Funeral

My elderly neighbor died Monday from lung disease from all of his smoking. Instead of making sense and having the ceremony in the house where the man lived, it took place in my house instead. Women made couscous nonstop for six hours using giant washing bins up on the terrace. Guests arrived all day long. At 9pm four men started taking turns singing altogether and then reciting Quranic verse solo. This lasted until 12.30am when dinner was served. This lasted until 1.30am when people started trickling out. Cleaning took place until 2.15am when people just started to collapse. A small girl was spending the night and started being obnoxious around 5am. At 6.45am Mother walked into my room to leave a tray with my breakfast on it because she was about to leave for the hospital. I got up then and brushed my teeth and was asked by one of the remaining guests if she could use my toothbrush, and I felt no shame in firmly stating 'no.' Also, Hanane still is not back.

The center has a busy schedule for us for the rest of the month. Only eighteen days remain of the homestay for our group, but one of the SIT programs is ending their homestay today to leave on their three-week research trip through the country to write their big term paper. I watched Casablanca at the center last night in order to be prepared for the lecture we'll have on it in Arabic today. It was incredible how little of it I remembered, or understood, from childhood despite having spent weeks on end sitting in Mom's study doing cross-stitch and watching it time and again. We have a number of films to watch, concerts to attend, lectures to write up reports on, and conferences to consider going to. My poor planner has never known such gluttony.

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Amanda G (7 Apr) and Rebecca (6 Apr). We had these snazzy haliwa of chopped pecans covered in chocolate, jam-filled cookies, mint tea, Coke, and the world's best cake ever. We bought the only balloons that we could find (Disney princess themed) and used floss to tie them up around the terrace. The girls were totally surprised, and we were all very relieved to have been able to keep a secret for any amount of time in Morocco.