Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
SSDD
I can't help but sleep late, it's just something I do. In Texas I sleep at 4am, in Morocco I sleep at 3.
Walking out of the apartment, it's colder than it should be, colder than I would be in Texas, and this is Africa, TIA, to take a quote from alfeelm, but mashy mashkill, the scarf and coat is overkill, in my opinion, but I've given my e-ra-yatee to oomee al-maghrebee, cause I'm on her turf now. Stairs turn sharp and down and down, and I can see like I expect a prisoner sees the through windows with barred but I'm not trapped, I'm just in waiting, down the narrow stairs, and one quick second, I obtain cultures in pairs, so down the apples and pears after downing qahooa-haleeb, and out the door to bat-ha, a five minute walk past a palace, past the children seeing the misplaced American with the cultural inundation calous. Ahalan wa sahalan filmaghreb, I said in my head, unable to kick the cold from my feet, but the ball left sweet over the heads of rejaal, qorat alkadam, and continuing the walk to batha.
I have become accustomed to absurdity, said Allison, whose name means The Tongue, which tickles me greatly, near-insanely, I'm sure, but keepin' on keepin' on, past techno beats that I can't help but hear on the streets, and rap, too, because English is too hard to translate into, atleast not while listening and swaggering and staggering up the taupe bricks to batha. You see the same stuff on different days, the awkward guard unsure to salaam walaykum or to keep ignoring, or the kids who shriek for lack of care. Who shouldn't be awake at 9am? And the barber spinning the tool to raise the awning over the salon de coffieur eindema a-hasul al-makeena. The medeena qadeema, eskoon huna, wa I can't help but be accustomed to it, swaying left to avoid the motorcycle taking up 3 feet of the 6 foot street, with the high walls like being in a hedge maze, and I'm amazed with outsider affection how the shoe-maker's glue wafts thick so I can absorb the fumes on the construction street where the rejaal construct a feat of Moroccan genius, the same Moroccan genius that wakes me up when I could sleep in, the hammers beating Berber beats.
And past the cars parked where cars don't fit, so beggars can't sit, a plus, I suppose, and once again my 6th sense knows that a car is speeding up behind me, so left I move again with an inside grin at the way I move and walk like I've been here long. Ath-heb ella bat-ha, and I continue past the hanoots, the corner stores, selling homemade yogurt and hobs next to propane and children's games, and up and up and past newspaper with bad grammar to taxi drivers who expect me to speak French, and look confused when I speak Arabic, and flinch when I say the Center an American instead of the American Center, but I hop in praying the whole way, and you would too, if you say the taxi sway, the suspension that breaks your jaw, the uncertainty of the way, and how you can't even trust al-edawdya. The difference making a difference of dirhamayn or a quarter, roughly. But I'm where I want to be. Shake my finger no at the beggar selling kleenexs and who has the sad eyes perfected. You could make a killing at the airport with you and your cohort, selling kleenexs to tourists who haven't gotten the memo that you can't trust the people on the streets.
You wouldn't see the center if you didn't know it was there. A gate on a wall on a sidewalk. Inside I see trees and people talk, stall, and wait for class. I have two hours a day except for 5 unwanted hours of class that I think are gay. Can't help it, it's useless, but I grin and bear it, and draw backwards in my notebook. Did I mention I write backwards now? You don't think too much about it now, but siht ekil ecnetnes eno etorw I.
The way back is the same but the destination is not. On the door I knock and ring the bell that sounds like a bird before I get a laa baas and a few handshakes and kiss ebee on the cheeks. I can still hear the shrieks on the streets and the shieks on TV, and the mooftees and the call to pray, here I'll stay. I'll drink tea at six and eat at 8.
Filmaghreb, you eat with bread. Tear a piece off and pinch the food, more carbs than you need, but scant portions suffice, soffee? Mzien, shabat, and the family laughs when I smack my brother and wear socks with my belghaa. Even more when I yell moozbaaaaaaall, and stumble through Arabic.
Usratee says they'll cry when I leave, and when again? Mashy mushkill, I'll keep in touch. You really will? Of course. Good, I will go to America, soon, Lotfi says. Oosbowayn, I'm counting down the days.
