Food, Glorious Food
I did my last load of laundry here yesterday. It seems a shame to wash my pants at this point; they are a record of my journey here. Here are the sticky drops of honey that ran down my leg at the Moroccan family's apartment in the medina, where I scarfed crepe after honey-soaked crepe while everyone else chatted in Darija. Here are the mud stains from the Rabat train station, when everything was soaked with morning rain. This has been such a great trip (and yes, I did wash the pants. Hygiene trumps nostalgia).
Hospitality here is incredible. It took me a week to screw up the courage to visit the family downstairs. Not through any fault of theirs - the parents and their three children are among the kindest people you could hope to meet. The problem is that the father is a French teacher and, as we've discussed here, my French blows. So after mentally rehearsing a conversation and finally looking up the verb for "introduce" (presenter!) I cowboyed up, walked downstairs and knocked on the door of Apartment 14.
A small boy answered. Ouias, he said, both mere and pere were a la maison. He closed the door and for a moment I wondered if I'd come at a bad time. It reopened and a grave-looking man in a track suit welcomed me in to an apartment full of silk-covered couches and plastic molded flowers (a hobby of the wife's) affixed to every flat surface. We sat, and after a moment appeared the tea. Then the cookies. Then the dates. Then the Moroccan specialty whose name i don't know, little pellets of sweet dough rolled in sesame seeds. I could not have produced a spread like this with three days' notice. We chat. They have three children, a boy who's 9 - "et demie," he added, so pardon me, 9 1/2; another boy who is 7, and an 18-month old girl who is possibly the cutest living thing on this planet. For an hour we watch the news, the dad gently corrects my French and then they invite me to Friday couscous.
Couscous is the national meal of Fridays. Every home serves it up, a stew of vegetables and meat atop a buttery cloud of fluffy couscous. It's amazing. This time, I brought a French dictionary.
During the meal, when the dad excuses himself to pray - which he does five times a day - the wife and I talked. Since she doesn't speak French and I don't speak Darija, mostly we just played with the baby, but that's good too. The father showed me how to eat couscous in the Moroccan way, squeezing it into little dumplings with your hands. The baby and I made identical messes at our places and they laughed and gave me a spoon.
Eat, eat, they tell me - cut, cut - while shoveling tender hunks of beef to my side of the family-style dish. When I absolutely cannot eat another bite, I plead for mercy. I'm stuffed. It hurts. Great! Time for dessert.
A plate stacked with a Carmen Miranda-esque display of fruit appears. I inwardly groan and take a tangerine to be polite. They peel half a dozen for me and set them on my plate. I eat a few, and then I absolutely cannot eat any more. Perfect. Now for tea and cookies.
They made this little cookies here that look like crescent moons. They are sweet and chewy and delicious. One can always make a little extra space for them. But then, really, that's it!
