I'll have to do some academic-type analyzation of it, if it is to be part of my project.
Whether or not it makes it in, it's kind of funny all the same.
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“Guess who just passed us without saying hello?” Carly asked in a disgusted tone of voice used only when speaking about Rachid.
* * *
I met Rachid my second week in Rabat. He complimented me on the djellaba I was wearing, which wasn’t a djellaba at all, only a dress. He tried to woo me with his English and his charm; I don’t know why I gave him the time of day. I guess I was just in a good mood that night, and decided that I wouldn’t ignore this street harasser. Now I kind of wish I had.After meeting him, Carly and I saw him and his various Italian-speaking friends a few more times. He knew that Carly spoke Italian, so whenever he wanted to meet up with me, he’d be sure to bring an Italian-speaker along. I wouldn’t go anywhere without Carly, and he wanted to see me, so there would always be another awkward Moroccan in tow. We made a strange quartet. Carly and I were never really interested in the guys, and Rachid always made his pre- and mis-conceptions of American women and us in general painfully clear. We would always have to “go Skype our families” or “do homework.” “Can we have coffee later?” we’d smile. Each and every time we avoided a coffee date, we thought that Rachid would get sick of our annoying and mischievous ways, but he never seemed to.
Once, we saw him in the medina with another white foreign girl, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to say hello. After he had walked past us, ignoring our existences, I text messaged him. “Better luck this time, insha’Allah.” It was a bitchy thing to say, but sometimes acting like a fifteen year old feels good.
* * *
Carly whispered to me, “Guess that text message worked.” I laughed under my breath, and then, who should walk up behind us, but...speaking of the devil.
“Hi,” Rachid said. “Oh, hi,” I forced a smile. He was both sheepish and pissed — a combination I couldn’t pull off if I tried —, acting like we hadn’t wanted to say hello. “You didn’t have to walk by without saying hello.” “What? Us not say hello? You were passing us by.” Carly brought up the time in the medina when he had ignored us while he was with another girl. He denied all accusations.
Seeing an opportunity to use him as a research subject, I smiled coquettishly and apologized for the mean text message I had sent. While he said, “No, I liked it. It was cynical,” he kept referring to it and treating me like I was just-like-all-the-other-obnoxious-two-faced-American-girls. At least he got that right. I was being a two-faced American girl, but I found no ethical problem in this. He had been “shady” ever since we had met him, making fun of how we talked, our American-ness (which we tried to shed in no small way while attempting to assimilate into Morocco), and the 8:00pm curfews which our host families had imposed and to which we held strongly. We weren’t going to break our families’ rules just to have coffee with some mean, macho Moroccan. Sorry, Rachid. It wasn’t gonna happen.
He remained cynical the entire time he was with us. If he was still mad at me, why would he want to follow us to a café? “We’re going to this café to do homework,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me you’re doing homework,” he spat. “No, really,” Carly said. “We brought our computers so we could steal the wireless and do research on the internet.” He complained about never having coffee with me. “You can come, if you want,” I said, trying to smile against near impossible odds. “We are going to be working, but you’re welcome to come.”
The things we’ll do to obtain information for our ISP’s.
I tried to make small talk with him about his family, his life, his trip to the south. I asked him about his mother and brothers, to which he responded,
“What. First you send me a nasty text message and now you’re asking about my family?”
“I’m trying to be friendly,” I said. “If you don’t want to talk, I’ll do my work.”
“No, it’s fine,” he wasn’t even trying to be convincing. “It’s fine.”
He asked about my research, and I delighted in making him uncomfortable when I used the word “sex”. “Sex” is the same in French and English, so the people working and sitting in the café knew what we were talking about. Didn’t bother me to use the word, but his moody went from sour to bitter.
I told him I was originally interviewing young women, but decided that I needed young men’s opinions as well. “Well, you can ask me,” he said. “Are you sure?” I smiled. “Yeah, it’s fine.” Yes, I thought. I had my “in”. All I needed was his permission.
I showed him my questionnaire, and when he read the question, “Do you flirt with women in the street? Do you try to get their attention?”, I told him about how offensive we American women found street harassment.
“Why do you think Moroccan men do that?” I asked, in the most non-accusatory voice I could muster. “I mean, some of it is fine, but then there are the times when they grab us by the arm or step right in front of us, and that’s really offensive.”
“They do it because they want to pick girls up. Moroccan women like it,” he said, matter-of-factly.
I could hear Carly holding down laughter. She kind of snorted. I kept my eyes locked on him, and somehow managed not to laugh myself.
“Really? They like it?” I asked.
“Yeah. They don’t want to get picked up in bars, so they like to get picked up in the street. They’re just playing hard to get.”
In my head, I both chuckled and struggled to hold down the vomit. Ewwww, I didn’t like him.
The “interview”, if one could call it that, ended with him again questioning my new-found friendly feelings towards him. (At least he’s smart in that respect). I thanked him for spending time with us, and he glared at me while he said, “Everyone knew what we were talking about.” “Oh well,” I smiled back.
He went to the waiter and paid for his coffee (the waiter looked incredulous when Rachid didn’t pay for kulshee — all — of the coffees), and high-tailed it out of there.
I don’t think I’ll see him again. But at least now I know why some Moroccan men won’t ever stop harassing women in the streets:
“The women like it.”
Right.
