A Moroccan Halloween

Transferring a holiday from one culture to another can often be an easy task. When I lived in France a few years ago, I threw a Thanksgiving feast for over 40 people, complementing the turkey and mashed potatoes with French baguettes, wine, and cheese. However, it is not always that simple, as Daniel and I discovered last weekend.

We had some concerns beforehand and so we discussed them with our Moroccan friends. Specifically, the neighbors had previously complained about noise after 11 PM, so we decided to start at 6 PM and go until 11 PM, rather than having a typical American party which might start at 9 PM and go until the early hours of the morning. We were also concerned about who would come. We didn't know very many people, and so we asked our friends to bring some of their friends and coworkers. We were hoping to meet some people our age, particularly females (who are often almost impossible to meet).

Saturday afternoon before the party, Daniel and I bought some candy, snacks, and drinks at the supermarket, and then we cleaned the house. I headed off to the Franciscan church for All Saint's mass. On the way out, I explained to the concierge that there would be some people would be visiting because it was an American holiday. My anxious explanation was met with the typical Arabic greeting on a holiday, mabruk, which basically means "congratulations". I tried to explain that it's not really a holiday you say "mabruk", but I don't think I got my point across. It's hard to explain the idea of a commercialized holiday to someone who has never really experienced it.

The Franciscan Church is the only Christian church in town, and so I have been trying to go when I have the chance. I have met the priests, who work at a mission in the medina teaching languages, and the few older French people who attend on Saturday nights (on Sunday morning a large number of sub-Saharan African students at the University of Meknes attend). The oldest priest in this Franciscan province gave the homily. He has been in Morocco since before Vatican II and before the end of colonialism. In those days, they mainly provided hospital care, because the local health care was so poor. But now it is much better, so they have moved into education, particularly language education. As he spoke of the Beatitudes (one of the readings) and living them out to the end, they took on a new meaning for me.

When I arrived back home, there were about 12 people in our empty living area: five Americans, our five Moroccan friends, and two Moroccans I had not met before. The one Moroccan who had promised to bring a number of his fellow students was busy drinking, seemingly oblivious to the disparity between what had been promised and the reality. The American girls had made Halloween signs, so I spent my first few minutes at the party putting them up.

Later Daniel and I started poking fun at him for it, and he responded defensively, "You don't know how hard it is to get people to come to something like this in this country!! Girls can't come out to houses their families don't know. A lot of the students went home for the weekend."

Around nine, about half of the people (including all the girls) left the party. The few of us who remained ended up turning to serious topics: the lack of jobs in Morocco and what we Americans thought of Islam. They left sometime before midnight and Daniel and I went to bed.

I would say that it was the most boring party I have ever thrown, but on Tuesday a spark of excitement was inserted into the party after the fact. I was reading a local magazine when I stumbled across a photo of one of the Moroccans who had come to the party. It was a reproduction of the cover of this week's Paris Match (more or less the French equivalent of People) with Rachid Dati, the former French minister of justice who is of Moroccan descent, along with a rap group from Meknes. The rapper who was second from the right in the picture had stopped by our party for half an hour to hang out and pick up his American girlfriend.

So, out of the ruins of perhaps the worst party I have ever thrown, I can snatch the claim that a celebrity came. I can't say that about any of my previous parties. No one who ever appeared on a magazine cover came to my parties in the United States or in France.