Ssalam Aleekum Men Morocco (Hello from Morocco)!

I’ve been in Morocco for four days now, but it feels like four weeks. The first two nights were spent in a hotel: first in Rabat then in Fes. Yet, these first four days/four months have been incredible!...

Yesterday I moved into my homestay in Fes. My family is wonderful! The father is a biology and geology professor for Moroccan students and speaks better English than I expected. The mother, Fatima, knows a handful of French and English words, and we have been communicating through a mixture of my broken Moroccan Arabic, English, and sign language. Their two sons are 15 and 17, but that’s about all I know of them, as they don’t speak much English and, well, my Arabic is yet to be conversational. I do know, however, that the eldest enjoys facebook and has poor hearing.

Safesh bet (I am full), one of the first phrases we were taught in Moroccan Arabic has proven to be the most useful. Shukran (thank you) comes in a close second place.
In Fes I have a roommate from my program, which is nice to ease into a homestay before moving to Rabat for 12 weeks and not having one. Fatima feeds us constantly…and I mean constantly! I’ll give you a short anecdote:

This morning while my roomie was taking a bucket shower (yes, yes, we take bucket showers here, but this home has a western toilet: some of our friends weren’t so lucky) I ate my breakfast: mint tea and msamen, which tasted like soft but flaky pita that you dip in honey. After I was finished, I cleared my plate and went to finish getting ready. A little bit later, she came to our room because she wanted us to continue eating. “Eat, eat,” she said! We repeated our handy new phrase: la shukran, safesh bet (no thanks, I am full) so she wrapped us up some goodies for an afternoon snack. It’s extremely nice of her to make us breakfast and snacks considering it is Ramadan and they don’t eat during the day. Ramadan in Morocco is exciting to experience, except when the Morning Prayer, which I hardly consider the morning, bellows from the closest mosque between 3 and 4 am and lasts about 10 minutes. It’s interesting because crime is heightened during the month of Ramadan. Why you ask? It is the father’s duty to provide the ftur (the break fast meal) every night for the entire holiday, which can be quite an expensive task. That and a lack of eating causes people to become grumpy and restless. Hence, the heightened crime levels. I have also heard, however, that in some parts, crime decreases because people are more mindful of Ramadan.

My first REAL Moroccan meal occurred just a few days ago in Rabat. A frequent host family invited our group for lunch and no meal since then has come close to comparing. In Morocco, everyone at the table eats from the same large platter. Depending on the food, you either eat with your hands (using bread) or a spoon and you basically stick to your side of the dish. The food platter the father brought out was big enough to put on a porch or garden to grow numerous plants.

The dish:
Moroccan couscous! The couscous filled the entire platter/garden pot and was topped with loads and loads of slowly cooked vegetables: squash, tomato, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, and caramelized onions mixed with raisins. Various chicken parts smothered in a creamy yellow sauce were mixed in along with other spices. The dish is cooked in a kiskas, or North African food steamer. The meat and vegetables are cooked as a stew in a tall metal pot. The couscous is cooked in a steamer on top of the pot and absorbs the flavors from the stew below. The best couscous I have ever tasted. EVER.

Well, that’s all for me! Ftar (break-fast) is in 30 minutes and I’m off to help Fatima with dinner. Check out the pictures at the top of the page for a visual of my couscous meal.