Several times a week Carly and I will be near the intersection of Mohammad V and Hassan II, which happens to be within a stone's throw of Hotel Majestic, where our group stayed our first week in Morocco.
This afternoon we found ourselves there again, and my throat was hurting and I needed a drink. Hotel Majestic recently got a cooler of soft drinks to sell to its guests (this we discovered in our first visit to Majestic of this week, on Wednesday night). We love the men who work in Majestic, so my thirst was a perfect reason to go to Majestic for the drink instead of somewhere else. (Also, I knew Majestic would be a safe haven in which to drink my soda; it's Ramadan, so if I were to drink the soda within eyeshot of norma passersby, I'd get lots of nasty looks and "Shuma"s (Shame!, but with a worse connotation) thrown at me).
We walked up the stairs and saw one of the friendliest hotel managers. We still don't know his name, but we do know that he smiles and enjoys our struggling attempts to speak Arabic. He shook our hands and smiled broadly and touched his heart while he said "Salaam aleikum."
I managed to communicate that my throat hurt a lot, and he assured me that my Fanta would make it feel better.
Carly and I shook hands with him again, wished him a good Ramadan, smiled, and walked down the stairs. And there sat our favorite concierge, who at first seemed to hate all of us American kids, but has since warmed to us. We think he particularly loves when we come back to visit (which is usually to use the bathroom). We repeated the hand-shaking, smiling ritual, wishing each other peace. He too touched his hand to his heart as he spoke and said, "Ham'dullah", or "Thanks be to God", when we said that we were well.
Hotel Majestic is why I love Morocco. Whenever I'm sad, a visit to the Hotel will undoubtedly raise my spirits.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment