A Comeback! Hold the compliments...

First of all, OMG this thing still exists.  Secondly, I'm a little concerned I didn't need a password to type up a new entry.  I haven't seen this thing in two years and Blogger believes it's still me, the original user, getting access.  But, eh, they're right, so whatev.

Yes, I'm back and hopefully here to stay (a little longer) this time.  I'm thinking that the focus will most likely shift from being an expat in Morocco to being an expat raising kids in Morocco.  Adding a second lil' goober to the mix would do something like that.  But, I promise to make posts about bringing up babies Moroccan style go beyond just the interests of those of you with kiddos of your own.  Because everyone wants to read a rant about how there are no changing tables in public bathrooms in all of Morocco, right?

 I considered changing the name of the blog to suit the addition of the kid factor, but it'd be something lame like "Orange Blossom, Mint, and Spit Up." So, uhm, no.  Plus, it'd mean finding another background as awesome as my couch cushions.  I suppose I could compose a shot of the pillows covered in spit up.  I'm sure the baby would oblige, but she's sleeping, and sleep is what makes this blog possible.

To usher in the new era of "Orange Blossom and Mint," I want to bring up something super big and important here (please note lack of sarcasm.) It is: the EVIL EYE.  Just typing it - and possibly reading it (sorry)- probably jinxed us all.  How I understand it is this: the evil eye is essentially jealous people sending out bad juju from saying something admiring, but really having bad feelings behind the remark.  And even if you aren't jealous, you basically don't want to say anything admiring because you'd either attract the attention of a jealous person to the admirable thing, or be accused of having the evil eye if said thing came into harm's way.  A lot of Moroccans apparently have the evil eye- bad.

So, what happens if you can't say anything admiring? You point out all the negatives.  Nothing made this more clear to me than when I had Salim.  I couldn't point any of the good things about his health, several of which I was quite proud. At. All. Whenever I tried to mention something to my husband or in-laws, they'd be like, "That's great, now shut yer trap."  But see a skinny baby, and that's all people will talk about.  Even head size.  A baby having a big head apparently is a good thing (trust me, not that great for a mom doing natural childbirth), and, therefore, cannot be spoken of.  But a small head is an a-okay conversation starter.  My husband couldn't stop gushing over what a tiny head his cousin's baby had, to his cousin's face.  Not a prob.

Big Head's Selfie

It's essentially the complete opposite of the "elephant in the room" culture we've got in the US.  Americans compliment the hell out of little kids and cast sideways glances at one another if there's any indication of a problem.  It's more of an "ignore it 'til it goes away" approach.  Having dealt with both methods, I definitely appreciate the American way.  It's much nicer to be complimented by a person you meet for the first time rather than have them point out your acne and proceed to touch it (true story).

Lesson learned: in Morocco, make the parents worry about their kid's health.  If the kid looks sickly, talk about it.  If you think the squirt might have a learning disability- let everyone know.  That way the parents will only worry about medical concerns and don't have to worry about bad juju from the evil eye.  And, people won't think you have the evil eye.  Which you don't want them to, because, once someone puts it out there that you caused a bad thing to happen with a compliment, you're off the guest list for good.  It's true.  I've seen it happen more than once.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the evil eye in Morocco.  It goes into cars, clothes, injures, deaths, school, everything.  And then there are the ways to prevent it.  Small animals lose their tiny lives to protect against the evil eye.   But, we've had enough.

Please, leave comments, just nothing nice.

Goats in trees and other things I don't take pictures of

First off the bat, yes, there really are goats in trees in Morocco.  In the sparsely vegetated landscape between Agadir and Essaouira, there isn't much going on the ground food-wise, so the goats have learned how to climb argan trees and eat yummy argan fruit.  Do you need to see it to believe it?  Well, too bad because I haven't taken a picture of a tree full of goats here, among many other wondrous things in Morocco that I haven't captured on film (here's a link to someone else's picture of goats in trees http://www.journeybeyondtravel.com/news/morocco-travel/trees-morocco-nature.html.)

Yesterday we were driving through argan country with my mom in the backseat.  Sure enough, there were several trees with goats in them along the side of road.  I pointed them out to my fellow travelers but didn't even feel a twinge to grab my camera.  "That could be something in my next blog post," I thought to myself.  But then I realized that I don't have any pictures of goats in trees.  My dad has some great ones from the first time he visited, and my mom got some of her standing in front of a goat laden tree three years ago, why in the world don't I have any?  Because I live here.

