Abrupt Endings and Disappointment
Casablanca was rather unfun for the hype that was built all around it. We took our very same bus and driver from the excursion to get there, so there was at least a nice air of nostalgia around the whole thing. We even spent half an hour pulling three-point turns and asking pedestrians for directions - just like the excursion!
We went to a Jewish museum and spent two and a half hours following a man who yelled, whistled, or snapped his fingers to ensure that people were paying attention to him. He spoke fusHa, darija, French, English, and Hebrew, so I found him interesting at first but soon lost all of it. We saw jewlery and Barbie dolls dressed in traditional Moroccan Jewish ceremonial costumes. It should have been a lot more interesting than it was.
After that we went to a women's center for lunch. Honestly, in my opinion, once you've seen one women's center, you've seen them all. We had a grand time trying to finish the mound of couscous between the thirteen of us but failed miserably. Those of us who are good at the ball-making game showed off, and those of us who are vegetarians got a nasty surprise halfway into it when Susanna chomped down on a piece of chicken bone (the entire dish, we had been told, was vegetarian). The head of center came to talk to us for fifteen minutes, showed us around a little bit, and then we left.
We went to an art exhibit after that, if you can call it an art exhibit. There were five pieces all made from pipery and then a short video alternating between cartoons and Disney movie clippings and it was very strange. We left after being handed fistfuls of literature and went to a an overpriced café with the worst service I've yet had. Every single order was messed up in some way and the lady tried to tell me that my crêpe cost 28dhm. I grabbed a menu and indicated that it cost 25dhm, and she just shrugged. The traffic in Casablanca was very bad, so the fifty-minute drive home turned into a two-and-a-half hour drive.
BABY PARTY WAS THIS MORNING! Starting at 6am guests started arriving and Mother finished frying the last of the haliwa. Caterers set up several tables with pretty cloths and plates and bowls and whatnot. At 10.30am the band (trumpet, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine) started playing, and they went for almost an hour before we stopped them to eat. The meal was FABULOUS! We had hard-boiled eggs, harira (special Moroccan soup), cheese, ghaifa, the bubbly pancakes, melted honey-butter sauce, milk, coffee, tea, and haliwa! I sat at the same table as Hanane, the woman of the hour. She was stunning in a white kaftan and her hair straightened and cascading down her back almost to her waist. Mohammed ran around making sure that everything was going well but nobody was working as hard as Mother was. I do not know if she sat down even once. When people had finished eating, the band played again, and this time everybody danced along. My friends Anna and Amanda were allowed to come, and they were totally enraptured with the whole deal. America, or more specifically, white Americans, are SO BORING! We have this aversion to going all out when we celebrate something, and we absolutely loathe moving in any way. There is no such thing as a person who doesn't know how to dance in Morocco. Even the babies who were present at this party were dancing. Hanane presented Baby shortly before we all went downstairs to watch the sheep be killed. Unlike the cow, this animal was killed only minutes after everyone got downstairs. There was no build up to it. The band didn't even stop playing. I couldn't hear the man state "In the name of God *slit* I name you ____." The throat was slit, everyone clapped, and within ten minutes not a single guest remained. It was so bizarre. I had to ask Mohammed what was going on. He said that he was all over with. I asked what Baby had been named, and he told me Janaat. When you pronounce that, make sure you use the French j sound and not the English one. If you don't know what that it, it's the sound at the end of "rouge" or in the middle of "pleasure." But yea, the party was over, so I went to belly dance class and now sit in Café Arab with Hilary getting my paper done.
We went to a Jewish museum and spent two and a half hours following a man who yelled, whistled, or snapped his fingers to ensure that people were paying attention to him. He spoke fusHa, darija, French, English, and Hebrew, so I found him interesting at first but soon lost all of it. We saw jewlery and Barbie dolls dressed in traditional Moroccan Jewish ceremonial costumes. It should have been a lot more interesting than it was.
After that we went to a women's center for lunch. Honestly, in my opinion, once you've seen one women's center, you've seen them all. We had a grand time trying to finish the mound of couscous between the thirteen of us but failed miserably. Those of us who are good at the ball-making game showed off, and those of us who are vegetarians got a nasty surprise halfway into it when Susanna chomped down on a piece of chicken bone (the entire dish, we had been told, was vegetarian). The head of center came to talk to us for fifteen minutes, showed us around a little bit, and then we left.
We went to an art exhibit after that, if you can call it an art exhibit. There were five pieces all made from pipery and then a short video alternating between cartoons and Disney movie clippings and it was very strange. We left after being handed fistfuls of literature and went to a an overpriced café with the worst service I've yet had. Every single order was messed up in some way and the lady tried to tell me that my crêpe cost 28dhm. I grabbed a menu and indicated that it cost 25dhm, and she just shrugged. The traffic in Casablanca was very bad, so the fifty-minute drive home turned into a two-and-a-half hour drive.
BABY PARTY WAS THIS MORNING! Starting at 6am guests started arriving and Mother finished frying the last of the haliwa. Caterers set up several tables with pretty cloths and plates and bowls and whatnot. At 10.30am the band (trumpet, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine) started playing, and they went for almost an hour before we stopped them to eat. The meal was FABULOUS! We had hard-boiled eggs, harira (special Moroccan soup), cheese, ghaifa, the bubbly pancakes, melted honey-butter sauce, milk, coffee, tea, and haliwa! I sat at the same table as Hanane, the woman of the hour. She was stunning in a white kaftan and her hair straightened and cascading down her back almost to her waist. Mohammed ran around making sure that everything was going well but nobody was working as hard as Mother was. I do not know if she sat down even once. When people had finished eating, the band played again, and this time everybody danced along. My friends Anna and Amanda were allowed to come, and they were totally enraptured with the whole deal. America, or more specifically, white Americans, are SO BORING! We have this aversion to going all out when we celebrate something, and we absolutely loathe moving in any way. There is no such thing as a person who doesn't know how to dance in Morocco. Even the babies who were present at this party were dancing. Hanane presented Baby shortly before we all went downstairs to watch the sheep be killed. Unlike the cow, this animal was killed only minutes after everyone got downstairs. There was no build up to it. The band didn't even stop playing. I couldn't hear the man state "In the name of God *slit* I name you ____." The throat was slit, everyone clapped, and within ten minutes not a single guest remained. It was so bizarre. I had to ask Mohammed what was going on. He said that he was all over with. I asked what Baby had been named, and he told me Janaat. When you pronounce that, make sure you use the French j sound and not the English one. If you don't know what that it, it's the sound at the end of "rouge" or in the middle of "pleasure." But yea, the party was over, so I went to belly dance class and now sit in Café Arab with Hilary getting my paper done.
posted by Athena | 2:30 PM
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