Shuyma

Part 1:
“Shuyma!” ranted my landlord to me, my friends huddled close by, desperate to get back to the Ahadeus (traditional song and dance done during special occasions, in this case, a wedding). “Yen aryaz d yet tarbat?! Tigiminm, ghas shmmin!” (One man and one girl?! It is your house, just you) he sputtered, I could smell the cigarette he just smoked, his beady eyes narrowed in on mine. I just realized he was like a guard dog, prowling around the area outside of the main celebration, keeping things on lockdown and discouraging private talks between members of the opposite sex. How did I get myself into this situation? I felt like I was 14 again, getting into an argument with my parents that plagued my rebellious teenage years. Doing like anyone would in my place, I pleaded that I didn’t know and that I was terribly sorry. This seemed to calm him down some and we disappeared back to the festivities amidst a fist of giggles, we walked as a single unit, only our legs were free from each other. This was my first experience a part of them, them being girls my age, friends my age, this town, this culture. Yes, doing what I do best, getting into trouble, and yet, it was completely worth it.
It all started the day before. I had heard rumors that week of a wedding in the area. I found out there was another one in the duwwr (neighborhood/village) beside us from another friend of mine who I ran into in Boulmalen Dades, my souq town. Some of the PCVs and I had talked about the oppression of homosexuality in this culture, and this friend of mine, poor soul, gave off some strong lesbian vibes. She flirts with every time I see her. Now to a simple reader, one glance at these thoughts and you may offhandedly dismiss them into my oversensitivity taking into account the affectionate nature of Moroccans. I think she is a grade A box lover.
I was supposed to go on an overnight hiking trip with some other PCVs in the area, but I knew that I couldn’t get out of this wedding. Anyone who knows me knows that weddings make me nauseous and I hate them. Read what you want to into this, I just know that I am not a fan. Moroccan weddings are different. Men and women are usually kept separate, the women staying in the bride’s family’s house and likewise for the men. I cancelled my plans with my friends and the trip fell through. It was my weekend. I could do what I wanted and would attend the wedding that afternoon. I started off on a brisk morning jog/walk. I am so out of shape at this point and I hate it. At the same time, I am not going to worry about it, seeing that I love exercising and playing rugby and know whatever I do next I will make sure to incorporate both of these into my life. Halfway to Ait Hammou Said I ran into a cute little woman I see occasionally, she stopped me and asked me if I was going to see the nurse and could I perhaps get some medicine for her?? I had been debating about turning around and getting back so I could start on my To Do list but with this new request, my destiny was sealed.
Every time I go somewhere I run into people who are just curious. Where are you from? What are you doing here? Why are you living here? Don’t you miss your family? You don’t speak French or Arabic? (Are you crazy? Is usually the next question, but they are too polite to ask.) I like children, they don’t hold anything back and with my previous work, I can easily say kids have universal needs and wants. Getting them to smile is usually pretty easy and I have instantly made a new ally. I ran into some kids on my way and we walked together into town, I was invited to tea at all their houses but I had a mission and I needed to get on my way. Luckily, Amina, the nurse, was at her house, in her pajamas and had some medicine I could give the poor woman. Amina said that the woman could also come back for a shot if she got worse. Amina only speaks French and Arabic. She speaks a tiny bit of English and lots of English and French medical terms and the same so I understand some of the illnesses she says she sees on a regular basis (rheumatism, influenza, scorpion stings were big this summer…). Our relationship is cordial and superficial. I wish dearly we could communicate but I don’t see her trying to learn Tashlheit and I might get around to some French but right now I could care less.