Walking out of the apartment, it's colder than it should be, colder than I would be in Texas, and this is Africa, TIA, to take a quote from alfeelm, but mashy mashkill, the scarf and coat is overkill, in my opinion, but I've given my e-ra-yatee to oomee al-maghrebee, cause I'm on her turf now. Stairs turn sharp and down and down, and I can see like I expect a prisoner sees the through windows with barred but I'm not trapped, I'm just in waiting, down the narrow stairs, and one quick second, I obtain cultures in pairs, so down the apples and pears after downing qahooa-haleeb, and out the door to bat-ha, a five minute walk past a palace, past the children seeing the misplaced American with the cultural inundation calous. Ahalan wa sahalan filmaghreb, I said in my head, unable to kick the cold from my feet, but the ball left sweet over the heads of rejaal, qorat alkadam, and continuing the walk to batha.
I have become accustomed to absurdity, said Allison, whose name means The Tongue, which tickles me greatly, near-insanely, I'm sure, but keepin' on keepin' on, past techno beats that I can't help but hear on the streets, and rap, too, because English is too hard to translate into, atleast not while listening and swaggering and staggering up the taupe bricks to batha. You see the same stuff on different days, the awkward guard unsure to salaam walaykum or to keep ignoring, or the kids who shriek for lack of care. Who shouldn't be awake at 9am? And the barber spinning the tool to raise the awning over the salon de coffieur eindema a-hasul al-makeena. The medeena qadeema, eskoon huna, wa I can't help but be accustomed to it, swaying left to avoid the motorcycle taking up 3 feet of the 6 foot street, with the high walls like being in a hedge maze, and I'm amazed with outsider affection how the shoe-maker's glue wafts thick so I can absorb the fumes on the construction street where the rejaal construct a feat of Moroccan genius, the same Moroccan genius that wakes me up when I could sleep in, the hammers beating Berber beats.
And past the cars parked where cars don't fit, so beggars can't sit, a plus, I suppose, and once again my 6th sense knows that a car is speeding up behind me, so left I move again with an inside grin at the way I move and walk like I've been here long. Ath-heb ella bat-ha, and I continue past the hanoots, the corner stores, selling homemade yogurt and hobs next to propane and children's games, and up and up and past newspaper with bad grammar to taxi drivers who expect me to speak French, and look confused when I speak Arabic, and flinch when I say the Center an American instead of the American Center, but I hop in praying the whole way, and you would too, if you say the taxi sway, the suspension that breaks your jaw, the uncertainty of the way, and how you can't even trust al-edawdya. The difference making a difference of dirhamayn or a quarter, roughly. But I'm where I want to be. Shake my finger no at the beggar selling kleenexs and who has the sad eyes perfected. You could make a killing at the airport with you and your cohort, selling kleenexs to tourists who haven't gotten the memo that you can't trust the people on the streets.
You wouldn't see the center if you didn't know it was there. A gate on a wall on a sidewalk. Inside I see trees and people talk, stall, and wait for class. I have two hours a day except for 5 unwanted hours of class that I think are gay. Can't help it, it's useless, but I grin and bear it, and draw backwards in my notebook. Did I mention I write backwards now? You don't think too much about it now, but siht ekil ecnetnes eno etorw I.
The way back is the same but the destination is not. On the door I knock and ring the bell that sounds like a bird before I get a laa baas and a few handshakes and kiss ebee on the cheeks. I can still hear the shrieks on the streets and the shieks on TV, and the mooftees and the call to pray, here I'll stay. I'll drink tea at six and eat at 8.
Filmaghreb, you eat with bread. Tear a piece off and pinch the food, more carbs than you need, but scant portions suffice, soffee? Mzien, shabat, and the family laughs when I smack my brother and wear socks with my belghaa. Even more when I yell moozbaaaaaaall, and stumble through Arabic.
Usratee says they'll cry when I leave, and when again? Mashy mushkill, I'll keep in touch. You really will? Of course. Good, I will go to America, soon, Lotfi says. Oosbowayn, I'm counting down the days.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Eid Kebir
At a dead run he looked like a princess running with his djalleba hiked up above his knees and running awkwardly because of the sharp point of Moroccan belghas. You could see the faces of the squeezing out of the wrought iron outside of every window and looking down laughing despite the barely awake sun. The goat had a lead on him due to element of surprise and the older men who weren't about to run after a goat through the early morning muck streets and in his best pants.
I had been prepared, anyway. The national symbol for Eid is taking your hand to your neck and making a few hacks across your jugular. So yea, I knew when I went to the kitchen and my family had a goat looking good and frightened standing in little balls of shit that multiplied through the night, that he wasn't the new family pet.
