Full Circle

A few minutes after the sun peaked its head over the horizon this morning, I walked up the steps of Meknes' main train station and shook hands with my fellow teacher Mike.

"I almost thought you had forgotten the money." He handed me 250 Dirhams, our agreed upon price for the Arabic textbook Al-kitab 3. The two of us walked inside and approached my former roommate Daniel.

"We come full circle." He smiled as we shook hands.

I had forgotten that day in the summer of 2009 when I met him for the first time. He had walked up those same steps, greeted me, and then we walked down Avenue des FAR to our totally unfurnished shared apartment. Flashes of memories shot through my brain as I turned to greet the other English teachers preparing to leave for the nationwide conference.

Hassan Hassani inquired, "Are you going to Agadir, Chris?"

"No. I just came to say 'goodbye'," I replied.

"Who's going to gamble, win, and buy me beers this year then?"

I turned to Mike, "Maybe this guy will....how much did I win again?"

Without batting an eyelash Hassani responded, "700 Dirhams." Mike nodded, impressed.

Chelsea, the last remaining American teacher, arrived porting a winter cap, scarf and large coat. "It's like the Arctic out there."

I smiled, looking outside at the 50 F weather and thinking of all the Facebook blizzard status updates from my Philadelphia friends this week.

I gave each of them a hug and shared the usual parting banalities, with more or less seriousness.

My almost two years in Meknes are drawing to a close. On Sunday I will take the same train west, and on Tuesday I will leave Morocco. It has become almost a biannual tradition for me to leave a place, its people, its institutions, and its customs. It's always bitter-sweet. To abandon what you know is to prune yourself of some of your best foliage, but it's also an opportunity for relationships, knowledge, and activities to grow back stronger and fuller.

The Moroccan teachers had filtered through the line and out to the tracks, leaving the three Americans behind. I said one final goodbye, turned, and walked down the steps of the Meknes train station, along the park, and onto Avenue des FAR towards home, this time alone.

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.

Scenes From Morocco: A Countryside Clown

A Moroccan Christmas Eve

Having turned in the last of my grades yesterday and thus put an end to my busiest semester yet, I slept in this Christmas Eve morning. After a lazy breakfast and some quality Internet time I made my way out to the corner café for a nis-nis, the Moroccan café au lait. After an hour reading the special Christmas issue of The Economist and a bit from Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan, I took a walk around my neighborhood.

Today is a normal Friday in Morocco. Sometime after noon, schoolchildren headed home for couscous. One by one, the shops closed. The mosques filled up and emptied. The schoolchildren are now joking and tussling outside the school gates. Friday afternoon classes will begin shortly. Some shops will open up again; many won't. But that's because it's Friday, the Islamic sabbath, not because it's Christmas Eve.

No, it's not beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here; it's not even coming close. Other than a few upscale shops and supermarkets (in Morocco supermarkets are upscale), there are no signs of Christmas. Even there, decorations are limited to Christmas trees and a few garlands. The same mix of Arabic and Western music plays in cafés and shops and offices. There are no non-stop Christmas music stations.

I miss our American Christmas season. I didn't think that I would, but I do some. I admit: to compensate, I've been streaming Big R Radio: Christmas Classics on iTunes almost every day. I bought a cheap artificial tree, and I even made some of my students learn the chorus and first verse of "Jingle Bells".

Trying to concisely explain Christmas to my students has been difficult. They're more familiar with the Christmas tree and gift-giving from movies and TV shows. As with other American styles and customs, some Moroccan families have taken to imitating they see in American media. The girl working at the supermarket checkout assured me that she celebrated Christmas too--they have a tree and give gifts.

This will be my first non-commercialized Christmas. The massive cultural consumption, holiday spectacles, and suffocatingly festive atmosphere are stripped away from the holiday. All that remains is a yearning for some of my family's traditions and the Advent liturgy I hear in church each week.

I've tried to imitate what my family does as best as possible in this new environment. I have a tree. I baked a few of my mom's Christmas cookies. Tomorrow morning I'll have the same egg dish with a side of grapefruit we always eat.

And then there is the Advent season. Scholars tell us Jesus wasn't born in December. Christmas trees, stockings, and Santa Claus do not appear in the gospel accounts of Jesus' birth. Theoretically there could be Christianity with absolutely no Christmas.

But it does exist. We have this strange accumulation of customs and stories (what do a fantasy prince who cracks nuts in his extra time or a marginalized reindeer with a bright red nose really have to do with the Incarnation anyway?) They're part of being an American Christian. I grew up with them. As strange as they are and as much as I struggle to explain and justify them all to inquiring Moroccans, they are mine.

And this year I have been even more conscious that something else that is mine is this Advent season--the time Christians have chosen to reflect in anticipation on the event of God becoming man to save us all from Satan's snare when we were gone astray. It didn't have to be that way, but it is. And I am a part of it. I maybe can't justify all the consumerism of the Christmas season, but the act of giving gifts to loved ones mirrors what the Wise men did with Jesus. And if done in the right way, it fulfills what the apostle John said about the Incarnation's effect on us, "We love because He first loved us."

So, later this afternoon I will head out to try to live out that ideal while sharing my culture and tradition some: I will take some Christmas cookies to my Moroccan neighbors and friends. And after that I will go to church for the culmination of this season of Advent anticipation.

Scenes From Morocco: Trimming The Tree

Artificial Christmas trees and Christmas decorations are now available for Westerners in most supermarkets. Moroccans also buy them in consumerist imitation of what they have seen on TV.

The Miracle Of Mutton

It's amazing what excess mutton will do for relationships.

The past week people have come out of the woodwork to bring me leftover meat from Eid al-Kabir.

First my Arabic tutor brought me a large salad and a huge tajine of mutton kefta (essentially: ground mutton patties). Then, two days later, another friend I hadn't seen in months appeared at my doorstep with a similar meal. Fortunately I didn't have other plans. We sat down together (but not at my table--I've learned that Moroccans feel uncomfortable eating Western-style). Then yesterday right around lunchtime the concierge knocked at my door with a plate of ribs.

Yesterday, I got to see how mutton plays into relationships of authority. I ran into a student who hasn't bothered to come to class all semester (it's the seventh week now). He assured me he has been very busy but he intends to start coming and then catch up on everything he missed. On parting he offered to bring some mutton to class this week (he swears he's coming this week).

I don't mind mutton. And such gifts of food are excellent for my food budget. I really can't complain.

Eid Al-Kabir 2010

Some readers have asked if I will be commenting on the holiday or posting photos. Unfortunately, this year I did not celebrate Eid Al-Kabir other than a post-holiday meal of mutton that my Arabic tutor brought over.

However, feel free to read about my great experience last year watching the sheep slaughter, eating boulfef, and visiting my host's extended family.