I am leaving in a week, and my feelings on this change approximately every second, which is weird, because I also have mixed feelings about it all the time. There are days, hours, seconds, when I’m bored, or tired, or cranky, and I cannot wait to go home. Then there are days, hours, seconds where I realize I am home here, too, and picturing the good-byes I’m going to have to say makes me sad enough to want to just stay. One thing I decided I don’t want to do, at least in blog world, is try to summarize or attempt any type of overview of my experience here. There will be no final, “so this is what I think of Morocco” because I feel like that would be very unfair to this place. The truth is, after living here for three months, I feel like there is a lot more that I don’t understand than things that I do, so concluding thoughts would really not be appropriate because there is no finality to things here or my feelings about them. I guess that would be the only overarching lesson I could offer from my trip: you can never know enough about people.
Today was the last couscous Friday. Dustin came over and we had a wonderful and delicious lunch. I still think it’s funny how my host dad insists on knowing everything. He told me that lamb head makes the best couscous and that I was mistaken for not wanting to eat it. I emphasized it was the best in his opinion. but apparently everyone else feels the same as he does, or so I’m told. He also would not accept that Dustin would stay in a hotel the night before his flight, even though the plane leaves at 8:30 in the morning from Casablanca (a four hour train ride). There were a couple times today though that he said “sorry” after interrupting us, but then he would continue talking. Baba Ahmed knows best. Actually, Baba Ahmed is the only one who knows anything, and if you think you know something, it might be right if you agree with him but you definitely do not know how to say it properly in Arabic so it would be better if he just said it and you agreed when he asks at the end “fhmt?” (you understand?). I say all of this completely lovingly. I think his “la la” (No, NO!) interrupting whatever I try to say followed by an explanation of the way things “really” are, will be missed almost as much as my host mom telling me to “kuhlee!” (eat). My host parents asked Dustin what he had bought for his family in America and they thought it was hilarious that he bought his dad a cookbook. We explained that his dad actually owned a restaurant, so this would be helpful, and my host mom offered to write down recipes and cooking tips for him. I piped up because this whole time I’ve been telling my host mom I want to learn how to cook Moroccan dishes and she says, “You’re my daughter, I cook for you.” And I said, “But in America it will be necessary for me to cook myself!” And she looks straight at me and says, “No I’m coming with you to make you food.” As much as I would love this, I think I will still try to squeeze some cooking secrets out of her before I go, and anyone who reads this blog is invited when I attempt my very own couscous Friday in the states.
Also, I’m finally posting pictures of Fes and my host family, so, as Dustin’s mom would say, you should “do the Facebook” and check em out.