We took the escapee to the roof after a stunning leap and grab by my host brother. There was a short prayer and then this happened. Two men held the back of the goat; one held on to both legs and a third man pulled the inner most leg out from under the goat causing him to flip, debilitated. I hurried for my camera and caught the knife digging into the goats neck leaving a small pool of blood beneath her. She kicked and reared on the ground causing the men to need to hold her down and move her, each time grabbing the horns and causing the head to detach from the neck more and more like a mouth torn at corners. The blood shot because they pulled the horn a bit too far and nearly hit my shoes. When the feet stopped kicking, my uncle took a long knife and continued to pull and cut at the neck revealing the muscles gasping around the esaphogus and gargling from the blood. He continued to pull and cut holding onto the horns like a tooth being wiggled away from the last sinew. They tossed the head away, and the feet kicked more. Eid mubarak saed!
The women began to sweep the blood into drains and sprayed water across the roof into the gutters. I was standing in awe aside from shaking hands and returning hamdulillah's. I was fixated on the goat's leg that had now been shaved through the muscle. One man picked up the leg and blew into it like a balloon and the coat stretched off of the torso. He pounded the belly of the beast and my uncle took over with a small knife cutting off the skin and breaking the legs as they became inconvenient.
A small boy, no older than 8 years old, trods on the blood to pick up an abandoned hoof and begins to make it run, sliding it backwards on the roof catching the tip to flatten the hoof.
Another family brings up their goat and bismillah slice the neck.
Our goat is looking thinner and thinner. The blood is everywhere on the roof, but I am in a corner looking on in wonder. Another goat is brought up and taken to a different area of the roof. The skin is completely removed from the two hind legs and we hang it by its feet using strings and tying their hind legs together, sturdily catching the bones.
You can't help but feel a mutual respect and disdain. The inhumanity of the slaughter, but the intensity of the ritual. The children seeing this since birth, desensitized, but brought up to look forward to it, like being the head of the family and packing the family's luggage in the car, young boys must grow up waiting the day when they will be the ones holding the knife, preparing to truly care for the family, dropping the 2000 dirhams for the goat, the extra money for the bread, and eventually, primaly sacrificing the goat, leading the family spiritually all the while. I think of my brothers who have seen this for years and will soon hold the legs, and later hold the knife.
They cut down the middle of the torso, which now looks like a butterball turkey five feet long hanging from it's legs. They remove the offal and sift the intestine, sliding the feces left in the body through to the ending and into a bucket. The head has disappeared. The rest of the innards taken to be cooked. I catch a smell and see an enormous bag of bile and feces. The women are doing their part now and a market commune has begun, sifting the intestine and separating edible and inedible, another area where the organs are being cleaned to be taken inside. All of the families are working together and like a star, the men at the points and the women in the center, the sacrifice has been made.
I go inside, tired of standing, and sip tea and coffee before taking a nap.
I dreamed I was smoking shisha and inhaled more than I ever had. Then I exhaled and inhaled clear air but exhaled smoke and more smoke and more smoke. I awoke in a cloud the smell of cooked meat. The windows were open and the sun came in in beams you could hold onto from the the thick of the air. They cook the meat right there in the living room. The smoke pours out through the window and in from the windows of higher apartments.
I eat three sandwiches of goat meat chunks, while we drink soda, some of the first that my family has bought. After, I sleep more until I am awakened by the sound of cards being shuffled. It's dark now and time for my brother and I to leave to go to our immediate family's house.
At home we all shake hands and say hamdulillah and bekhyre? and laa baas? My family is enthralled with the pictures and the video. They are there without being there. My sister comes to tell me that everyone asked where I was during the Eid. I say ah, shokran. She is telling me they missed me.
For dinner we eat more goat. Dinner consists of the family sitting around couches around the walls with a table in the center. There is one large dish in the middle and a plate in between every two people. The large plate is the main course, and the smaller ones are garnishes or vegetables. Tonight, the main dish is liver and intestine and kidney and anything that can be cleaned from the inside of the goat. I tuck in, grabbing what is definitely liver. It looks just like you'd imagine it: liver, solid and black, intestine, like a child-drawn cloud with curly outlines. The side dish is some mystery of the goat with kidney beans and something unknown around it. I ask my brother ma-hatha? My mom answers by pointing to her temple. I double-check with my brother. That's brain? Naam. Bismillah... Goat brain is spicy.
