On convenience

Posted from the cornfields...

I have been thinking of multiple alternative monikers for the United States during my week here, and one of those is "land of convenience." I was thinking of this as I ate my dinner this evening: a sweet potato (a.k.a. yam) with cheddar cheese. It didn't even take me five minutes to prepare this dinner.

First of all, the sweet potato was easy and convenient to obtain. I got it at a large grocery store in Omaha, but even the two little grocery stores here in David City sell them. I suppose it's possible that yams are sold in Morocco, but I've never seen them, and I'm guessing they would only be sold in Rabat and Casa, both several hours away from Ifrane. The cheddar cheese nearest to Ifrane is at the Label Vie in Meknes (an hour away), and it is so rarely purchased that one must check it over for mold before buying any. Some people in rural America may have to drive to the nearest city to get "specialty" groceries like chickpea flour, tempeh, or chard, but generally, in the U.S. these days, one can find just about any grocery item one wants.

And virtually every community in the U.S. has grocery stores and "super" stores (like Super Wal-Mart) that provide "one stop shopping," something that is definitely not the norm in Morocco. To buy everything you need in one shopping trip seems almost impossible in Morocco, but to do it, you would need to go to several different vendors at the marché, to Label Vie, to Marjane, to the bakery, etc.

Another aspect of the convenience of my meal was that I barely had to wash the sweet potato because it was so clean. In Morocco, when we buy foods that were grown in the ground, they look like they were grown in the ground! Those of us who buy and eat fresh food spend a surprisingly large amount of time just cleaning it, something that isn't necessary in the U.S.

I haven't had a microwave oven since moving to Morocco, so if I somehow found a sweet potato there and wanted to eat it, I'd have to plan at least an hour ahead so I could bake it. Here, I cooked my sweet potato in three minutes.

A lesson

Sometimes I think of my nearly two years here as nothing but one big lesson.

The lesson is this: Make plans, but recognize that planning is just something to keep you busy, a hobby of sorts. Don't take your plans seriously. (As my housekeeper Hafida would say, "My God has a plan for you." Perhaps this is true, but if so, "her" God isn't letting me in on that plan at all.) Don't get attached (to plans, to friends, to the past or future, or to anything else). The idea that one can have control is an illusion, and attachment to that illusion brings nothing but unhappiness. (Funny that I should come to a Muslim country to learn a seemingly Buddhist lesson.)

This lesson has been driven home in a variety of ways, some of them quite painful, over the last couple of weeks, as if Morocco is afraid I might not "get it" before I head out on June 9--regardless of whether or not I'm coming back.

This morning, for example, T and I are sitting on our couch when we thought we'd be (scratch that--planned to be) halfway to Al Hoceima for a four-day vacation in honor of our June 1 tenth wedding anniversary (and because we have just a few more days together before I leave for at least two months).

Planning this trip has been fairly typical; for example, even yesterday, we were still trying to confirm our car rental. We asked the guy to bring the car to us this morning at 8:30, hoping that meant we'd have it by 10. He called at 8:30 to say the car hadn't yet been returned to him, and we haven't heard from him since. Our residence manager and security officer are trying to help get us a car, but I have accepted that it just might not happen. We'll probably get one by tomorrow, so we might just have to cut our trip short by one day. But it's likely this isn't the last thing that will happen to remind us of The Lesson.

In a nutshell...

...a tiny, oversimplified nutshell.

Things I forgot to say in my previous post

I was in such a rush last night to get pictures of our trip to the Cascades d'Ouzoud up on my blog that only later did I realize I hadn't written about half of the things I had intended to. So here are some of those things, in no particular order:


- Even in places in Morocco where the landscape looks familiar (T and I have, on multiple occasions, been reminded of Wyoming and Montana), there are frequent reminders that I am in a foreign country. No matter how remote a road seems to be, there will always be pedestrians, hitchhikers, and people on donkeys traveling along that road. I often wonder where they're coming from and where they're going.

In remote locations, one is also likely to encounter people trying to sell things. When we got onto the mountain roads not far from Ouzoud, we started seeing people along the road holding up little bundles of fresh herbs and making a variety of mysterious gestures which we assume meant something like, "Please buy these herbs! I really need money. Don't you feel sorry for me?" And we did; we felt sorry for them.

