up at a sidewalk café on Mohammad II (for those who are interested, this café is situated right next to the trucks holding all the film equipment for Leo’s latest movie; we sat across from the balcony where they filmed a scene yesterday). We are brash young American girls, and so we sat on the sidewalk. Only Moroccan men sit on the sidewalk; it is their realm. We got over that a long time ago, and decided the men would as well.
We ordered café au laits and lit up.
“Thank you so much ” I cried. “I told myself I wouldn’t smoke in Morocco, but God I needed a cigarette.”
“I knew it right when you texted me,” she said. “It was just time for a cigarette.”
“No kidding,” I said, blowing smoke up into the night air. I love watching smoke as it comes out of my mouth. And I loved that cigarette. Oh how good it was.
We talked and laughed about poop and annoying people and Moroccan men and life in general. Rebecca from Oklahoma joined us and we talked about exorcisms and possessions and good and evil energy and mediums, we laughed and talked about sex....... I shant neglect to mention that.
It was a wonderful evening, made superb by an hour long conversation with Marcie on Skype.
The power of coffee and cigarettes and conversations should never be underestimated.