We finish the meal with bananas and grapes and coca-cola. I go to bed and chat with my brother and tell stories.
I wake up and begin to prepare. I'm going to the UK, and I assume that Eid is over.
Everything smells like a campfire. I throw things into a bag and get asked when I am leaving.
Haji! I hear them calling me for lunch.
Moroccan houses are set up in different ways, typically paying more attention to the living room as the communal center. Couches line the walls and even go around corners as rectangles. They are piled with pillows and typically a table goes in the center where the family places dishes or tea trays. My house is set up this way, the kitchen and two restrooms near the entrance so once you walk in, you turn and see one large more decorative living room, a smaller main living room, for the television and meals, and another living intersecting these with the computer and more for private prayers or the younger family members to enjoy leisure. I walk out of my room and see family in the living room sitting around the head of a goat.
It is fully cooked with the lip eerily above the blackened teeth, the horns are removed and it is placed on its side on a bed of lettuce. The eyes are white cavities and bones with scraps of brown leathery meat surround the skull. I sit down and stare. My brother checks on me, and I answer by tearing off a slimy piece of the upper lip. The upside is brown and feels like tender meat. The underside is slightly red or purple with an excess of white animal fat that reaches as I try to pull. I eat a few bites of this as my dad gives me a: delicious, hand motion. I keep asking what I eat. Everything but the bones is the answer, and to prove it my brother lifts the skull and pulls out the eye. I look at him and say, you're not serious. He hands it to me, but I don't believe him. I say, you eat some first. He pops out the black of the eye and dips it in salt before eating it in one bite.
He says, there are two! And hands me the other. I hold it questioningly to my dad who gives me a sign to say eat that, it's good. I dip it in salt and bismillah eat it. It has jelly in it that tastes like gravy and meat. I finish it and explain to my brother what gravy is. Then I tell him suffie, baraka, and shabat to make sure he gets the point that I am through eating. I think hamdulillah as I wash it down with bananas and grapes.
Eid mubarak sa3d.
I had been prepared, anyway. The national symbol for Eid is taking your hand to your neck and making a few hacks across your jugular. So yea, I knew when I went to the kitchen and my family had a goat looking good and frightened standing in little balls of shit that multiplied through the night, that he wasn't the new family pet.
We took the escapee to the roof after a stunning leap and grab by my host brother. There was a short prayer and then this happened. Two men held the back of the goat; one held on to both legs and a third man pulled the inner most leg out from under the goat causing him to flip, debilitated. I hurried for my camera and caught the knife digging into the goats neck leaving a small pool of blood beneath her. She kicked and reared on the ground causing the men to need to hold her down and move her, each time grabbing the horns and causing the head to detach from the neck more and more like a mouth torn at corners. The blood shot because they pulled the horn a bit too far and nearly hit my shoes. When the feet stopped kicking, my uncle took a long knife and continued to pull and cut at the neck revealing the muscles gasping around the esaphogus and gargling from the blood. He continued to pull and cut holding onto the horns like a tooth being wiggled away from the last sinew. They tossed the head away, and the feet kicked more. Eid mubarak saed!
The women began to sweep the blood into drains and sprayed water across the roof into the gutters. I was standing in awe aside from shaking hands and returning hamdulillah's. I was fixated on the goat's leg that had now been shaved through the muscle. One man picked up the leg and blew into it like a balloon and the coat stretched off of the torso. He pounded the belly of the beast and my uncle took over with a small knife cutting off the skin and breaking the legs as they became inconvenient.
A small boy, no older than 8 years old, trods on the blood to pick up an abandoned hoof and begins to make it run, sliding it backwards on the roof catching the tip to flatten the hoof.
Another family brings up their goat and bismillah slice the neck.
Our goat is looking thinner and thinner. The blood is everywhere on the roof, but I am in a corner looking on in wonder. Another goat is brought up and taken to a different area of the roof. The skin is completely removed from the two hind legs and we hang it by its feet using strings and tying their hind legs together, sturdily catching the bones.
