How I Met my Husband ...

... Or, Men, Music and a Motor Scooter

Within a week of arrving in Fes, I met a young man who stands outside one of the many restaurants at Bab Boujloud. His job is to lure you into his establishment, rather than one of the twenty other restaurants that serve exactly the same thing for exactly the same price. After I entered this massive place and found I was the only patron, I wanted to leave. But Hassan was very accommodating “Please, have this Moroccan salad free. And for you, we will only charge you 30 dirham for the lunch, not the 40 listed on the menu”. So I stayed and ate all by myself in this great big restaurant.

In the passing days, I saw Hassan several times as I walked through Bab Boujloud. He asked me if I liked being in Morocco. When I answered in the affirmative he gave me a Moroccan name. “I’m going to call you Saida” he said. “It means ‘happy’”. And so I became Saida.

I ate at the restaurant a few more times and one day Hassan asked me to go listen to some music with him. We took off on his yellow motor scooter to parts unknown (to me) in the Medina. We parked the scooter and wound our way through many narrow streets, sometimes backtracking because he couldn’t find the house he was looking for. Eventually, though, we entered a house where a handful of men were setting up microphones and speakers for the musicians. Hassan sat me down on a chair and I watched the preparations. Including the bit where the men inserted camphor into the seat cushions to ward off lice. UGH! Wires were attached to a multitude of other wires to set up the sound system. A piercing screech of electronic protestation accompanied each test of the sound.

After thirty minutes at least 30 more men arrived, each murmuring ‘Salaam Aleekum’ as he ducked through the entryway. Not one woman in sight. Then more came. And still more. Soon I found myself to be the only woman in a room full of 50 or more Moroccan men. “I don’t even know where I am” I thought. “Is this a mistake or an adventure?” I guess it will all depend on what transpires next. “And where in the world did Hassan go?” I asked myself…

Gotta get out of town

I left Fes for the summer for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it is so incredibily hot in the summer that the mere thought of spending July and August there put me directly into a state of deep depression. Last year, I worked during July and was reduced to tears more than once. Just finding something to wear outside the house was a major challenge. It's not prudent to go sleeveless or bare-legged and my wardrobe didn't offer the choices I needed. I wanted filmy, barely-there coverage but I couldn't seem to find anything to fit the bill.

After working for the month of July I went camping throughout the north of Morocco with my husband and his trusty sidekick, Adil. Now I have never been much of a camper and I do like to have my hairdryer with me but the blistering heat and economics made the decision to spend the month in a tent as close to the water as possible easier for me. I learned to shower from a hose draped over the women's toilet in one campsite, share a communal shower with hundreds of Moroccan women at another and do entirely without in a place with the best view and the fewest amenities.

This year, I opted out of the situation entirely. I declined to teach in July and booked a flight to the states early on in the year. Before leaving, my husband and I went to a music festival in Essaouria. We had a horrible time. I didn't want to rent an apartment with his brother and three other guys (I was to pay half the rent and get the master bedroom ... make that the only bedroom) and I complained when that same brother and his friends took my car for a joy ride without asking my permission. I pointedly told them not to do this again and from that moment on I was treated as personae non gratis. My husband led the charge.

So, when we reached Casablanca and he dropped me off at the airport early one morning, I boarded the bus to the international terminal and told him not to expect me to return. Of course it wasn't just this situation that led me to this declaration, but many, many instances of unhappiness together. I couldn't wait to leave and couldn't imagine coming back (although I must).

I have been receiving emails from his sisters who tell me how much their brother misses me. 'HA!' I think to myself. He doesn't miss me, he misses the amenities I offer. Free room and board, a car, money for gas, travel and just plain something to do. And then there are the emails from my husband himself. He completely ignores the problems and writes sweet things. If only he would be sweet in person. I get the feeling his family is trying their best to convince me (yet again) that my spouse is actually a good person who just needs time to grow up and behave kindly. He shows glimmers of that kindness but then retreats into a beligerence and obstreperousness that creates a wall I am tired to trying to scale.

And now, in just a few short weeks I will have to return. To my job and to the house I bought. I know I am going to leave Fes but first I must sell the house. And I know I have to work but I don't know where I will go yet. I am considering Egypt. I can get my Masters there and hopefully find better-paying employment once I have this higher degree in hand. To that end, I have written for copies of my college transcripts and am mentally the online ads to sell the house.

Last night I dreamt of two pets I once had. A cat and a dog. The cat was so happy to see me when I returned to the house. He rolled around on his back at my feet and I picked him up for a cuddle. My dog was behind a door, whimpering and scratching and the door in her anxiety to reunite with me.

I think I am missing feeling loved.

What? Me Hurry?

