Prelude to Ramadan

The past few days have been spent anticipating and preparing for Ramadan. Houses have been intensely cleaned, lots of cooking has been done, the medina has been especially packed with people buying the immense amounts of food they will need for iftar. Everyone made their final hurrahs at the beach, and Ramadan will soon be upon us. So here is, effectively, what has happened in the final days before the city shuts down.

             If there’s one thing that brings people together, it’s the World Cup. Everyone here is very invested in it. I've asked around, and the consensus seems to be that people believe Brazil will win, but are also silently rooting for their buddy Algeria. As someone who has never really watched any sports team or event religiously, it's very strange to see a country consumed with this soccer tournament. My host father and I still watch the games together. When the US played Germany, my host dad put on a Washington DC hat and chanted "USA" with me. But it's not just my host family. One day, I was walking home, and heard very loud cheering at infrequent intervals coming from restaurants on both sides of the street. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was watching the World Cup. If the restaurant has a TV, it's going to be showing the World Cup. It's ridiculous.

Before Ramadan, a lot of activity happened in the streets. I had a fight outside my room two nights ago. Amidst the completely unnecessary but very frequent honking, I heard some shouting outside my room. There was quite a commotion until the police arrived. They arrested around 3 people and then the night moved on. A lot of the problems with crime in Morocco are solved with civilian intervention (if your wallet is stolen, many will jump in to stop the perpetrator) and I was told that we really wouldn't see the police, so it was very unique that they came. Yesterday however, it was no longer a novelty to see the police. The day before Ramadan began they were everywhere. 

Good old American fast food

Before Ramadan started, I made it a goal to visit as many restaurants as possible as many of them shut down during the fasting period. In doing so, I've now found perhaps the most American restaurant in Morocco, “Faceburger.” The only difference between here and your average burger joint is that we were told we needed to order quickly so the workers could make it down to the mosque in time to pray. However, this was the most American tasting meal I’d had since arriving. A lot of restaurants claim to be American, but they can’t get the fries right. I was very impressed with Faceburger’s quality of fry. The container the fries were in couldn't handle how American the fries were.

Speaking of American things in Morocco, another element of America that has infiltrated Morocco is our music. I have heard maybe 2 cultural songs since arriving here. Restaurants play our music, people blast our music in their cars, our host family talks about our artists. My room is somewhat close to this restaurant (across the street and 3 floors up from it) and I hear people driving in with some American pop song blaring. It’s Adele, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Macklemore, etc. Our host sister loves “Al Staircase” and even saw her in concert (it took me about 4 repetitions before I understood “Alicia Keys” from that pronunciation). American music has definitely hit the streets of Morocco.

The garden down the street from us

Yesterday morning I took a walk about Rabat with my roommates, Catherine and Elizabeth. We found the classiest Burger King I’d seen in my entire life. I’m not a Burger King kind of person, but the building itself really made me want to eat there. However, I was hanging with two vegetarians so it just wasn’t going to happen. As we continued walking, I was almost hit with a flood of questionable liquid falling from some window four stories up. I’m sorry to admit, I yelled rather loudly and jumped out of the way (before it could hit me, thank goodness. I don't even want to know what it was) A Moroccan guy sitting in his car absolutely lost it and laughed, much louder than what I think was necessary.

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

One of the more interesting things that I saw was the guy whose job it is to make sure these pigeons in a park by my house have food. While I was waiting on some people for lunch, I sat down and watched him wet down their food and put their water in bowls. It’s someone’s job to feed these pigeons. After I thought that, I couldn’t get the “Feed the Birds” song from Mary Poppins out of my head.

Afterwards, we spent the afternoon at the ocean. While in the water with about 8 members of the group, this random Moroccan dude started motioning towards us and pointing at his surfboard. A couple of the kids freaked out because we have sat through so many lectures about not making eye contact, not saying hello and so on so they swam back. But he seemed well-meaning and we had quite a few boys from the program with us, so I went with the group that decided to swim over. He motioned for me to get on his surfboard, so I did.

I’ve never been on a surfboard before. According to that Wii fit board, my balancing skills are sub-par at best, so I fell off multiple times. But then I eventually stood up on the board, and paddled around a bit on it. Then everyone in the group tried doing the same.

This guy and his friends shook all of our hands afterwards, and I asked him, in Darija, what his name was. His name sounded something like Bee-lah. I was very proud of this successful communication. Then he spoke something rapidly to me and I just nodded and said yes, and him and his buddies started cheering and pumping their fists in the air. We said thank you and good-bye, and as we were swimming away, I was informed that I had just told the man that I was Muslim. I was thinking later that it could’ve been a marriage proposal and I would’ve just gone along with it. So I’m clearly not very good at this language yet.

 

Then, I found the most beautiful part of Morocco, I swear. I walked up all these rocks in bare feet, which absolutely killed, but it was worth it. The view was gorgeous. Ugh. What a beautiful country. 

However, I did go and sit in one of those pools of water before the cliff drop-off into the Atlantic. This huge wave hit the side, rushed over the top towards me, and knocked me backwards. So I got kind of cut up on the rocks. It was still worth it.

So now, today, Ramadan has officially started. I've been up for 5 hours and I've yet to hear a horn, which is absurd considering the incredible amounts of honking in the past week. It's very quiet out today. I've got to say, I'm incredibly excited for dinner tonight. Because fasting is hard and I'm hungry.