Culture and such

It’s been a little over one week living in my final site… and what is it like to have no schedule, no structure, and being somewhat my own boss again? It’s been good and soon will be great. I say somewhat my own boss, because while still living with a host family my eating and sleeping schedule is pretty much on their clock. So eating around 10:30 at night is still normal and getting up around 7:30ish is still done frequently. Whenever I have control over what food I eat and when I eat… oh man, that’s when I’ll be over the moon, but for now I’m doing well.


I realize I’ve never just written about Moroccan culture yet… So I wanted to write about my favorite customs and encounters with Moroccan culture.

1. I’m a fan of the handshake greeting and the respect shown to elders. Whenever Moroccans greet someone (and doesn’t have to be the first time they meet), they shake hands and then put their hand to their heart, meaning they take the greeting to heart. Also depending on the relationship ladies will often kiss each other’s hands or cheeks. In my first home stay family, the kids every morning would greet the parents with a kiss on the head as a sign of respect and I got a kiss on the cheek. The different types of greetings are vast and take time. If I greet a person in a group, I greet everyone in the group out of respect. This custom will be coming back with me, especially with family. It’s just a warmer way of saying hello.
2. Moroccans eat incredibly late dinners. I’ve also noticed in CBT at least, we ate a lot. Breakfast, midday tea/snack, lunch, tea, more tea, dinner around 9ish? (and that was early). Also lunch is usually the big meal of the day, so dinner tends to be bread and something or soup. 3. God phrases are in everyday language and used bzeff (a lot). Any plan or talk of the future is followed by Inshallah (If God wills it). Inshallah, I love saying it. I don’t believe in destiny, but I appreciate that many Moroccans do and thus this phrase is used. Also lamdullah (Thanks be to God). Anytime you greet someone, this will be used. Everything good? No worries? Family good? Thank God! Good stuff. Also a favorite… Bismillah (In the name of God) usually said before eating or drinking. Who needs praying before a meal when you can just say Bismillah. The quick and easy way to get that prayer done and it sounds cool too.
4. Moroccan hospitality is pretty awesome.
5. Before coming to Morocco I knew that relationships between men and women can be quite different here. Males and females my age don’t socialize together quite like we would in the States. Friendships between men and women are not common. For Muslims “dating” just isn’t done… well sort of. I have a host cousin with a “boyfriend”, but their interactions are basically done only through texting and phone calls. In my site there is a main road with 2 or 3 cafés pretty close to each other and only men go to cafes. So when I walk down the road, I do feel like I’m in man’s land and like I’m intruding, but I have 2 years to test the barriers and I already feel much comfortable with my place among the men. For the most part they just want to know where my site mate is… (who is a man and joker, so he talks to everyone). So I don’t mind hearing Mani Dawd (Where’s David) every couple minutes. I mean it’s only the first week… it may get old, but oh well, one day at a time.
6. The pace of work is slower…. I knew that, I knew that, I knew that… but I had to really try to keep my calm when we waited at the Ministry of Health for almost 4 hours for one paper (that we didn’t even really need) to get signed by a man who didn’t end up coming back. We were told to come back the next day at eleven and we went at noon, but still waited another hour for the paper. I thought I had patience, but I will really need to work on it here. **Also a note… Moroccan sense of time… party starts at 5? Okay, we’ll be there by 7. Add an hour or two to any start time and that’s when it really starts. Ha A very leisurely pace of work and time here.

So those are just a few interesting aspects of Moroccan culture, but very important ones. All in all, I’m starting to really enjoy my final site. Today we went to my host family’s fields and had a picnic under the trees. Also did a short hike to this abandoned house on top of this hill near the fields, about a mile outside town. The view was amazing and the area very suitable for camping. So one day Inshallah, a group of us will be able to camp out there.I foresee these next two years being an interesting combination of work (at a very slow pace, so if I end up only doing one thing here… don’t judge haha) and pleasure. The country of Morocco is gorgeous and I honestly can’t wait to start traveling around it. But for now, my goals are to find a house, meet someone new for tea every other day, and to really start tackling my Berber language. So hard! Ishqqa.

**Life is too short to waste…