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.

Creepy dolls at the souk

In a nutshell...

...a tiny, oversimplified nutshell.

On cooking in a foreign land

Ask someone living in a foreign country what he or she misses about home, and the most common answer you're likely to get is, "the food." A certain computer-animated rat excepted, we humans are (as far as I know) unique in our relationship to food. It doesn't just nourish us; it is an integral component of cultural, and personal, identity.

If you move to a foreign country, then, food is not going to be the least of the things you must adjust to.

Souk boutique

Ifrane's souk is the place to go for the best prices on the greatest variety of fruits and vegetables. I don't go there every week, but I try to go at least once a month to stock up on produce.

Weird shirt with cranes on it + bad ass denim jacket = app. $4

A lot of people I know go there to get clothes, too. For at least the first year that I lived in Morocco, I was utterly overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to buy clothing at the souk. Imagine the piles of clothes at the biggest garage sale you've ever attended, and then multiply that by, say, 10. Spending hours digging through huge piles of (sometimes smelly) largely uncategorized clothing items never appealed to me. But lately, my friends Sarah and Sara have helped me to enjoy this simple and cheap weekend entertainment. On a nice, sunny day, it can be fun to stand across from a friend, going from one end of a table to the other, excavating and discussing an interesting array of clothing. Some of the clothing items are very worn, others are bizarre, but every once in a while, we find something nice or interesting enough to take home. The clothes are cheap enough that you don't have to worry about trying them on before purchasing them. If something doesn't fit, you can pass it on to someone else, use it for a craft project, or even just use it for rags.

Like I said, cheap and simple. That's my kind of fun.

Heidelberg

On New Year's Eve, AC's mother brought us fortune cookies. AC and IC had typical fortunes, bland and vague statements, not specific about the future, which I have completely forgotten.

But my fortune made me nervous. It said something like, "An adventure is coming." I got even more nervous when T read his fortune, something about "you will know the right way." I read these in combination to indicate that T was going to lead me on some crazy adventure, and I wasn't quite feeling up to an adventure at the time. Maybe it had something to do with the cold I had developed on our second day in Germany, or maybe it was related to Africa fatigue… I don't know.

The next day, T and I started to feel like our hosts needed a break from us, so we suggested that, on January 3, they could send us off somewhere on our own via public transportation. Instead, though, they loaded us into IC's car along with her TomTom and sent us off to Heidelberg. After a bit of a rough start (the TomTom led us to the center of town, where without a real map or any tourism information, we were a bit disoriented), we had an enjoyable day on our own.


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View of the town and the Neckar River from the castle

I went to Heidelberg knowing exactly two things about it: An American military base is located there, and the city hosts a colony of wild ringnecked parrots (and if you know me, you know which of these two things I was most excited about).


The town is very popular with tourists (but not, I think, due to its military or psittacine residents). When we first got there, I was hearing more English than German around me. I was happy to see a lot of Asian people (who don't often come to Morocco) and Asian restaurants. Thai food for lunch was an unexpected treat.

24 hours in Meknes

For those of us who live in Ifrane, Meknes too often is nothing more than a place we go to get things done – to buy groceries, to go to the doctor, to go to the train station, etc. T and I realized recently that, while we had been to Meknes dozens of times, we had never really "done" Meknes. This realization coincided with a rather lazy desire to get out of Ifrane without actually, you know, going anywhere.

The perfect solution, we realized, was to spend a night in Meknes, specifically in the medina.


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Weekend in London

This may sound crazy to someone living in the United States or New Zealand, but T and I went to London for the weekend (we left Ifrane at 4:45 PM on Thursday and were back at our apartment before 9 PM on Sunday). A few weeks ago, we found out that T's sister and her family would be in London for a few days. We decided that London is so close (about a three hour plane ride) that we had to go see them, even if it was only for two days.

Before we went there, T's sister asked what we would want to do in London. Knowing that our main focus would be visiting with family, we decided to forgo any of the usual sightseeing and focus on three goals:

1. Have a beer. (have I yet said anything about the beer in Morocco? Morocco has only three beers: Stork, Flag, and Casablanca. I am being generous when I say that these beers are somewhat uninspired. I am not the first nor last beer snob to be a bit devastated by the dearth of good beer.)
2. Eat Indian food. (By the way, Indian food is so ubiquitous in London that I got quizzical looks from the locals when I told them this was one of the goals for my visit.)
3. Go grocery shopping.

In case you're wondering, I accomplished these goals. I had Indian food two nights in a row, and I came home with a suitcase full of frozen tofu, vitamins and herbal supplements, Ziploc bags, PG tips, rice wine vinegar, sriracha sauce, and other goodies.