I am constantly being told not to be in a hurry. But one year after living in the midst of a restoration project with no shower, no refrigerator, no cooking device and still no sink I have run out of patience. But I keep being told things don't come easily and that I should be patient. In Moroccan Arabic, I am told "schweeah - schweeah" which means little by little. ARRRGGGGHHHHH!

It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon that an advertising executive had pinned to the inside of his office door ... two vultures are sitting on a tree branch and one is saying to the other "Patience my ass. I want to kill something." That's how I feel right about now.

In Morocco, nothing happens quickly -- except maybe the disappearance of your dirham immediately after payday. Workers at the house arrive in fits and spurts. If another, more lucrative job comes along in the middle of your job, well, goodbye workers! And if they come back, the job seems to go on endlessly and they never quite finish what they agreed to do in the beginning.

The ongoing need for government paperwork for visas, work permits, marriage papers, etc. is an exercise in traipsing back and forth to get the stamps, copies, yet another passport-sized photo and completed forms that the clerk forgot to mention during your last visit. Of course the exchange of dirham into the underpaid, 'overworked' municipal employee always expedites things but one can quickly go broke greasing the wheels.

It took me one year to get all the paperwork together and authorized for my "marriage act". There were trips to Rabat to get the papers I procured in Casablanca stamped and filed. I spent hours in lines with hundreds of men and  women until I finally had enough and paid the security guard who in turn paid the harried man with the inky stamp to pound the required impression on my paper. I made appointments with the hospital to ultimately pay 150 dirham to get a document that said I was healthy (no examination required ... just the right amount of money in the right hands). And there were interviews with the police who eventually showed up at the appointed hour but more likely than not were not in their office when I arrived for my scheduled appointment.

Computers went down when I returned in the afternoon to get the letter that said I never committed a crime in Morocco. "Come back tomorrow" I was told more than once. Papers that had been stamped and legalized expired after three months, and made it necessary for me to go through the entire procedure again. I needed translations from French or English into Arabic that then had to be legalized and copied and then filed in one office after another. And appointments broken because it was too close to lunch time or the employee just didn't make it in that day and there was no one else to fill in.

Now I know why Moroccans add "Insha-allah" to the end of every plan for the 'morrow. Getting anything completed truly does seem like a miraculous event that should be acknowledged in audible and humble gratitude. And I have to say it is a whole lot more gracious to think and act this way than behave in a way my American mind has trained me to do. But really, sometimes it's all I can do to keep myself from looking menacingly down at the whole affair from the branch of a high tree, swoop down with my wings spread and my teeth bared and try to make things happen NOW!

Fez, the Spiritual Capital of Morocco

Ever since I saw a documentary on the Sacred Music Festival of Fez, I have wanted to travel here. From a distance, Fez seemed vibrant, colorful, exotic and full of spiritual promise

So, about two years ago, after living and working in the Bay Area for 30 years and facing an increasing amount of struggle both economically and interpersonally, I sold my car, closed my business and put the best and most favored of my belongings into storage and headed off to Morocco. I wanted a change. I wanted a place where it didn't cost so much to survive. I wanted something more fundamental and surprising. With an ESL teaching certificate in hand and a receipt for my enrollment in an intensive course in Arabic, I planned to spend a few weeks in the "spiritual capital" of Morocco before continuing on to Istanbul to a teaching job I had secured over the phone. I had a vague plan to work for a while and then continue my travels with my teaching jobs funding the way around the world.

But I never made it to Istanbul and I have been living and working in Fez since January of 2007. I even bought a house in the old Medina and, to my great surprise and that of my friends and family, I married a Moroccan twenty-four years my junior. This last decision convinced my circle of friends and my increasingly estranged family that I had descended into the bowels of a delayed middle-aged crisis and everyone phoned, emailed and otherwise tried to console one another about my safety and sanity.

Looking back now, I can say life in Fez is nothing like I imagined it to be. It has been full of surprises and lessons and, at times, complete and utter aggravation.

The biggest surprise should have been no surprise at all --- the cultural differences. For years I have been enamored with Middle Eastern culture. I have studied and performed Oriental dance (aka belly dance) for a long time and my music collection contained nothing but classical and pop Egyptian, Persian, Turkish and African rhythms. I dated Middle Eastern men (I was even engaged to one) and I read books, made friends with people from Iran, Morocco, Afghanistan, India and Lebanon and like to sprinkle my conversation with Arabic and Farsi phrases. I had traveled internationally. I had lived in Paris! I felt I knew something about cultural differences. But I knew nothing really, and nothing prepared me for the actuality of living and working in North Africa.

