So I guess I'll go in order of my goodbyes. Mohamed Ezroura and Imane Nejjar were the first people to call me my first morning in Rabat. "We gave you one night!" Mohamed said in his joyful voice,"You have to be like your father, no jet lag!" We arranged for me to spend that Sunday with their family. Mohamed and his wife Imane actually knew my father separately before they got married. Mohamed met my dad while he was here in the Peace Corps, and Imane met my family back when I was baby and we were living in Virginia, when she came to Old Dominion University as an English graduate student. Imane actually babysat me in Virginia, and we also spent a lot of time with her the summers we were here.
They now have three boys: Adam (almost seventeen), Nizar (thirteen), and Ahab (ten, and very cute...when I told Imane I thought he was cute she said "Ahab?...he's a little devil!"). Mohamed and Imane are both teachers/professors of English, and their sons are trilingual too. I spent the majority of that first Sunday in the kitchen speaking French with Imane and looking through old photo albums with her afterward. I really enjoyed speaking French with her, as she seemed to instinctively grasp my level, knew what pace I needed, and was patient with me. Their family exudes warmth and I loved spending time with them. I saw them every week, learning how to make zaalouk, a delicious eggplant side dish, along the way. They also bought me a really nice Moroccan cookbook in French, with pictures (cookbooks are notoriously expensive here, so that was really nice of them), and loaned me Harry Potter en francais. I also had couscous with them in their home in Harhora, a town about half hour drive away, and took my last trip to the medina with Imane, where she bought me a beautiful silver bracelet to remember them by (as if I needed that!). They made me feel totally at home with them, making sure they saw me at least once a week. Every time we had interesting discussions, and I always learned more about Moroccan culture and traditions. My last trip to the medina with Imane was my favorite and most successful, making it all the more special, and I was pretty sad to say goodbye to them. They were truly like family for me here.
Next I had to bid adieu to Yamina and Lotfi Benabbou, my wonderful French teachers. Yamina is actually originally from Algeria and is half Moroccan/half Algerian. She moved to Marrakech when she was sixteen. She was excited to work with me because she specializes in theatre! I loved having her as a teacher. She's this petite, incredibly energetic woman, and quite a talker. She doesn't know English and so when explaining words I didn't know would often act them out, which was hilarious. We worked with French theatre texts, which I loved. It was really exciting today, my last day, to read Ionesco's The Bald Soprano and realize that I understood it and could understand how much funnier it is in French than in English.
Every morning I met Yamina at 8:45am and we worked for 90 minutes. A couple weeks ago she told me that her husband Lotfi is a French professor at the university in Kenitra, where they live, and since he's done with classes he could come tutor me for another 90 minutes if I wanted, focusing on grammar more. This was perfect. Lotfi is great too, although very different from his wife. He's a better listener and talkative in a more engaging way, and we would often drift off into conversations spurred by grammar exercises. He also always remembered my best friends' names!
Yamina invited me early on to have lunch with them at their home in Kenitra, and no Moroccan invitation is an empty one. So last Thursday I had my classes with them until noon, then spent the rest of the day with them. The Complex de Potiers in Sale had come up in conversation with Lotfi during class, and he wanted to take me, so we stopped there first. It's a huge series of shops all selling different styles of Moroccan pottery and other crafts, but not like a market. You can also see how they make the pottery. Yamina pointed out the different styles to me, and they insisted on buying me a little figurine at one of the shops, of three men in the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" pose. In my thank you note I told them it's going to remind me to read, listen, and speak in French. In Kenitra I met their daughter Yosra, who just finished her first year at the University of Toulouse in France, and their adorable dog Titus. Titus thinks this little sweater thing is "sa copine" as they called it, his girlfriend, and it was hilarious to watch them play with him and it. They have a beautiful house, which they gave me a tour of, and it was fun to see all the mounted posters of the plays Yamina has directed. After a delicious couscous lunch, Yamina drove me around Kenitra. We spent a lot of time at the kasbah there, and I was happy that I could understand pretty much all of its history that she explained to me. We also drove through a natural preserved forest and by the beach before I took the train back to Rabat. I was exhausted after ten solid hours of intensive French listening and conversation, but I really loved my time with them. They reiterated both then and today when we said our goodbyes that next time I come to Morocco I have to stay with them, and if I bring a friend or whomever they are welcome as well. I will definitely be keeping in touch with them...and it will be good for my French!
Hassan el Mazzoudi is another character here, and he was among the first to call me my first day here. My dad was his English teacher, and now they are friends. I liked him immediately, I think jolly is a good way to describe him, and one of the first things he said when he saw me was that in Morocco I need to learn to be more relaxed and go with the flow, or as he put it, "ride the waves." I think this was because I had been trying to figure out with him over the phone how long I would be out, since the Chtatous go to bed pretty early (9:30pm), and even though I have a key, I felt weird being out too late. But I just kept telling myself that if that was the Moroccan way, maybe they wouldn't mind (although I did call later when it was evident that I would be back pretty late). His daughter, Miriame, is 18, and she and her friend Hind are in this rigorous 2 year preporatory program before university (he explained it to me, but I don't entirely remember. All I know is that really good students do it). Anyway, he wanted her to practice her English with me. So after driving around Rabat a little bit and showing me the city, he dropped us off at a cafe. I was worried it would be awkward, but it really wasn't. Both of them were really nice, and even though they're five years younger it didn't feel like it. But best of all, I spoke a lot of French (albeit poorly) and for the first time felt like my personality could come across while speaking French. There were lots of long pauses, but it wasn't weird, and they were pretty tired too, since they just finished a bunch of exams. I had dinner with them a second time when he had American colleagues in town (with seafood pastilla and couscous it was quite a feast), and went shopping in the medina with Miriame on Monday afternoon. In fact, he had wanted me to stay with them, but they live a bit further out in an area that wasn't as convenient.And finally, the Chtatous (photo will come soon). I wrote about how delightful I find Faris and Sourour (and it should be noted that Sourour was totally amazing in her school play), but not as much about Soundousse and Mohamed. Soundousse and I talked more as time went on, and I realized she would use her sparse English with me not because she doubted my French abilities, but because she wanted to practice and eventually would like to learn more! I also really enjoyed my conversations with Mohamed. He's set up literacy programs in Mali that have changed the country in amazing ways, he's even won an award from UNESCO for it. He's also involved in some high-profile conflict-resolution cases. We talked a lot about my interest in theatre for social change and how it can be used in conflict resolution, I even dug up a research paper from my sophomore year on my computer for him to read. Whenever he answered the door he would often greet me with some variation on, "ah! that smile!" or "the smile, just like her dad's!" in a really heartwarming way. The more time I spent with the Chtatous the more thankful I became. They really opened up their home to me and made me feel comfortable. Especially after Mohamed's brother's death, I was so touched that he wanted me to stay and kept telling me that I was part of the family now. Which is why I titled my post "Sara Chtatou." Tonight he told me, "You are Sara Chtatou now, you have been adopted," and invited me to come back and stay anytime. It's pretty amazing how twenty years after my first trip to Morocco, I have maintained old family friendships and created my own relationships here too.
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