Many of these people – many more than I would have guessed – were children, often very, very young children. As we drove, we discussed the pros and cons of stopping to buy some of the herb. (I think it was some kind of mountain thyme, but I'm not sure.) I imagine they couldn't have been selling the little bundles for more than one or two dirhams each, and I wonder what could possibly have been the maximum amount of money someone might bring home at the end of a long day of standing by the roadside. Seeing these people was a reminder both of how difficult the job situation is here (it's unimaginably worse than in the U.S., I guarantee) and of how hard people try to come up with ways of having even a tiny income.


- I should have taken the opportunity yesterday to spend a little more time explaining exactly what a riad is. Basically, a riad is a large, multilevel house with a central area that is open to the sky. Most of the riads I have stayed at (many have been converted into somewhat upscale bed and breakfasts) have had some form of covering on the rooftop terrace to provide some protection from the elements to the central patio/garden, but this is not always the case.

In the United States, indoor and outdoor spaces are usually carefully separated from each other; "indoor" and "outdoor" are mutually exclusive categories. This is not true in Morocco, and riads illustrate well the lack of a clear distinction between the two. As I mentioned in my previous post, the riad we stayed at has a full-sized orange tree growing in the middle of it. Above the orange tree, at the level of the rooftop terrace (another characteristic of a riad), a clear plastic tarp has been stretched to provide some protection from the rain (although there are a few inches on all sides that are not protected by the tarp, which means that one can get rained on while standing in certain places on the ground floor). At the center of the tarp is a large plastic tube that goes down to the base of the orange tree, so that when it rains the water follows the tube and waters the orange tree!

This lack of separation between indoor and outdoor means that, when the weather is nice, a riad is a lovely place for hanging out and relaxing. But when the weather is cold, the riad is also cold; many owners go to great lengths (and, I'm sure, expenses) to try to bring their riads up to Western standards of comfort regarding winter temperatures.

On getting used to things

On Monday, I talked to my low intermediate English students about a few of the uses of "used to." One of the phrases we talked about was "getting used to." The conversation got me thinking about my more than a year and a half in Morocco, and about all of the things I have become used to as well as the things I'm still working on getting used to.

For example, I've gotten used to shopping in Morocco, although it has only been in the past few months that I have felt myself become comfortable with this. Up until then, I was expending large amounts of energy listing the things I needed, trying to figure out where I could find them, thinking about going shopping, planning shopping trips, going shopping, and searching for the items I needed.

I've gotten used to being surrounded by people who look and talk differently than I do. This has become so normal and comfortable for me that I suspect I will feel a little strange when I return to Nebraska this summer and find myself surrounded by white people in shorts and tank tops. It will, at first, feel like a novelty to be able to understand virtually everything the people around me are saying.

I've gotten used to most of the sights, sounds, and smells of Morocco. I've become used to the way meat is sold in marchés, as whole animal carcasses hanging in front of the vendor's stalls. I've become used to seeing pedestrians, bicyclists, donkeys, and cars sharing the roads with each other. I've become used to seeing herds of goats and sheep almost everywhere, including in town.

I'm used to not having a car. I'm used to taking taxis and trains. I'm used to walking much of the time to get where I need to go. I'm used to paying in cash. I'm used to living in an apartment. I'm used to seeing hungry cats and dogs on the streets and (usually) recognizing there's not much I can do about it. I'm used to handing out all of my extra change to beggars. I'm used to having a maid.

I'm used to Turkish toilets. I'm used to bathrooms never having toilet paper and often not having soap. I'm used to peeing almost anywhere, including outdoors, sometimes just a few yards from a herd of goats and sheep.

But I'm still getting used to some aspects of the culture, like the gap between "says" and "is." I think I could live here for the rest of my life and never be entirely used to that. I'm not used to the fact that I can't just go out for a walk anywhere I want to. I'm still not used to having to get up in the middle of the night to attend my classes because they are scheduled in the evenings – central standard time.

