Basically, soccer

The first weekend with the family, the Blidis.

Three brothers: 17, 11, 6; a sister, 20, who has a daughter, 5 mos, which daughter lives with us, though the sister does not (she lives with her much older husband, who is very protective of her, though never touches her...though she is an English major my year at Mohammed V university and does not wear the veil or anything, and would hate to have lived, like, 20 years ago. I guess me too).

The 17 year-old brother and the sister are the only ones who really speak English, so the 17 year-old brother and I are a bit attached. His name is Abbas. The 11 year-old, Omar, always tags along, though he isn't allowed to play soccer with us.
Saturday we went to a soccer game. Imagine 1,000 men, all ages, though mostly 16-25, packed into a wide open stadium, sitting on cement seating (they put little scraps of paper and box to sit on, for some reason), and singing. That's what you do, if your team is playing. You hold the man on either side of you and sing, dance, and move as much as you can throughout the entire game, such that, really, I think the success of your camaraderie is as much the point as the game itself. Of course, there are armed military-looking cops everywhere, picking their noses and holding their clubs.

At one point, indeed, a piece of the wall behind the mass of men rooting for the home team fell off. I was on the opposite end of the field, and what you saw was something you'd see under a microscope, like, a red (team color) mass suddenly dispersing in a widening V. Two men fell off, and might have been killed.

I sat with my brother and his two friends, who couldn't be more than 14. They greet each other like men, kiss four times, ask about one another's health, hold one another, stand up for one another (there always seems to be one foolish guy not from around here), and sing together (Omar sings all the time, and doesn't seem to know he has a beautiful voice). It wasn't Abbas' team; we're going to that game next week. He has a jersey and a scarf for me, and Omar tried to teach me some of the songs last night. Abbas said when FAR (his team) plays, the stadium is so full that Omar gets on his shoulders (Abbas is, somehow, 6'2'') and you are guaranteed to leave at least a little bloody. I'm not sure if he meant that.

Another thing about hanging out with quinceaneros is video games. Before the soccer game, Abbas took me to a tiny room hidden by a curtain in a side alley where two other boys were packed in next to one another playing soccer on Playstation II. That was the first thing me and Abbas did together. Play video games. He beat me pretty bad.

Though not as badly as I was beaten yesterday afternoon, when Abbas took me to the beach, to the cement field, (big stones for goal markers), where you go to play pick-up soccer. It was me and like 15 Moroccans, all of whom couldn't have been older than me. I tried. Man, did I try. They are so good at soccer, and I am not even average (not anymore). They were very nice about it. Congratulating me on a good pass and not cursing at me when I messed up the way they did their friends. I'm not sure why they were so nice to me. I mean, they definitely gave us an extra player to compensate my team for my presence, and they put a 7 year-old kid to defend me, but still, they didn't give me near as much shit as they could have, as 14 year-olds are supposed to, at least. At one point, my eyes got so full of sweat I kicked the 7 year-old in the shins by accident, and so as my penalty was he was allowed to pick me up and drop me into the Atlantic.

A lot of kids were running up to the big stone wall on the beach and doing spins off of the wall, kind of like the turns professional swimmers do, the whole time we were playing; when we finished, 6 of them climbed the stairs of the brand new Surfing Institution and jumped off onto the sand, from like four stories, like divers, rolling like ninjas when they fell.

Pastries everywhere. My mom is a specialist. We don't really eat dinner (something "small" at 10 pm or so). But at like 6 pm, we have coffee and milk, and two huge beautiful catered-looking (she makes them sometime, everyday, somewhere) plates of pastries. Being the guest, of course, it is kul, kul, kul. I get more than everyone. I am obliging, and finding God on the way.

There are always people in my house who I don't know who they are. Family and friends come and go for meals, and it is really nice. I remember faces but not names, and what is most nice about it (for now) is that rather than seem too interested in me, they just let me be, watch, either because I am simply (to/for them) a part of the family, as is our agreement, or they don't know what to do since I cannot really speak any of their three main languages. Either way, to sit in a room--and the living rooms are wide open spaces lined by sofas and pillows on which men and women recline under blankets and watch television--and get to watch them converse and laugh and process their days with one another is (for now) sort of mesmerizing.

The television is literally always on. No one ever watches it, though, except when there is a soccer game. Then, everyone from grandma to the 5 mo. old Rita watch; though, then, even, people eventually grow more interested in the pastries and the make-up catalogs and the stories about the neighbors. Not Abbas or Omar, though; we went upstairs for the final minutes of the Africa World Cup championship, and they made fun of me for rooting for Cameroon, who lost to Egypt. I never liked Egypt much, I don't know why. Makes me think of museums and hebrew school.

By the way, I found myself playing video games by myself in Fatima's (the sister's) apartment. I really didn't realize it, that I was furiously trying to get better, get into the zone, until I did, realize it...though, I didn't feel guilty the way I do when I use the internet when I am here.

I don't know how to describe the house. Mom, Zach: you will see it when you come. You are invited, of course. There is a courtyard with no roof in the middle of the house; on one wall, there is a sink; in another corner, a small table where we eat breakfast (sometimes birds are flying overhead). There are several rooms adjoining the courtyad; these are covered. On the first floor, they are all variations on the living room, though only one has the huge beautiful television. That room is, I think, where my mother and father sleep with thier granddaugther and 6 year-old, Mohammed Reda (just Reda). Upstairs is where me, Omar, and Abbas sleep, in a room that is three times as long as it is wide. You fall asleep to a breeze, or the two brothers kissing one another.

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