You can't help but feel a mutual respect and disdain. The inhumanity of the slaughter, but the intensity of the ritual. The children seeing this since birth, desensitized, but brought up to look forward to it, like being the head of the family and packing the family's luggage in the car, young boys must grow up waiting the day when they will be the ones holding the knife, preparing to truly care for the family, dropping the 2000 dirhams for the goat, the extra money for the bread, and eventually, primaly sacrificing the goat, leading the family spiritually all the while. I think of my brothers who have seen this for years and will soon hold the legs, and later hold the knife.
They cut down the middle of the torso, which now looks like a butterball turkey five feet long hanging from it's legs. They remove the offal and sift the intestine, sliding the feces left in the body through to the ending and into a bucket. The head has disappeared. The rest of the innards taken to be cooked. I catch a smell and see an enormous bag of bile and feces. The women are doing their part now and a market commune has begun, sifting the intestine and separating edible and inedible, another area where the organs are being cleaned to be taken inside. All of the families are working together and like a star, the men at the points and the women in the center, the sacrifice has been made.
I go inside, tired of standing, and sip tea and coffee before taking a nap.
I dreamed I was smoking shisha and inhaled more than I ever had. Then I exhaled and inhaled clear air but exhaled smoke and more smoke and more smoke. I awoke in a cloud the smell of cooked meat. The windows were open and the sun came in in beams you could hold onto from the the thick of the air. They cook the meat right there in the living room. The smoke pours out through the window and in from the windows of higher apartments.
I eat three sandwiches of goat meat chunks, while we drink soda, some of the first that my family has bought. After, I sleep more until I am awakened by the sound of cards being shuffled. It's dark now and time for my brother and I to leave to go to our immediate family's house.
At home we all shake hands and say hamdulillah and bekhyre? and laa baas? My family is enthralled with the pictures and the video. They are there without being there. My sister comes to tell me that everyone asked where I was during the Eid. I say ah, shokran. She is telling me they missed me.
For dinner we eat more goat. Dinner consists of the family sitting around couches around the walls with a table in the center. There is one large dish in the middle and a plate in between every two people. The large plate is the main course, and the smaller ones are garnishes or vegetables. Tonight, the main dish is liver and intestine and kidney and anything that can be cleaned from the inside of the goat. I tuck in, grabbing what is definitely liver. It looks just like you'd imagine it: liver, solid and black, intestine, like a child-drawn cloud with curly outlines. The side dish is some mystery of the goat with kidney beans and something unknown around it. I ask my brother ma-hatha? My mom answers by pointing to her temple. I double-check with my brother. That's brain? Naam. Bismillah... Goat brain is spicy.
We finish the meal with bananas and grapes and coca-cola. I go to bed and chat with my brother and tell stories.
I wake up and begin to prepare. I'm going to the UK, and I assume that Eid is over.
Everything smells like a campfire. I throw things into a bag and get asked when I am leaving.
Haji! I hear them calling me for lunch.
Moroccan houses are set up in different ways, typically paying more attention to the living room as the communal center. Couches line the walls and even go around corners as rectangles. They are piled with pillows and typically a table goes in the center where the family places dishes or tea trays. My house is set up this way, the kitchen and two restrooms near the entrance so once you walk in, you turn and see one large more decorative living room, a smaller main living room, for the television and meals, and another living intersecting these with the computer and more for private prayers or the younger family members to enjoy leisure. I walk out of my room and see family in the living room sitting around the head of a goat.
It is fully cooked with the lip eerily above the blackened teeth, the horns are removed and it is placed on its side on a bed of lettuce. The eyes are white cavities and bones with scraps of brown leathery meat surround the skull. I sit down and stare. My brother checks on me, and I answer by tearing off a slimy piece of the upper lip. The upside is brown and feels like tender meat. The underside is slightly red or purple with an excess of white animal fat that reaches as I try to pull. I eat a few bites of this as my dad gives me a: delicious, hand motion. I keep asking what I eat. Everything but the bones is the answer, and to prove it my brother lifts the skull and pulls out the eye. I look at him and say, you're not serious. He hands it to me, but I don't believe him. I say, you eat some first. He pops out the black of the eye and dips it in salt before eating it in one bite.
He says, there are two! And hands me the other. I hold it questioningly to my dad who gives me a sign to say eat that, it's good. I dip it in salt and bismillah eat it. It has jelly in it that tastes like gravy and meat. I finish it and explain to my brother what gravy is. Then I tell him suffie, baraka, and shabat to make sure he gets the point that I am through eating. I think hamdulillah as I wash it down with bananas and grapes.
Eid mubarak sa3d.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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