I'm still not 100% used to the uncertainty brought on by the decision to move here that T and I made nearly two years ago. I'm still not entirely used to the vast distance I have put between myself and my friends and family. And, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I'm completely used to the ways in which I have changed since moving here. The "new me" is more tolerant of bugs and germs, more tolerant of uncertainty and of things not going according to plan, but the new me is also more dependent on others and less sure of herself (I didn't even think that could be possible).

I'm guessing, based on all of the reflection I just did, that I learned a little more from my lesson than my students did.

No wonder

All this time, I thought I was taking relaxing baths with de-stressing lavender oil. And then yesterday I noticed my lavender oil actually has distressing properties. No wonder I've been so stressed out!

This is Africa, too

Ifrane early yesterday afternoon...

Breakfast at the marché

Maybe it means that we are simple people, but T and I don't need a lot of excitement to be happy. One of the simple things that makes us happy is having breakfast at Café Igloo in the marché. We like going with friends, but we are almost as content to go by ourselves.

And we always order the same thing: I get nuss nuss (half coffee, half milk) and T gets atay. We both get meloui bsla (meloui with onions and "fromage," i.e. la vache qui rit). T gets an omelette, which is cooked in a tagine and comes with an entire loaf of fluffy white khobz. If we're feeling decadent, we will each get a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. This breakfast will cost us about five U.S. dollars.

It's cheap. It's simple. And we both already know it's one of the things we will miss when we leave Morocco.

Autumn in Ifrane

I have experienced autumn in a variety of climates. Because I grew up in Nebraska and went to college in Iowa, Midwest autumns will probably always represent "normal" for me--stretching out across October and into November, with a few warm, "sweaterless" days and a few days (one of which was almost always Halloween) of snow. New Orleans doesn't have an autumn as far as I can tell. Autumn in Wyoming is early, swift, spectacular, and tragically short.

Autumn in Ifrane is thick and slow and sweet, like honey. It came so slowly and so gently that it took me quite a while to even notice it was here.

All the same

Are small towns all over the world the same? Here are some similarities I have noticed between Ifrane and small towns in the U.S. with which I am familiar. (Powellites, this is for you!)

-When you fly into the airport (which is in a nearby [or not so nearby] big city), it's probable that you will either be on the plane with someone you know, or you will run across someone you know somewhere along the way. (In the U.S., whichever one of you has a car will offer a ride to the other; in Morocco, you will share a taxi home.)*

-You cannot go out anywhere in your town without seeing at least a few people you know. If you are a teacher, you will see your students, and sometimes they will explain to you why they missed class on Friday; they will ask about the assignment due on Monday; etc.

-When you go to the nearby “big city” to shop (at Wal-Mart, Target, or Marjane), you will, in all likelihood, see some of your coworkers there doing the same thing.

-People you have never met know who you are.

-You don't need the Yellow Pages because any time you need goods or services, you just ask everybody you know who they would recommend.

-When you go to your town's coffee shop, you don't actually have to place an order because they already know what you usually get.

-You evaluate the restaurants in your small town with the highest rating being "[name of small town] good." For example, if someone asks you, "Does this restaurant have good food?" you will respond, "It's Ifrane good."

-You will drive for three or four hours just to get to a place where you can go shopping, eat at a truly good restaurant, go to the dentist, go to the doctor, have a surgical procedure done, etc.

-Any time you try to walk someplace, people driving by will constantly stop to ask if you need a ride.

*Last August, when T and I were flying to Morocco for the first time, on the plane from New York we sat across the aisle from a nice couple and their baby. They asked where we were going, and we told them that T had a job at Al Akhawayn University. The woman said something like, "Oh, my husband's father teaches there." We probably responded with something like, "Oh, that's nice." Fast forward several months. I am in Rabat with my friend LW. She is stopping by the house of her friend Steve to visit his son and son's wife because they are also her friends. Son's Wife opens the door and looks strangely familiar to me. She is much quicker than I am and realizes that she and her husband and baby sat across from us on the plane several months earlier. She even has a picture she took of her baby on the plane in which you can see T and me in the background. This was a weird reminder that the world isn't nearly as big as we sometimes think it is.