I'm white.  So white that I practically glow in the dark.  This makes it difficult for me to blend in with Moroccans.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that Morocco has so many tourists that I'm usually mistaken for one of them rather than a slightly seasoned resident.  It's discouraging to try fairly hard to adjust to life in a foreign country for five years and then be offered a toy camel for ten times its normal price.  This makes me do what I can to distance myself from the habits of the tourist.  This means that when I'm out and about alone I put on a grumpy, disinterested expression (most Moroccan women do this to discourage harassment) and I don't carry around my camera.  No camera means no pictures.

I'm also a great tour guide.  This means that while my parents are clicking away at the camels, I'm haggling over how much to pay the camel owner for the pleasure of taking their picture.  Being a tour guide often means missing out on my own photo opportunities.

I'm not complaining about not having pictures.  It's my fault, really.  I just needed a venue to work out why in the world my family members have pictures of things in Morocco that I see all the time and have never captured.  So, what would I take pictures of here if I weren't concerned with looking local?  Mostly, it would be people.  There are so many times that I see and an old man or woman doing impossibly difficult physical labor and I want to take a picture of them,  Or the trucks that bring women home in the evening after a long day of working in factories.  And there are cute kids doing silly things in the street.  These, of course, are people who probably wouldn't want a well-to-do American gawking at them and taking their picture, and I don't want to upset anyne because I live here and might see them again.

Flowers at home, not a problem

The things that I do take pictures of are usually the beach and pretty places (see previous post,) the baby, things at home, and the in-laws during the two big holidays.  Now that I have this blog, I suppose I'll try to take some more, because they really do say a lot more than my ramblings.

Prince Turnip

One great thing about Morocco is that it has such a long coastline (mostly on the Atlantic and a little on the Mediterranean, for you geography flunkies.)  Along said coastline are various cities and towns, some being real gems.  One gem is a village in the south called Mirleft.  'Mir' comes from emir, meaning prince, and left means turnip.  Now, I'm not sure if a turnip prince ever existed in the area, but I'm pretty sure there isn't one now because Mirleft does not evoke images of royalty, nor does it boast a very good vegetable market.  But, what it does boast is a pristine beach and dramatic ocean views.
     A couple of years ago the husband and I were looking for a weekend getaway destination and we had a British owned bed and breakfast in Mirleft recommended to us.  Little did we know that the B and B would become an annual pilgrimage site for us, but this year is the third year we've stayed there and this time we brought my mom.  It is, for us anyway, the star of Mirleft.
        Sally's, named after the owner, is a yellow villa that sits atop a cliff overlooking the town's main beach.  It has a beautiful living room with a large terrace on the first floor, and a large deck on the roof, all with ocean views.  This was the first time we stayed in the second floor suite, and we can't figure out why we didn't do it before.  The suite has a large sitting room with attached kitchen and breakfast bar, a small bathroom, a bedroom with fireplace and two windows overlooking the ocean, and a large private terrace with grill and ocean views all around.  When I say ocean views I mean pure, unobstructed ocean views that make you think you're on a cruise ship as opposed to dry land.  Here is the view from the bedroom window:

 

      Naturally, with views like this our desire to leave our room was next to nil.  When it came time for us to get food I felt annoyance rather than my usual pleasure at the thought of going out to eat.  This is partly due to the lackluster dining options that Mirleft has to offer (last year there was a great Italian restaurant owned by real Italians, but they'd since packed up and moved on,) but it was largely due to the fact that we had the best views in town.  Luckily, the husband was kind enough to go scrounge something up and bring it back to me and my mom.  Breakfasts were one of the best times of the day because two lovely Moroccan ladies brought a full spread of breakfast delights to our terrace.

Breakfast on the terrace

        In addition to the fantastic views, Sally's has cozy decor.  The rooms and public areas are an eclectic mix of Moroccan and British, with a naughty horse cartoon in every room.  Our room had a nautical feel with navy and white striped curtains and navy accent walls.  My mom's room was done up in a surprisingly tasteful combination of red, blue, and yellow.    

      The place is fairly big for a bed and breakfast.  There are two or three rooms with a glimpse of the ocean from the window (you have to stand just so), a first floor room with a great view of the ocean, our suite, and the room where my mom stayed which had no ocean view at all but was conveniently located on the same floor as our suite. 
       When we were there there were also a couple of British women and their kids.  The permanent residents are the owner, her small dog Moogy, and her blue macaw named Bella.  We'd met Moogy the previous times, but this was the first time we met Bella.  She has a large walk-in cage on the second floor, but spends the night in the owner's room.  Sally told us that Bella gets in her bed and lies on her back so Sally can pet her yellow tummy.  We got a chance to pet her and she is truly an affectionate bird.

