Daily Routines #1

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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. -Agnes Repplier

One thing I have really come to love here is seeing the older men riding their bikes in jellabas. It seems like a very impractical thing to ride a bike in, with the hood blowing in the wind and the bottom of the robe flapping dangerously close to the chain and pedals, but they do it all the time.
Another typically Arabic occurrence is the call to prayer, which I hear five times a day. When I lived with my first host family here in Kelaa I was right next to a mosque and not only heard the call loud and clear, but could also hear the men praying inside the mosque. At Maryam’s house there isn’t a mosque too close by, but the neighborhood has lots of other sounds that I’m learning.
Reminding me of Anisa’s house in Cambodia ever day, men come around the neighborhood calling out what they’re selling. Since the walls are all cement and the windows are very thin glass - if they’re closed - sounds come through from the street like the walls were paper. The narrow streets tend to echo a bit too, magnifying the cries. the men sell everything from eggs, yelling “beed,” to bleach, yelling “javel” which often gets shortened to “ayl” or even mint “nana.” Most push carts, though I’ve seen mint vendors riding through the dirt streets, dodging playing children, piles of donkey dung and garbage and even cats on their bikes.
The call I notice most of “yebbs” or sometimes the whole thing “hobbs yebbs” which means dried bread. Of course, if you walked around pushing a cart all day yelling, you would probably shorten it to “dried” just like they do here. It is haram, or against Islam, to throw away bread so people save it in bags to give to animals. The first family I stayed with in Kelaa dried it to give to the pigeons up on the roof. Maryam gives it to the man in the street, though she said he’ll buy a full bag for a dirham if you want to sell it. I agree with her that a dirham just isn’t enough to bother with. You have to be even poorer than a Peace Corps volunteer to sell your old bread. The thing is, I know there are plenty of people here who are.
Kelaa has its population of beggers, like any town, and I’ve gotten to know most of them already. There’s the woman who sits in a wheel chair outside the post office and the very thin old woman who lays doubled over with a scarf over her head at the corner by the bank with only her right hand facing up on the blanket she sits on. I have given to her when she is partly sitting up and bent down to talk to her, trying to see her face, but she keeps it covered.
The women here are as diverse in clothing as anywhere I’ve seen in Morocco. There are the women who barely let their eyes show, and women in tight pants and leather jackets with their hair flowing loose down their backs. I have to admit though, the veiled women far outnumber the modern ones. Khadija was a modern women never covering her head, though she occasionally wore a jellaba. Maryam is always veiled when she goes out and often in the house as well, even if the only visitor is the woman who lives downstairs. She doesn’t bother to veil in front of Hichem and me, but as far as I can tell nobody else is allowed to see her hair. she doesn’t cover her face but wears the hijab and almost always a jellaba.
I'm sure I will have a lot more random facts and little observations as time goes on: daily routines to be continued.

PS. New Years was a blast. I went to a small town called Sidi Bou Othmane where Maroof lives. He is between Bart in Ben Guerir and Marrakech. It was the basically the same group I got to see for Christmas. I got to go to Marrakech to meet up with Catherine, Rebecca and Brian before I went to Dar Maroof and I had my first Marjan experience. Marjan is a regular giant supermarket, like a French style Fred Meyers. They even have a sin section where I found a bottle of Mèknes Syrah. It wasn't too bad. So, New Years was another weekend of sitting around with other Americans and talking in English and eating a lot and watching movies. In the book exchange I managed to get David Sedaris' Barrel Fever, which is doing a lot to balance out my withdrawal from American humor and culture. It actually belongs to the PC library - it's so encouraging to see that Sedaris is available in Morocco!

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