Sweeping up

This isn't a great photograph because it was taken covertly, but I want to show you how official city workers clean up the town--using brooms made out of sticks with twigs or brush tied to them. In warmer cities, the workers use fresh palm branches.

On the lack of privacy (or "JABS goes off on a bit of a rant")

Last night, I was up until almost three because I had to "attend" one of my classes from 12:15 to 2:15 AM Greenwich Mean Time. Because I need a very minimum of seven hours of sleep per night, I got up late this morning (and still didn't get my sleep minimum). When I came out of the bathroom after my shower, I heard female voices coming from downstairs in my apartment.

If this had happened to me in my house in Wyoming, I would have been utterly confused and rather frightened, because there would never be any reason for someone to all of a sudden be inside my locked house without my permission.

Here, however, this seems to be a weekly occurrence (and some weeks it happens more often than once). There are lots of people with access to our apartment – the building staff, the cleaning ladies, and the maintenance men, at the least. And there seems to be an infinite number of reasons for them to come into our apartment.

What's coming

1. In two days, we will close on our house in Powell.

2. In six days, we will begin our 24+ hour journey to Nebraska (Ifrane to Casa, Casa to Lisbon, Lisbon to Newark, Newark to Chicago, Chicago to Omaha, Omaha to David City).

3. In 49 days, if I have any money, I will begin my graduate program.

Right now, I'm waiting.

When you mail stuff to Morocco…

Back in November of 2010, the supply of vitamins and other supplements that I had brought with me was running low. I ordered the most essential products and had them mailed to my parents, who then repackaged everything and mailed it on to me. I knew it was a risky endeavor, so I wasn't surprised when the package seemed to be taking weeks to get here.

Weeks turned into months. I think it was in March that I finally accepted the fact that I was out a lot of money (in dollars or dirhams), and the box was probably sitting in a customs office in Casa, where it would remain until the end of days.

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from my mom. The box had, after nearly six months, found its way back to Nebraska. It was returned because I had not picked it up. Since it was never at the post office in Ifrane, I'm very curious to know where exactly the box was waiting for me to pick it up.

Oh, if only that box could tell its story, what a story it would be. And oh, the joys of living in Africa.

Why things take longer here

One of the things I heard over and over after moving to Morocco is that "things take longer here." Of course, when we say "longer," we mean "longer than they take in the United States or, perhaps, Europe."

So what things take longer in Morocco, and why? Let's start with something basic – shopping. As much as I hate Walmart, it represents the convenience of shopping in the United States. You can walk into a Walmart and get virtually everything you need, including eyeglasses, a haircut, prescription medications, clothes and groceries. While the large Marjane stores in Morocco may some day be like that, for now there is no such convenient shopping center in Morocco. Even if Marjane does become like Walmart, I doubt small towns like Ifrane will ever have their own Marjane, and I suspect the costs will remain out of range for the average Moroccan.

Especially because I live in a small town, then, if I have a long shopping list, I have to go to several places, sometimes even several different cities, to attempt to get everything. In fact, I think most foreigners always have a "wish list" in their heads, a list of hard-to-find shopping items that they always keep an eye out for everywhere they go. For someone like me who hates shopping, that list is a constant, irritating presence in the back of my mind.

Much of the shopping we do is focused on feeding our families. There's no such thing as triple-washed bagged baby spinach or organic spring mix here. I don't have a freezer full of frozen pizzas. (I think my oven would be too small for frozen pizza anyway.) We cook with more raw materials here, and the effort required to get them to "edible" is greater. Fruits and vegetables always need a good washing and often need a good sorting. I have found that beans can be particularly labor-intensive because of all the rocks, twigs, and unidentified seeds that are mixed in with them. (I'm not even going to mention the bugs.)

Cleaning and laundry take more time. I think most people in Morocco still hand wash their clothes (or, if they have enough money, they pay a maid to do it). Going to the bank takes more time. (It's a "take a number" situation, and no matter how many bank tellers appear to be working on a given day, they will all be working at the same counter so that only one person is helped at a time.) Medical care often takes more time, especially if you're poor. (A friend's maid, who recently found out that she has breast cancer, spent two days at a doctor's office in Rabat waiting to make an appointment.) Getting your food at a restaurant takes more time. Getting the waiter to notice you and bring you your bill takes more time. Getting something you ordered from Amazon takes more time, and you might feel lucky if it ever arrives at all.