Bella was more interested in showing off her smooth moves than her feathers.

     We had planned on staying just one night but ended up staying two.  Had it not been for the husband's work and the cost of the suite, about $125 a night, we would've stayed much longer.  My mom was trying to figure out how long she could live there if she retired and I was calculating how much it would cost a month if we stayed there every weekend.  Needless to say, we'll be back!

How do you say...

If there is a hell, I’m certain that in it there is a special room for people who move thousands of miles away from their parents.  Being one of those people, I always carry this guilt with me.  My family is usually far far away.
    Luckily, although I was a bad daughter for hauling my bags and myself off to Morocco, I have a wonderful sister and parents who come to visit and now is one of those times that I get to spend days on end with my mom. 
    Depending on how you count, this is my mom’s fifth or sixth time coming to Morocco and she is a language superstar.  It’s not that she’s fluent in a number of languages (just English), but she is so eager to communicate and so willing to make mistakes that she jumps right into Arabic while she’s here.  Every trip she adds a few Arabic words to her notebook and even tries those words back in the US on unsuspecting, but always thrilled, Arabs.  Well, she once used Arabic on a rather confused caucasian border patrol agent in California after having wrapped a scarf around her head, but that’s another story. 
    My dad, on the other hand, has only picked up one Arabic word ever.  That word means “I’m full.”  This is the one word a visitor to a Moroccan home needs to survive.  I’m not kidding, it’s that important.  Forget and there will be no end to the food they give you.  Death by hospitality is real.
    Oh, I should point out here that not all Arabics are the same.  Each country has its own dialect and the stuff in the news is a standardized Arabic that no one speaks as a mother tongue.  Moroccan Arabic is the farthest dialect from the standardized because it has been so influenced by Berber, French, and Spanish.  Most Arabs can’t understand Moroccan Arabic.
    Back to my mom.  So she has this notebook with about 30 words or phrases in Moroccan Arabic.  Most of them are useful - “Good morning,” while one or two are for pure amusement- “little monkey.”  She’s requested that my husband and I pepper our English conversations with words from her list so she can hear them in action.  We do what we can.  And every day she tries to add a few more things to the list.  Her trip is for two more weeks (yay!) and the goal is to have 100 words by the end.
    Today was the first time this trip that we went to my in-laws’ house.  Arabic is the main language spoken among them because it’s the only language the older generation knows.  My husband’s generation knows French and some English, and the older kids are awesome at English as well. 
    During our visit my mom busted out her Arabic.  Apart from some letter switching, z’s became s’s and b’s became d’s, she did great.  Too great because it prompted my in-laws to try to increase her budding vocabulary tenfold.  When my husband’s nephew was trying to explain the difference in pronunciation between “red” and “donkey,” (a very small difference I have yet to master) I knew she was in trouble.  We managed to calm the vocabulary onslaught, but then they started the inevitable comparison between the Arabic skills of any foreigner and myself.  The conclusion being that if my mom sticks around a couple of months she’ll be teaching me Arabic.  It’s probably not too far fetched, but it still made me go “grrrrrr” to have my shoddy Arabic be looked upon in disdain.
    Tomorrow is Friday, meaning a trip back to the in-laws’ for a delicious meal of my mother-in-law’s awesome couscous.  My mom is preparing some new phrases for then, but she can also refer back to today’s hit - “Eat, you little monkey,” - directed at yours truly.

To start with...

Let me introduce myself as an ex-pat American who made the crazy decision five years ago to move to Morocco so I could marry my college sweetheart.  This decision, naturally, complicated life in untold ways, but has enriched it in untold ways as well.  Thus, this blog will probably be a love/hate letter to the country that simultaneously embraces me and beats me to a sniveling pulp  (metaphorically, Mom, don't worry) on a weekly, if not daily, basis.   Writing this blog will help me get some gripes off my chest, share with y'all the beauty of this paradoxical land, but, most importantly, it will get me writing.  Of course, it'll help get me connected to the people back home, and vice versa.

The name of the blog is silly and romantic, and certainly not my attitude towards Morocco a hundred percent of the time.  But Morocco is nothing if not smelly, and two of its better smells are the scent of orange blossoms that hangs on the air upon entering and leaving Marrakech, and the refreshing smell of spearmint that steeps along side potent gunpowder tea in silver tea pots all over the country.

That, my readers, is what I have to offer up for now.  I hope to have intrigued the majority of you so that every few minutes you refresh the browser window to see if I've updated this thing.  Unlikely, yes, but I'll try really hard to write every couple of days.  It's my first blog, so I don't know how good I am at this stuff.  Enjoy the weekend!