A Small Favor

In my favorite cafe, there are only two positions women are eligible for: cleaning and manning (womanning?) the cash register. This is par for the course--men make the coffee and serve it; women keep track of the money to pay for the coffee and tidy up the mess coffee-drinkers make. In both cases, the women work either the morning shift (till 2:30 PM or so) or the afternoon/evening shift (till closing).

Today Safae was working the morning shift. A pale, petite Moroccan, she wears the headscarf when it's cold, studies English at Moulay Ismail University, and rolls her eyes at the men's incessant joking. Occasionally, she even participates. Mostly though, she just observes, always ready to adjudicate a waiter's sanity for me. When things get out of hand, she lifts her right hand to her head and rolls her wrist, mouthing the word "7ma9" ("crazy") to me, as she glances askance at the guilty waiter.

Today, during a lull in the playfulness, Safae approached my table and, speaking in English, asked me a favor.

"For my class at the university I have to write a paper about Hamlet. Have you read it?"

"Yes," I replied cautiously.

"I haven't. Could you write me a summary of the plot?"

I flashed back to my high school days. The majority of my class didn't read Hamlet either; they read the Sparknotes. "You know there are good summaries online," I replied.

"Yes, I know. But every time I copy something from the internet the professor knows and gives me a zero."

At that point, I switched to Darija, "I can help you with something you don't understand. I'd even be happy to revise something you write. But I'm not going to do your homework for you."

She looked around and then responded in English, restating her favor. I responded in Darija again. What followed was, if my memory serves me right, my first public argument in Darija.

If her embarrassed retreat to the cash register serves as any indication, I do believe I won.