I think I have learned, and probably will continue to learn, a great deal from living in a culture in which many things take more time than they do in the culture from which I come. I can definitely learn from Moroccans how to be more patient. Moroccans are very, very patient people (with the bizarre exception of when they are driving). Moroccans seem much more willing and able to wait at the bank, to wait for medical care, to wait to eat a meal (during Ramadan). While sometimes I feel this waiting springs from social injustice (I'm very convinced that medical care is entirely inadequate here), I also think it is often "character building." I am almost daily forced to consider whether what I think constitutes "an emergency" really does. I am forced to face my own impatience and, yes, sense of entitlement.

I also often think about the fact that Americans always seem to be trying to "save time," but it's not clear to me what it is we want to do with that time. Surf the Internet? "Poke" people on Facebook (whatever that means)? Watch America's Next Top Model? Maybe this is a pipe dream, but when I go back to the United States, I don't want to have to "save time."

I am starting to sort out those American timesavers that are good and useful from those that are silly or unnecessary. Ambulances: good. 911: good. Triple washed spring mix: convenient, but ultimately unnecessary.

On people getting into each other's business

Warning: the following blog post contains broad generalizations about large groups of people. If you find this offensive, might I suggest that when you read the word "Moroccans," you replace it with something like "a noticeable number of Moroccans with whom the author of this blog post has interacted."

When T and I went to Spain in January, it took us several days to warm up to the country and its people. In fact, it wasn't until our second to last night in Spain (our last night staying in Ronda) – when three gregarious and drunk locals bought us beer at a popular tapas bar – that we started thinking this was a country we might want to visit again.

It wasn't until we were back in Morocco two or three days later that I realized why we had found Spanish people to be so unfriendly. Unlike Moroccans, they left us alone.

You see, Moroccans are always getting into your business. While T and I were in Spain, particularly in Sevilla, we spent large chunks of time examining maps, trying to figure out where we were and how to get where we wanted to be. No one ever stopped to ask if we needed help. I took this as a sign of unfriendliness because I had gotten used to the Moroccan tendency to immediately offer help. Granted, sometimes (especially in tourist cities like Fez), this offer comes with an expectation of some financial reward. But after living in Morocco for many months, I have come to understand that this immediate "stepping in" to help is cultural and comes from a place of generosity.

The first few times that I went to the marché, I was confused by the help I was getting from people who didn't seem to be working at the marché stalls. random customers would try to guess what it was I was asking for. If they happened to speak English, they would ask me in English what I wanted and would translate to the vendor.

One sunny day when I was sitting outside the bakery drinking a coffee, a man asked me if I spoke French or Arabic. I said no and told him that I spoke English. After I told him my language of choice, he proceeded to advise me in broken English that I should get out of the sun because it is not good for one's health to sit in the sun too long. My fear that he might be trying to find out the best language with which to hit on me or sell me something was totally unfounded.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that T and I learned how to put more minutes on our cell phone because the other time that we tried to do it, a group of university students who were in the same superette quickly grabbed our phone from us and put the minutes on it for us.

In Meknes one day, when my friend JW accidentally ran his car into a curb, a nearby pedestrian immediately turned and started directing him so that he could get the car away from the curb. I can't prove that this would not happen in Spain or in the U.S., but I think one could certainly count on it happening in Morocco.

When I went with JW to the Maroc Telecom office to buy a USB modem, another customer who saw us looking at the options proceeded to advise me about what I should get. She went so far as to call a friend regarding a different company which she thought would be a better choice for me. While a few months ago this would have been a little confusing to me, this time I just smiled.

This is the Moroccan way. And I love it.

A few of my favorite things II

When I'm feeling down or homesick, it sometimes helps for me to reflect on things I like about Morocco:

-Coming home on Mondays and Thursdays (the days Hafida works) to a kitchen counter free of dirty dishes.

-Moroccans feeding the pigeons.

-Morning yoga with my friend LW.

-Cheap public transportation.

-Afternoon tea with meloui.

