Christmas

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As long as you have strong eggnog, pumpkin pie, Bing Crosby and a tree it can feel like Christmas in any country. -Anonymous PCV

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas weekend in Tazert, a small Berber village not far east of Marrakech. It was very small and very Berber, and in Darija doesn’t even merit the name of village; they call it a ‘duwar’ and as far as I can tell that means something like the French ‘hameau’. At any rate, it was very different from Kelaa.
Luckily it’s not far from Kelaa though. I did have to take three different grand taxis to get there, but each ride was very short and with all the fares put together it cost me just under two American dollars. Grand taxis are the old Mercedes, usually very old, but often in fairly respectable working condition. Two people sit in the front seat and four in the back. I always check for a seatbelt, and sometimes the driver has one. More often than not the speedometer doesn’t work and the window cranks and handles are missing, but at least the windshields are in one piece and I haven’t been offered a taxi with bald tires yet.
There is a volunteer there who works with artisans and she recommended that when we got there we just ask anybody where the foreigner lives. It turns out that I didn’t even have to do that. Getting out of the taxi I was asked by the closest person if I was going to the Nadia’s house and got a very friendly guide right to her door. Her name isn’t really Nadia, but that’s what everybody calls here, just like I get called Huda. Foreign names are always subject to change here, and if you don’t pick a name you like it can be something very far removed from your real name. Before I decided to go along with Huda I actually was called Aisha, Khadija and Fatima.
I was the first to arrive and after a quick lunch we started cooking right away. The feast consisted of two chickens, mashed potatoes, a cheese and greenbean casserole, steamed vegetables and piles of desserts. We decided that the first thing to do was the chickens, which in retrospect was pretty funny since we both are recovering vegetarians. Neither of us had ever cooked a whole chicken before. Luckily she had a Cooking Light in which I found a recipe for roasted chicken. We didn’t exactly have all the necessary ingredients or equipment (a meat thermometer? in Morocco?) but we made it work.
Rebecca was the next to arrive bearing embroidered red and white stockings for everybody. She had sewn our names on them in green Arabic script, which really isn’t easy considering that many sounds in English just don’t exist in Arabic. They were actually the Marrakech soccer team’s sock, which made them even more of a hit.

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