I also realized during my two short days in London that I was experiencing double culture shock. First of all, I had the obvious culture shock of going from a small town in a developing African country to an almost unimaginably enormous urban area in a developed country. T's sister took me to Tesco for grocery shopping, and I froze up a little when I got to the long aisle that was dedicated entirely to yogurts. I was impressed by many mundane things – pedestrian crosswalks, wheelchair accessibility and accommodations in many places, restrooms with toilet paper and soap and working hand dryers. Everything seemed so incredibly clean, organized, and orderly! In addition, I had trouble adapting to the prices of things. One day, T and I bought an "inexpensive" sandwich to share for lunch, and I realized that our shared sandwich was the same price as about 35 baguettes here in Morocco. On Sunday, on our bus from London to the Stansted airport (it was much cheaper to fly out of Stansted than Heathrow), the bus driver announced that we should buckle our seatbelts because we would be on the highway. I couldn't help but laugh, knowing that once we were back in Morocco, we would be taking a grand taxi over mountain roads, dodging donkeys and pedestrians and bicycles and motorcycles, and we almost certainly would not even have seatbelts.

London is also different from the United States, which is sometimes easy to forget because we do (basically) speak the same language. But same language does not equal same culture. I should add here that somehow I had gotten the idea that people in London would be...well, if not unfriendly, a bit reserved. I found everyone to be quite friendly, helpful, and accommodating to our occasional cluelessness about things like how to scan our credit card at the grocery store.

It was very hard to leave family members after spending only two days with them, but I was also concerned about how I would feel coming back to Morocco. On the plane to Fez, and on the taxi ride from there to Ifrane, I engaged in a little introspection. I was a bit surprised and relieved to find that I didn't feel any sense of dread or disappointment or depression about coming back here. All reservations I had related to one factor: all of my significant difficulties here have to do with the language barrier. It became very clear to me this weekend that if I am going to stay here and be able to function, I need to make an attempt to learn Darija or French. I don't know when or how I'll do it, but I need to try.

T and I have also made a resolution to go on more weekend trips to Europe. This may be the only time in our life that we have the opportunity to do that.

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.

Something to keep in mind if you go to a grocery store in Morocco the day after Eid Kbira

All of the people in town who can afford to will be bringing their sheep carcasses to the grocery store butcher to have them cut up, ground into sausage, etc. They will load the skinned and gutted carcasses from their cars into grocery carts, where the skinless legs will be sticking straight up into the air. They will then mob the meat section of Label Vie, and it will be impossible for you to turn in any direction without seeing a whole, upside down sheep carcass. It will also be impossible to get to the alcohol section, which is where you were trying to go. Finally, you will leave the grocery store wondering whether you were putting your groceries into a shopping cart that had previously been carrying a sheep carcass.

Shopping extravaganza! (and monkeys… and for those who stay till the end, a mystery… )

One of my earliest blog posts was about shopping at Marjane in Fez. Those of you who read that post know that I did not have a lot of fun, so you might understand why I put off my next big trip to Marjane for several weeks. This weekend, however, I couldn't put it off anymore. So Saturday morning, T and I began our weekend shopping extravaganza by hitching a ride to the Marjane in Meknes with our friend LW.

It turned out to be a productive shopping trip. We found, among other things, a battery charger and Parmesan cheese. (It's funny how such laughably miniscule accomplishments can make me so happy.)

That afternoon, we went with the W family to Azrou. The highlight of the trip was the monkeys. Yes, you heard me right – monkeys. Actually, they're called Barbary apes, but I think they are, in reality, macaques. I'm not really sure what that's all about.

The souk

Several posts ago, I said I would post some pictures of the Ifrane souk. But I think I had better back up and also explain what a souk is. Souks are markets, and every Moroccan town has a souk location. Big cities have several souks; smaller towns, like Ifrane and nearby Azrou, have one souk location and have designated souk days.

The Ifrane souk is on Saturdays and Sundays. The souk takes place in a large area a bit outside of town. If you've ever been to an outdoor craft fair or some such thing in the U.S., you might be able to imagine the souk's basic layout. There are dozens and dozens of vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables to soaps to clothes to electronics. It is outdoors, but some of the area has a permanent covering over it, and much of the rest is covered with canopies to provide shade and, in the winter, some protection from snow and rain. The food vendors are in the middle, with those selling non-food wares on the periphery. (Much of the non-food items are used, and a lot of them look like things that most Americans would send to the landfill. In fact, I suspect many of the items for sale came from dumps. I was also told that some of the clothes sold at the souk are leftovers shipped here from countries like the U.S.)

