The best day thus far (September 12)

September 12
It is times like these that I love Morocco the most.

I left the tea reception at the CCCL around 6:25 because I told Fati I would be home by 6:30 so we could go to the hammam. I start walking, and decide that I’m courageous enough and have an inner compass good enough to go an entirely new way through the medina, hoping to meet up with Avenue Mohammad V. I start walking and taking random turns, all of which I think will lead me to Mohammad V. They don’t. I get lost and make it to a dead end of Impasse Ben Barka or something like that. Two little boys are sitting on the side of the street trying out French phrases they’ve heard older boys yell at girls who pass by. There's no one else around, so they're my only source of help. I decide to ask them where Mohammad V is. “Mohammad Chamsa?” I inquire. They look at me skeptically. “Shnu?”they ask. “What?” I repeat myself, and the littlest boy looks at me like I’m crazy and points straight and then to the right. I repeat the gesture and he nods. Off I go.

I make it to another very large street, this time one that I recognize; it’s the “food souk” that Carly has to walk down to get home. I look both ways but by this point I’m so disoriented I can’t decide which way to start walking. A man in the street makes eye contact with me and looks like he has decided not to harass me but to keep walking. A perfect opportunity to ask for help, I thought. I began to move toward him and he stopped in the street. I repeated the same query I had asked the boys, “Mohammad chamsa?” “Mohammad V?” he replies, in English. “Yes,” I said, a little exasperated, but in more of a joyful, laughing at myself way than a nervous one. “Where is it?” “Oh,” he said. “You go left, and then straight.” “Left and then straight?” “Yes,” he said. I smiled and thanked him profusely (hamdullah he spoke English), and started walking.

This path didn’t appear familiar either, but with no other options than to keep walking or look stupid asking someone else where Mohammad V was, I just decided upon the former. I would keep walking and hopefully find Mohammad V. I laughed inside, a lot. People seemed to be getting used to the presence of American students in their streets. I didn’t get harassed as much nor did I get as many looks. (My hair was pulled back and out of the way, so this may have been the reason for the lack of ridiculous amounts of attention). I finally made it to Mohammad V, and when I did, I started walking the wrong way—towards Hassan II, where our hotel was. I almost made it to Marche Central, the European market, when I figured out home was the opposite way.

I turned around and made it home fairly quickly, laughing at my mistakes and enjoying the cool night air.

Around 7:30 Fati and Zeinab and I started off for the hammam with buckets and soap, shampoo and towels. It took us 30 minutes to walk the 100 yards to the hammam because Fati met her brother and two best friends, Chaoula and Ali, in the street. They talked forever, and very rapidly, with lots of clicks and rolls of the tongue, guttural ch’s and hard clicks deep in the throat. (Watching darija conversations amongst young people really is fascinating. They’re loud and excited and place great emphasis on different parts of their speech; the older generation is milder in their manner of talking). Zeinab and I made jokes and giggled in Darija-glish, our new hybrid of language. Katie, JP, and Mike from school passed by while we stood as Fati was chatting, so I was able to demonstrate to Zeinab that I’m not some strange quiet American but that I really do have friends and really do talk when I can communicate. Katie was headed to another hammam with Julia, while JP and Mike were trying to figure out where they live. (Many of the students still have trouble figuring out exactly where they live; they don’t sell maps to the medina, and none of us have yet developed a good sense of where things are. Getting lost is really fun, though, because you discover different nooks and crannies that you had no idea existed before).

The hammam
The hammam was a wonderful experience; definitely one of the highlights of my time in Morocco so far. It was while I was sitting butt-naked on the tiny white stool in the hammam that I thought to myself, “Hey, I could get used to this.” And by “this” was not only meant the hammam and being naked (which is super fun and liberating), but the rhythm of life in Morocco. I love walking from place to place with medina-dwellers and stopping about 20 times before we reach the destination so they can say Salaam aleikum to and kiss the cheeks of everyone they know who passes. I'm going to start a naked public bath, kissing in public movement in America when I get home. (haha!)
The hammam is an incredibly relaxing experience. Women take off their hijab and gossip; they complain about problems at home and relieve some of the tension of their lives. They scrub each other and wipe away all the dirt and dead skin that rests on their bodies. Tonight Fati scrubbed me, and large rolls of dead skin the size of cooked rotini pasta fell from my arms, legs, and back. Kind of gross. The process was a little harsh but pleasurable at the same time. Now my skin feels like a baby’s bottom.

On the way home from the hammam we passed some of the Ayad family’s neighbors — two women and a two year old boy named Suleiman. Zeinab immediately picked him up and started playing with him, cooing, “Suleiman, Suleiman.” Fati talked to the two women. Soon Zeinab had convinced Suleiman to kiss her cheek (the command was “Bes’hha”, I believe), and brought him over to me to kiss me as well. “Suleiman zweyn”, I said to him, and kissed his forehead. (Zweyn means beautiful and a whole slew of other positive adjectives). “Bes’hha”, Zeinab said, and held him close to my face. He was shy, but finally kissed my cheek, which sent both Zeinab and I into a cacophony of clapping and “mez-yaan” (good).
Suleiman and his mother live in our apartment building, so we said goodbye to the other neighbor and began walking home. Suleiman held Zeinab’s right hand in his left, and reached out to grab my left hand in his right. I don’t think I’ve been as happy since arriving in Morocco as I was at that moment to be walking home hand-in-hand with two-year-old Suleiman. He kept smiling up at me and holding both our hands tightly so he could jump high in the air. We walked him to his apartment and said goodnight.

A beautiful day
Today was a very good day, both in terms of weather and in terms of my general temperament. I was quiet and solemn and more internal than I’ve been since the beginning of Morocco, but it felt good to be that way. I wanted to read, I wanted to write, I wanted to study. I just wanted to be quiet and observe. There’s very little time to be quiet when you’re amongst 39 other twenty year olds. The company of our American peers is a relief, and most of us take advantage of the situation and unload all of our stress and anxiety on each other. There’s a lot of complaining, a lot of “I miss....”, a lot of negativity towards cultural differences and slight inconveniences we’re all experiencing as a result of being Americans in a foreign and Muslim country. It gets tiresome after a while.
The day finished perfectly: my baba maghribi (Moroccan father) made spaghetti for dinner. I love spaghetti, and this comfort food was definitely needed at the end of a long day. Fus’ha (Arabic language kindergarten), field study preliminary work, too many people and too much complaining, missing home, tea reception, hammam, Suleiman, spaghetti.

Hammam, Suleiman, spaghetti. Nothing gets better than that. (Except for my sister Zeinab, who is now making jokes and laughing at me).
(Ex