I give the woman her things and she thinks I am just an angel. I hurry back to my house, it is still early enough in the day that I can get started on the transitioning of my garden. Despite the fact that I still have thriving tomato plants, it is time to plant carrots and radishes for the fall/winter season. I start tearing up these plants, saving the big green tomatoes in a pile. By the time I am done I am sweaty, covered in dirt and exhausted. There are tons of big fat earthworms. I debate about depositing them into my makeshift compost pile or just leaving them. Right then I hear my phone ring inside. It has been a rough month for my phone. Shortly after my birthday I dropped him into the bitlma hole. He was in my pocket and after standing up, he slipped out. Like a penny well at malls or museums where you can watch your penny spin round and round until it becomes a copper circle blur and spat out into a dark abyss, my phone traveled in slow motion, spinning not into an abyss, but into a pile of shit. Despite the fact that he was immediately recovered and cleaned, he only holds a battery lifespan of four hours and the face no longer has a backlight. Eh. I don’t recognize the number and answer it. It is some Berber woman, telling me to go over to the wedding at . I am barely able to answer her before she hangs up the phone (phone calls are expensive in Morocco). I start boiling water for my bucket bath and desperately search through my clothes, looking for something to wear. Sarah Moorman had left me a pretty dress for special occasions. I knew that this would be one of the times to wear it. I quickly bucket bath. I stopped shaving almost two months ago and wasn’t about to take extra time out now to clean up. Putting on make-up that I hadn’t touched in almost 8 months made me think about how different I was now. I still like to primp, but for me now that means putting on some mascara as I am walking out the door. The only women who wear a lot of makeup are whores in town, and frankly I don’t need to be associated with them, (well maybe not until 12 months into my newfound virginity…). I made up my eyes and put on some lipgloss, I looked good.
After rounding up some girls so I wouldn’t have to travel alone to the wedding, we went there. Usually you go around and shake hands with everyone there (we actually kiss hands and if it’s someone who loves you, you get kisses on the head or cheeks) but this time I followed Najam3a’s lead and just found a place to sit down. There was probably 60 or so women there already and they were singing. The bride was sitting on top of some ponjs, much like a queen looking down on her descendents. She was wearing the traditional headdress for this region. She could barely move. There were multiple pieces of cloth that was wrapped, draped, and covering her. She looked beautiful. In true Moroccan fashion there was a sheet hung up behind her, decorated with handstitched flowers, a huge heart dead-center and the names “Said and Fatima” inside of it. There were Christmas lights draped across it that flashed in pink, green and yellow. The corners of the sheet had fake flowers pinned in them. Your attention was shamelessly drawn to her. She was flanked on both sides by what looked like her bridesmaids. They all wore similar colored headdresses but without the pizzazz and you could see their faces. I never got to see her face, not once. Even when we had couscous they just pulled the material out front and put the dish under it, so she could eat and not reveal herself.
The room was packed. There were girls and women of every age. I don’t think there was one time that night that some baby was not crying. There was a cycle to the craziness. First you sit and chitchat to your neighbor and sometimes across the room. Then comes in platters of tea, peanuts and sugar wafers served by the gentlemen of the house. It is a frantic situation but despite the chaos and confusion they kept their cool and even had a few smiles and jokes for us. After a few rounds of these, then the women start up singing. We sing in rounds, with people answering back. There are usually some hand drums and my favorite, the two metal glasses and tin plate that sounds awesome. A few of the traditional wedding calls from the elder women now and then kept things interesting. This sound is a mixture of a Mexican “Ariba-ay-ay-aiii,” and that awful Native American sound we make sometimes as politically inept human beings, hitting our hand over our mouth.

Part 2:
I realize I am being used after about 10 minutes of dancing. One of the girls I had come here with insisted that I dance with her. I am at once on stage. All eyes are on me because I am the foreigner, I am the strange girl from somewhere far away France? Canada? Netherlands? But dressed up like a Moroccan girl. I can’t dance like they can either. It would put all of MTV back up dancers to shame. They shake their hips in rapid succession. It is an art learned at a very young age. (It is incredibly provocative and I wonder just then, why the hell do these men go and see prostitutes? These girls are incredibly sexy and they know it!) I just do my terrible white girl thing that still gets a few thumbs up from enthusiastic spectators. I notice that we dance close to the huge doorway. I try to slink back into the throngs of the girls, closer to a few of the others I am friends with and therefore would be able to dance next to also. She keeps pulling me back out there. The doorway is not much of a doorway, more of an opening to the rest of the second floor, and this is where the gentlemen of the house and some male cousins and privileged friends are loitering. There is an invisible fence and these men cannot go past it unless they are carrying trays of snacks. They stand there and watch us dance, I can feel their eyes on me, on us, and I hate it. Of course I am having a great time. If you act like you are enjoying yourself, laughing at yourself and making faces to those around you, people love you. I just hated that we were the ones closest to the doorway, yes there was space, but I saw what she was doing.
