Last Week in Asfalou

We’ve finished up our last week of training in Asfalou. It’s been a long and rather boring week, as far as training sessions. We returned all pumped up from our site visits and after telling all our stories about the past week, we were extremely reluctant to sit through hours of class, learning language and whatever administrative information we still needed to cover. Our LCF was a bit more lenient though, and we were able to convince him to let us have loads of study time. I spent most of it swapping music and movies with other trainees or playing minesweeper. We went to souq in Ouarzazate on Sunday. It’s gigantic. I bought some gifts for my host family: head scarves, perfume, a shirt for my host dad, and a pair of bright green plastic house shoes for my host mom because the ones she has are 3 sizes too small. She’s got the same size feet as me! Imagine that, a Moroccan woman with boat feet too. I also got some coloring books for the kids.

On Wednesday, we went to the souq in Timdlin to buy ingredients for a host family party. We all enjoy going to souq because it’s a great way to practice bargaining, learn the price of things, and interact with vendors. Not to mention there’s a growing selection of fruit, and we all love going to a particular peanut vendor. He sells honey-coated peanuts, sesame flavored cookies, salted peanuts, golden raisins, and roasted chick-peas. The dried dates at souq are delicious as well. They come in a wide variety of qualities, and levels of moisture. A kilo of good quality dates cost less than $2.50.

On Wednesday night, I decided to cook an “American” dinner for the family. The night before, I had told Najat, Brahim, and Khadija that I would make some sort of rice dish. I went with a Chinese stir fry type theme and bought hot peppers at the souq. I was planning to cook for four people, but then the entire family showed up right at 7:30pm. There was Fatima and her husband, Zahra with her son and husband, Maryan, and Halima. The sisters were picking up Khadija so that they could all travel to Marrakech in the morning. They’re going to visit their brother Omar there. Anyway, the dinner party grew to eleven people. The pressure was on. All the women crowded in the kitchen to see what I was doing, and Najat had Brahim running back and forth from his boutique getting spices and ingredients for me. I was intimidated to cook in front of all these women. Their husbands were pressed to get back to Timdlin so they kept telling me to hurry. It turned into a bit of a fiasco. The rice was not of stir-frying quality, so it turned to mush. The hot peppers were hotter than I thought. I mixed the spicy vegetables with the rice mush and threw in some eggs. Najat and I heaped the sticky mound of food onto a big platter and brought it to the table of guests. It didn’t look very appetizing. Plus, Zahra had told me a couple weeks before that they always add orange or red food coloring to their dishes because in Morocco, food is not considered palatable unless it’s got an appetizing color. My rice mush was looking rather pale, with only green vegetables sprinkled in.

Anyway, everyone dug in with their spoons. It was tasty, yet extremely spicy. Khadija, who complains to Najat all the time about there being too much spice or salt at dinner, took one bite, gasped, and clamored for a glass of water. Everyone had the sniffles and huffed and puffed all through the meal, but they kept eating. The plate was scraped clean, l’Hamdullilah! Gou-Brahim said “we will always remember Felicie and her rice dinner now”. They told me numerous times it was delicious, but I still felt like I’d flopped the dinner. Anyway, I’m happy I did it. I’m sure they appreciated the gesture. I now know a bit more how Najat feels every day. She constantly has to cook and make tea at a moment’s notice. The number of guests can increase ten-fold in a minute and she is still expected to prepare a delicious meal in a timely fashion.

After dinner, Khadija and her daughters got ready to leave. They showered me with hugs and kisses. Khadija didn’t want to let go of me. She’s quite short next to me, so she buried her head in my chest and weeped for about a minute before joining the others in Grou-Brahim’s car. I was touched by how attached they were. I’m really going to miss this family.

Thursday we took our language proficiency interviews. It basically entailed 15 minutes of conversation with a Tashlhit language tester. Our minimum level requirement is Novice High, I scored Intermediate Low. I think I could have don’t better if I’d studied, but I was worn out and just figured I’d do fine with my French. I managed to communicate to the tester in Tash where I worked in the states before coming here, that I served in Peace Corps Benin doing environmental projects, and what I’ll be doing in my new site.

We had our host family party in Asfalou Friday afternoon. Our amazing cook Rqia made cakes and donuts for 50 people. I had told my host family about the party on Monday. On Wednesday, Najat said she wouldn’t be able to go because Brahim wouldn’t allow it. He doesn’t let her go anywhere that includes a lot of men. This upset me a bit, even though she just laughed it off. I asked Brahim if she could go and he said only if there were separate rooms for men and women. None of the other host families seemed to have made this request, but we decided to have the party at Rqia’s house and she said we could do two rooms. All of us were wondering if people were going to show up. Our family members seemed so nonchalant about the whole party idea. When we asked if they were coming, they shrugged and said “inch’allah”. But, sure enough, at 4pm, everyone was there, dressed up in jellabas and colorful scarves. My host mom was the last to arrive, after I’d begun to fear she was still not allowed to come despite the separate rooms. Rqia and her sister busily ran back and forth between the two guest rooms and we all sat in semi-awkward silence for a while. We loosened up little by little, and with the help of the kids to create distraction, we were all laughing and chatting by the end of the afternoon.

On Saturday, I got hennaed again by Najat’s sister. The women had been planning this all week. Apparently it’s a customary sending off procedure. She covered my hands and feet in beautiful designs. It looks really cool; I just don’t like the part where I have to sit for 3 hours and not touch anything until it dries. I sat with my hands in the air and my feet propped up on a pillow, nodding off in front of the TV. Najat took me to my room and had me lay down for a while until I could wash it off.

In the evening, Brahim invited me, our language trainer, and the other trainees to dinner and music at the hotel by the river. He’s taken me there several times to listen to berber singing and to hang out with his friends who run the place. We had a nice last evening in Asfalou. I cant believe it’s been two months already.