Souk etiquette is pretty simple. Most produce vendors will hand you a plastic bag (mikka) and you fill it with whatever fruit or vegetable you want. Produce is sold by the kilogram (kilo), although you can usually get a nuss-kilo (half a kilo). Spices are sold by the dirham. You tell the vendor how many dirhams worth of a spice you want, and he (always a "he") expertly wraps it in paper and then puts it in a mikka for you.

Most shoppers have their favorite vendors who they return to again and again. Two of the three times I have been to the Ifrane souk, I was lucky enough to go with American women who speak Arabic, so they have helped me immensely with navigating through the huge piles of tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, artichokes, apples....Today I also had the help of LW's maid, Amina (yes, "maid" is the word that's used, regardless of how much it makes you cringe), who was grabbing items and bagging them for me. (Amina is also, as far as I know, the only woman in Ifrane who makes tortillas, which can be purchased for two dirhams a piece. She makes them one at a time, by hand!) LW and Amina also bought me a little of an herb they called shiba, which my research tells me means "absinthe," so I hope what they really bought me is something the book Eat Smart in Morocco calls sheh. Little bits of the herb are added to Moroccan mint tea, and I put some in my tea this afternoon with no apparent effects. Hmm.

Moving on...

The sense of abundance at a souk is incredible. The Whole Foods marketing team should take note. And food here is cheap (by my rich Western standards). Today, for around $15 U.S., T and I bought kilos and kilos of tomatoes, grapes, green beans, sweet potatoes, lemons, melon, and fresh mint. Today I also got several free dates from LW's favorite date vendor. And I came home with a nuss-kilo of his best dates, even though I'm not sure what I'll do with that many of them.

The next time you're buying groceries at Wal-Mart, think of me walking around in the fresh air, munching on free dates, picking out fresh fruits and vegetables and paying pocket change for them. Not so bad, is it?

Trust and generosity

In the U.S., what happens if you try to buy something in a store but don't have the money for it? Unless there is some incredibly generous person behind you who will give or lend you some money, you're probably walking out of the store empty-handed.

In Morocco, at least sometimes, the clerk lets you take the item anyway. "Bring the money later, when you have it," the clerk will say. I have seen this happen a couple of times. Once, not only did the shopper walk out with the grocery item he needed, but the clerk also lent him a 100 dirham note.

When we ate at Al Kasabah in Asilah, the server gave us our tea for free--just because he liked us (or because he liked the Ws' little girls, anyway). Also in Asilah, when LW saw a painting she liked but didn't have the money for it, the artist offered to let her take the painting and pay later, as she was able.

When we stopped at a market in Rabat and asked about some fruit we didn't know the name of, the vendor put a handful in each of our grocery bags.

These seem to be fairly ordinary occurrences here. The only people I have heard say anything about these incidents are people like me--outsiders. I can only guess about the origins of such trusting and generous behavior, that it must have something to do with Islam and with the idea of hospitality. But I'm not really that interested in analyzing it. I'm really more interested in just appreciating it and trying to absorb it. We can all benefit from trying to live each moment with a spirit of generosity.

First trip to Fez, or How I Came to be Eating Lunch in the Ladies' Restroom in Marjane

And it was a pretty lame lunch, too--half a Clif bar. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Because we are living in a small resort town where it can be difficult to find household items, the University takes all new faculty members on one free trip to two stores, Metro and Marjane, in Fes (about an hour away from Ifrane). We went today. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was told that Metro was "like Costco" and that Marjane was a supermarket and was "like Target." I had no idea what that would mean, though. "Like," as we know from William Lutz, is a "weasel word." "Like magic," for example, means "not actually magic." So I didn't get my hopes up. I tried not to guess what either store would be like.

Besides, before I could evaluate the stores, I had to get to there alive. Have I said anything yet about Moroccan driving? Surely, it must play a significant role in keeping the Moroccan life span fairly low. Americans know nothing about tailgating. A Moroccan driver will drive with literally no space (and I use "literally" literally here) between the front of his car and the back of the car in front of him. Moroccan drivers will pass in the most insane conditions, such as on a two-way curving mountain road with no shoulder and with at least four lanes of traffic going along it already (you have to remember that besides cars going in both directions, all roads also have people on foot, donkey, bicycle, and motorbike). *

Moroccan drivers are also much more liberal in their use of car horns than Americans are. Horns are used for the same purpose I have seen them used in the U.S., basically to say, "Hey! You did something stupid and I almost hit you!" But the horns are also used to say, "Hello, everyone walking, biking, or driving more slowly than I want to be driving. I am coming up behind you and you had best move out of my way because I am not moving or slowing down. I don't care if there's nowhere for you to go in order to get out of my way. Just do it!" 