Thankfully she was breaking a sweat too so we went outside to get some fresh air. There were already a lot of people out in front of the house too. The party continued on well into the night, with a repeat of songs, dancing, food, and greetings. Finally, around 11pm, when there was just too many women in the room, it was decided to take it outside. This was what all these young women had been praying for! A chance to lock eyes with the guys outside. We were going to Ahadeus this time, in traditional fashion for this area. One row of men lining up shoulder to shoulder, facing a row of women, calling to each other back and forth and dancing in a circle, sometimes coming closer and sometimes backing away in almost a courtship type of ritual. I had seen this done a few times and really enjoyed watching it. Different regions do different things, sometimes there are no women at all. Sometimes they get on their knees and make a splashing motion with their hands. On one side of the street were all of the guys not only from this area but from other duwwrs too. They were sitting close to one another, whispering, arms over shoulders, heads close together. On the other side of the street were all of the girls and women from inside. Everyone was dressed in their best. Of course in Morocco, that meant that the girls were wearing their traditional dresses outfitted with sequins and beautifully intricate designs and the guys were wearing G-Star knock off jackets and jeans. It was a staring contest. I was intimidated to say the least. We were sitting down in front, of course. I kept looking up trying to find the guy she was talking about, her boyfriend. I found out the day before she actually has a few boyfriends in different areas. I think this is a loose term, like we would say we are “talking to” some guy. No real commitment, just getting to know someone and flirt occasionally. I was sitting inbetween a few girls and was really feeling a part of the community. I looked like the girls dressed up, had a headscarf and had delicately tied on a pink sequin belt my sister Becca had gotten me as a birthday present a few years ago. All except for my green eyes, you might have mistaken me for a Moroccan.
My friend kept asking me if I was cold, if I wanted to go back to my house and grab a jacket. I knew she just wanted an excuse to get up and strut down this catwalk of potential flirts. I refused until the third time and we went to get me a jacket. Outside of my house we ran into a few other girls. One of them was telling the other, “Just ask her! Just ask Hanna,” and so I inquired to what they wanted. One of them has a boyfriend and would it be okay if they stepped inside my garden area and talked. My garden has a bamboo fence around it, which offers a little bit of privacy but not a whole lot. I told them it wasn’t a problem. The other girl asked if she could use my bathroom. She went to use the bathroom and I went to grab a jacket, all of a sudden the third girl comes running in. She said that Laho was outside and had yelled at them for coming in here. I was confused at the situation. What was the problem? They had been outside, and the door to my house had been left ajar and so was the door to the patio. I was briefly annoyed at the stark differences in Moroccan and American freedoms. These poor girls, who work hard all day, hardly have much of an education past middle school (if even that), and otherwise have no contact with guys in their community have now been yelled at for talking to a guy. There are ways around it, they get phone numbers and occasionally cross paths. Unlike in a high school or university setting, where they can talk freely and openly, without the hawk eyes of a conservative community bearing down on them. What is my role in this? How do I respond? I don’t want to damage my reputation in the community. I don’t want to jeopardize my position but at the same time I feel for these girls. Can you imagine how frustrated you could get with that situation? It seems like the typical scenario: Forbidden fruit always tastes the best. Which is why, with situations like these especially during weddings, I feel like everyone should be able to mingle freely. Be able to talk one another, and yes, under the supervision of the elders, but this would have been a perfect time to. I had a conversation recently with an intelligent man on his way back to Agadir to attend his second year at the University there. We discussed lots of things on our taxi ride to Boumalen Dades. We talked about politics, religion, the history of the Berbers, romance and music. He was saying how even our discussion in that taxi ride was unprecedented, especially one past the typical introduction and inquiring about health and family. He said I could break down barriers. He said that I could give these women here a lot of power and independence. I am not here to start a huge cultural mutiny and get stoned out of my village but I understand his position. Where women used to have arranged marriages and they either worked or you suffered in silence, now the aspect of marrying for love has become the new ideal.
This country is changing. It is losing some of its culture to cell phones, satellite TV and becoming more Westernized. Luckily, some practices are alive and healthy. It would be interesting to see if this country succeeds, unlike so many other countries, in combining a mixture of old and new, of faith and traditions and customs with technological advances. I hope they do succeed. Already the traditional practice of story-telling is dying off, replaced by soap operas. This culture is rich and it would break my heart to watch it all disappear and change away to nothing.