Steve Is Smart

To be honest, the last two or three weeks have been hard. As much as I’ve tried to deny it, they have been homesick weeks. Of course I always miss my family and friends, but the magic of Morocco tends to overshadow any such sadness with amazement. The last two weeks have not been so.

I danced around the issue, even in my head. I worried that being ‘actually homesick’ meant I wasn’t seeing the beauty here, wasn’t appreciating how lucky I am to be somewhere so exotic. Mostly, I just didn’t want this to be the beginning of a long downhill that would stay on my heart for the remainder of the year. I forget sometimes that, although I am in an exotic land, I am still a not-so-exotic normal person, with normal-person ups and downs. Thankfully, my awesome fiancé Steve remembered that fact, and suggested that maybe I wasn’t having fewer adventures because I was homesick, but that the causality was reversed. Therefore, this weekend, I was resolute on doing something to appreciate Morocco.

I have climbed the Zalaugh mountain 4.5 times, but each hike is different. This one was the most unique yet!

I enjoyed my Saturday morning by sleeping in a little too late, which was completely acceptable to me since I didn’t have any hiking buddies (a lot of people traveled this weekend, and Amina had a potential suitor visiting to seek her hand in marriage from her father. It’s gone well so far). However, I wanted time at the summit, so I decided to taxi to the base of the mountain instead of walking out of the city cross-country. The taxi driver tried to charge too much, and I found another, strange taxi stand, who charged me much less (about $1), but still the price to go all the way to the next village! Since he was charging me to go to the village, I figured I would just go. The driver was very confused as to why I would go alone to anywhere I didn’t know a family, and kept asking me in Arabic, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” When I would respond affirmatively, he would demand, “Are you sure you understand the question?” and would then redirect the question through the husband of the woman sitting next to me, in French.

This was a sweet show of concern, but by the fourth time in as many kilometers, I was ready to just agree to the next town name someone suggested. Most of the passengers had left the taxi, save for a boy up front, and the couple beside me. We were about 20 km from Fes, and I saw a nice grove of olive trees with a trail through it. I bluffed that I had been trying to get here all along, and when the taxi driver pulled over for me, the couple got out as well.

I was excited for the trail ahead, and looking forward to spending the day walking and running back home. However, I had a serious cultural concern at the front of my mind. Moroccan ladies do not go out running in the countryside, and the young couple had already proven themselves the protective sort. I knew their cultural demands would require them to escort me to my destination unless I could get away soon.

I made a point of stretching out my feet, gesturing at my sneakers and the jeans under my dress – I told them this was my work-out, that I had done this before. Nothing doing. They were ready to come with me, with this poor young woman in her high heels and fancy satin djellabah.

I bid them goodbye, and looked around desperately for the least occupied direction I could find. “I’m going THAT way!” I said. Oh, they said, so are we.

We walked together a few minutes and came to a fork in the road. One bend was maintained and well traveled; to the left, a path that looked like a dried stream bed snarled. “Goodbye. I’m going THAT way!” I said. Oh, they said, so are we.

They were really very pleasant company, but the craziest thing was, they weren’t making it up!! A few minutes later, we arrived at their family’s house! This tiny village of 5 houses in the countryside had been their destination all along. Now I’m done for. I’m standing outside their house, and, of course, they invite me for lunch. And, of course, there is no polite way for me to decline. I stay for lunch.


The small house is FULL! Our small round table (think table for 4, or maybe 6 people) has 15 people packed around it! We are sharing chairs, but no one falling because we are too squished against each other. Everyone is still in pajamas, everywhere is muddy, and the courtyard is filled with about 60 people eating.

I’m very skeptical that 60 people actually live here. The house is composed of four long, low rooms of white-washed mud-brick walls and stick-thatched roofs. In the middle of these four rooms is the courtyard. The cow pen and sheep pen are behind the house, and the chickens and bees roam free. I learn that Hayat and her husband Brahim grew up here before moving to the Fes medina for work. The 60 people are all extended family of some sort, visiting for the weekend.

It isn’t until I try to leave after lunch that Hayat tells me why all the family is visiting. Her cousin is getting married, and this was the second day of the ceremony! Hayat and Brahim, sweet newlyweds, prefer to be outside themselves than caught up in fuss and flounce. The three of us went for a beautiful countryside walk after lunch, climbed olive trees and picked olives, trespassed through dangerous fields of intensely prickled brown plants, hopped a few streams, and lay on the honeyed earth to stare at the passing clouds. There was not a town for miles, and the thatched roof village houses disappear into the land, until we looked to be the only people alive in these beautiful golden hills.

We returned with minimal primping time for the marriage ceremony. Hayat’s oh-so-fashionable aunt loaned me a spare caftan to wear – a gorgeous deep garnet satin creation with silver trim, pure white embroidered flowers, and an under-dress of purple and silver netted lace. The groom rode over the far hillside on a caramel-coloured horse, completely covered in a white djellabah, and fanfared by two trumpeters and four drummers in the Rifi style of music.



At the top of the hill, he waited and the trumpeters played, while we all gathered around him and danced and yelled. He rode solemnly down the hill while we celebrated all around him. We all led the way into the courtyard, and the musicians helped him dismount. He had to not be seen for awhile, but the musicians played for us, and everybody danced around the courtyard energetically. Whenever anyone got tired, they retired to one of three ‘nap rooms’ for a couple hours, then returned to dance some more.

Eight hours later, the bride was ready to be visited by the women. We walked through one by one to take pictures with her, kiss her, and wish her luck and congratulations. There was more dancing, and more music, and more dancing… eventually even the Moroccan woman did get tired of the dancing, and mostly sat around clapping and talking. The three nap rooms turned out to be the bedrooms. First beds went to the older men, then to the couples, then the children. The young men and single women each had separate rooms (I think one each?) but I can only speak for the women’s room. There were about 25 of us, and all the mattress space was taken up by a couple of babies and young children. About 10 of the remaining women could fit lying down on the floor. Therefore, we took it in turns to sleep. I got to nap from 1h30-2, and sleep from 6-8am. The dinner meal happened at 2am, and was a tasty chicken tagine with fresh-made khubs bread. The most curious thing about the sleeping arrangements was actually that, the next morning, everyone complained about being tired and having to sleep on the cold mud floor. I thought no one would complain since we all were tired and stiff, but instead there was a sort of community about it.

We had breakfast of hirara soup and bread with honey, and I played with the kids. The courtyard was as full of bees as if there were a cultivated hive in the center. They kept landing on us, and our food, and getting tangled in our clothing. But they weren’t very aggressive, so we played with them.

The whole environment was so pastoral and sweet. Many people were related both by blood and by marriage, which made it very confusing to keep track of, but they all just treated each other – and me – as family. I had the sense that this family put all they could into the ceremony, and everything was just shared. Everything from caftans to bread hunks, from slide-y shoes by the door to chairs around a table, was MADE into enough to go around.

It was a beautiful lesson in community taught by beautiful people – the protective couple I had thought so hard about how to leave kindly did, in fact, escort me all the way back to Fes. Sunday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after I had planned to come home, the three of us taxied back together. It was a fitting conclusion for the adventure, ending just as it began, with the three of us crushed in the back of a full taxi.

On the way home, I admired all that I had missed admiring in the Moroccan landscape. I wondered about the people we passed, and their lives. I couldn’t even bring myself to go back to my apartment, and instead took my schoolwork to my favorite café to work while I watched the world go by. It’s a world I love, an exotic and magical place.

It just took an adventure of the sort that could only happen here to remind me of that. Although my count for climbing Zalaugh is still at 4.5.