Needless to say, since I am now at home writing this blog entry, we did make it to Fes and back. And it's a trip I would like to do again, but I'd like to be able to stop along the way--because we drove by some amazing scenery. (Much of the landscape is very similar to that along the drive from Powell to Clark, Wyoming.)  All along the road are men sitting next to piles of rocks, with large jars of honey (or sugar water posing as honey) for sale. There are also produce vendors selling melons and apples and vegetables on the road side. We passed by Berbers tending their sheep herds alongside the road, and Berber tents with handmade rugs hanging outside for sale. There were also small stands selling pottery along the way.

Once in Fes, we drove straight to Metro, and from there to Marjane. Some of you asked me to take pictures of the stores, but I didn't need to. If you want to see Metro, go to Costco. If you want to see Marjane, go to a Super Wal-Mart--the biggest one you can find. Wal-Mart was the one American institution that I was categorically relieved to get away from, and then I found it again in Morocco. But this was the Wal-Mart of nightmares, packed full of weary Ramadan shoppers, the organization of the store completely unfamiliar, the contents of packages mysterious. I nearly broke down. Maybe I did break down, a little. But we came home somewhat victorious. I got a low-end blender/food processor, a clothes iron, soy sauce. I found SOY MILK and nearly bought Marjane's entire supply. I had intended to come home with a few other things (like a room fan, tahini) but can return after Ramadan ends.

So how did I come to be eating lunch in the Marjane restroom? Well, that came shortly after the miniature breakdown. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon, I had just been rather snappy with my husband, and I told myself to take a timeout in one of the (luckily rather private) bathroom stalls and have a little food.

What did I learn today? I learned not to go to Marjane during Ramadan. I also learned, again, that people (i.e. me) do crazy things while experiencing culture shock. For example, I came home with 24 jars of tomato paste. Don't ask me why. I will not be able to provide a logical answer.



*Sorry, Mom S. I'm sure this is completely freaking you out. But it's the truth!

First days in Morocco

Before T and I moved to Morocco, I told many people I would keep a blog. I figured it would be an easy way of keeping in touch with a a lot of people (those of you who know me well know that I'm not particularly good at that) and of keeping track of some of the highlights of my experience. Now that I've started my first blog entry, I'm having trouble determining what will be most interesting to my readers. But maybe that's your problem, not mine...

T and I arrived in Ifrane around noon on Thursday. We had been travelling since 1:40 on Wednesday morning, when we left my parents' house in Nebraska for the Omaha airport. A combination of dehydration, lack of food, lack of sleep, and a couple of doses of dramamine had made the morning's drive from Casa (apparently no one says "Casablanca") rather unreal. I felt, the entire time, as if I was watching a very, very boring movie about an American woman moving to Morocco. It certainly wasn't something I was experiencing!

When we arrived in Ifrane, we were taken to our apartment, which ended up being on campus rather than in the off-campus housing.  The apartment is...well...a bit shabby and spare. Take, for example, the kitchen, the entirety of which is shown in the picture at right. A small stove, four burners (for which I am told I should be thankful), a camper-sized one-tub sink (without a stopper), and about a square foot of counter space. Under the counter is a dorm-room sized refrigerator. (We added a dresser beside the fridge for more counter space.)


I have not yet figured out how to cook in this kitchen, although I am trying to be okay with it. I know we are lucky to have a kitchen with a stove, with running hot and cold water, and with a fridge, whatever size it is.

T and I have had a lot of practice moving (this is our seventh move in eight years), and we have learned that finding and eating food, especially regular meals, can be a difficulty. It has been a particular challenge with this move, for several reasons, some of which are:

 #1: We haven't been hungry since getting here. I'm assuming that's a normal part of international travel?
#2: We moved here during Ramadan. One cannot eat nor drink in public during daylight hours, and all businesses are on "Ramadan hours."
#3: We don't speak French or Arabic, and we have yet to meet a merchant who speaks any English.
#4: There is no such thing as a grocery store in Ifrane. There is the marche (oh, shoot...how do I put an accent over that "e"?), and the weekend souk...but there is no one store that a person can walk into and take from the shelves what he or she wants. Those of you in Powell who complain about the selection of groceries and other products...come visit us for a few days. You won't complain anymore!

Another thing to note about moving to another country is that--at least based on my experience--it appears to be marked by serious emotional ups and downs, by incredible successes and devastating failures. Our first major success, after which I was ridiculously ecstatic, was that we managed to get to the marche and buy some basic supplies. Here is a picture of the meager supplies which so excited me: 

I immediately experienced a devastating low when I realized we had somehow returned to the apartment without dish soap, which I really thought we had purchased. (Luckily, there is a very nice American woman in the building next door who offered to lend me some. She also went shopping in the souk with T and me, which may be the topic of my next post.)

My big goal for tonight: Make a meal, even if it's just a chickpea and tomato salad. Wish me luck!