For one thing, I stupidly glossed over the fact that Morocco is an African country. How did that happen? My romanticized version had flavored Morocco with more than a dash of Middle-Eastern-ness. But the music, the people and, indeed, the poverty, are decidedly African. I can't believe how naive I was about what I was heading into. But here I am, in Africa, surrounded by people who can be gracious, hospitable and accepting one moment and jealous, grasping and disdainful the next. I believe the negative side of what I have experienced is highlighted by the poverty that exists here and I never anticipated it. Living in the midst of poverty  has been a real eye-opener.

Some days I feel so lost. Like one day last summer, when it was brutally hot and my husband and I were looking for some relief. We ended up on the ground floor of his family home in the section of the Medina known as the Kasbah. His family is rather poor (better off than many in this area, but still struggling on a day-to-day basis to make ends meet). We tried to sleep on the floor of the coolest room in the house. I remember looking up at the walls decorated with tacky posters and children's toys hanging from the rafters. I saw the peeling walls, the old refrigerator in the corner and smelled the camphor filled cushions surrounding me. Tears streamed down my face. "I don't want to be poor" I screamed inside my head. I couldn't believe I had traveled all this way to find myself in a hole in the wall room, miserably hot and completely dejected. It was a terrible moment for me. My husband was appalled by my tears. How could I feel this way? After all, this room was good enough for his family ... why did I find it so unacceptable?

Indeed he might ask 'why' because he has absolutely no knowledge of my frame of reference. It is very difficult for Moroccans to leave Morocco and some never leave the city they grew up in. Living amongst people who meet foreigners from all over the world but never experience life in another culture is like trying to explain what snow feels like to someone who has only seen pictures. The knowledge is one-dimensional. You can't truly understand until you have first-hand experience. And while I am experiencing life in Morocco first-hand, it's so very difficult to explain what I find challenging or maddening or frankly incomprehensible when my audience doesn't have the language skills or the travel experience to comprehend the complexities of my visceral or emotional reactions.

But then ...

I have learned so much about myself on this journey. I've learned how my unspoken fears limit me. I've learned how often I subjugate my own needs to satisfy the needs of others, I've seen how materialistic I had become. And I've learned how resilient, how generous and how adventurous I am.

Just like the people I have encountered here, whose positive traits and negative traits I see with such clarity, I fully understand that my own makeup is a mix of wonderful and not so wonderful characteristics. It's just that my bitter-sweet personality looks and acts differently from the Moroccan's I meet. But the basic ingredients are the same.

Riad bound

Initially, I was going to stay in Fez for a month and learn a little bit of Arabic. The plan was to then head for Istanbul where I had agreed to take a teaching job. But soon after arriving here, I spoke to the Director of the school where I am studying Arabic and found out they have an English program as well. And lo and behold I actually got hired on to teach.

So 'bye bye' Istanbul and 'hello' Fez. And one of the benefits is housing. In a real riad! I will share the riad with two other teachers. One is American and the other British. I get my own room. My own bathroom and all I have to do is share the cost of utilities and a weekly maid. There's even a washing machine!

The riad has an open air courtyard complete with orange trees, a small neglected garden and a broken fountain. The doors to my room are massive and there is zeliig (mosaic tile) everywhere. Broken in many places but beautiful nonetheless.

The only problem thus far seems to be the old man living next door. He is rather grand looking with his fez, white jallabah and cane but he keeps trying to kiss me. I don't understand much of what he says as it is in French and my French is rather sketchy. But I understand he wants me to come to his house for lunch and I understand he isn't headed for my cheek when he attempts to kiss me goodbye. He's kind of hard to avoid too because the riad is the last house on a dead end street and he is right next door. He even tried to come into the house the other day! "Whatever you do, don't let him in" warned one of my housemates....

Into the Medina

I've never heard of someone entering into the Medina of Fez and never coming out again. Nevertheless, I was very nervous on my first foray into the old city. I had only been in Fez a few days and the first were spent safely ensconced in a hotel in the Ville Nouvelle. It was across the street from the language school I had enrolled in for a 3-week intensive course in Arabic. But after meeting the Director of the school, I was advised to head for the Medina so I could really experience Fez. I soon found myself situated in a comfortable guest house run by a welcoming and decidedly pixyish Australian woman. It was from here that I ventured out one day into the bowels of the medieval city.

Looking neither right nor left and armed with a map, I boldly stepped out into a city filled with men in jallabahs, turbans and yes, even the ubiquitous red felt fez hats! Wow! This was like entering a time machine and going back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

I looked no one in the eye. I ignored every "hello, bonjour and remember me???" greeting tossed my way. I descended deeper and deeper into the Medina. I tried to look like I knew where I was going. But the eyes on me! It seemed like I was being looked at by everyone and it was more than a little unnerving!