-The fact that the servers at the bakery (which is about a block from my apartment) know me and know my usual order of nuss nuss (literally "half half," half strong Moroccan coffee, half milk).

-Fresh, cheap produce.

-Reliable water, electricity, and Internet (fingers crossed!).

Gotta love spring

On bugs

I think that a lot of Americans (myself included) convince ourselves that we can avoid bugs. Many people go to great lengths (mostly chemical) to keep spiders, flies, and every other crawly little thing out of their homes. Some people, and some city governments, apply chemicals to reduce bug populations out-of-doors.

We also convince ourselves that we can avoid bugs inside our bodies; in other words, we think we can avoid eating them. In fact, we have so strongly convinced ourselves of this that we find it worth remarking upon if, on a walk or bike ride, a bug enters our mouths. We might exclaim, surprised, "I swallowed a bug!"

Well, here in Morocco, I am having to make peace with bugs. I am under no such delusion that I do not eat bugs. In the U.S., if I bought food with bugs in it, I returned it. Here, I have picked through a whole bag of rice to make sure I wasn't boiling (very many) bugs with my rice. I have spent an hour picking through white beans. Only once did I throw out something because it was bug infested; I had purchased a kilo of dried chickpeas, and every single chickpea had a little bug in it.

I had to zoom way in to get a picture of this little guy.

In my home, too, I am working on making peace with the bugs. I have no problem with the teeny tiny spiderlike bugs that, for some reason my human brain cannot comprehend, love living in our shower. I usually don't even bother anymore trying to kill silverfish, and those guys creep me out more than earwigs do.

I would rather they found some other apartment to live in, but I am also, for the most part, okay with the colony of ants that check out our kitchen daily to see if we have left any molecules of sweet foods for them. I would much rather put up with the ants than with the alternative of someone coming in and spraying copious amounts of a chemical in my apartment, which is what I'm 100% sure would happen if I complain too much about the ants.

It took me a long time to figure out that these were living things.

A couple of months ago, when T brought home a house plant that was completely infested with mealy bugs, I'll admit I was irritated. They are very disturbing. But rather than immediately banishing the houseplant to the outdoors, as I probably would have done in the U.S., I spent hours that day picking off the bugs and their millions of eggs. And eventually I became okay with the fact that I had probably missed some.

Even cockroaches don't bother me as much as they used to (this relates to the decrease in my standard of cleanliness which I think is a coping mechanism). After a nice vegan meal in Essaouira with our friends Brian and Sara, T instructed Brian to shake a cockroach off of his hat. As I watched a second cockroach climbing on the wall behind Brian, I noted with surprise that I didn't really feel much of anything. I wasn't surprised. I wasn't disgusted. I wasn't regretful. I thought, It's a food establishment. Just as it attracts cats and dogs, it attracts other food loving creatures, including cockroaches.

My advice to everyone: try to make peace with the bugs. Your life will be easier, and you will be happier. The bugs will be, too.

Maid mystery #1

Interesting things are bound to happen when you bring someone into your home to do the job of housekeeping. The chances of interesting things happening increase significantly when you are communicating with that person in writing in a language with which she is fairly unfamiliar. Chances increase even more when you and that person are from relatively different cultures.

People warned me that, because of these linguistic and cultural differences, I was going to come home someday to some kind of surprise. Earlier this week, I went into the bedroom to put away our clean laundry (thank you, Hafida!) and found that I had several new and unfamiliar articles of clothing.

But that wasn't really a surprise nor a mystery. It's easy to figure out how Hafida accidentally brought home someone else's laundry along with our own.

I know, lame visual.

The mystery came yesterday. After Hafida had been here and done some cleaning up and some chopping of carrots and onions for me, I came home and found that she had done everything as I wanted it. And in the fridge in little plastic baggies were half of a tomato and about 7/8 of a lemon.

I have told Hafida to help herself to tea or a piece of fruit or whatever while she's here (the only reason I don't offer her more is that she's only here for a couple of hours at a time). So did she help herself to half a tomato and an eighth of a lemon? Was she hungry for a teeny tiny tomato salad? Doesn't that seem weird?

And what does this say about how bored I am with my life that I really, really want to know about the tomato and lemon?