A Serendipitous Lunch

I did have more "success" in lining up appointments. Yet, today while I was looking around a shabby building for the Réseau Amazigh on Rue Nigéria, which I never found, I was invited by Slimane to have lunch with his family in a 2nd-floor apartment. Another serendipitous incident, confirming the adage that life happens while you are on the way to someplace else. The family consisted of Slimane (a male relative), Hajja Khadija (she had made the pilgrimage with her husband, when he was living), her daughter, Iman (19 yr.), and three sons. I met Nabil (17), who could speak only Moroccan, and an older son, who appeared briefly and liked coffee with an equal part of milk.. Khadija works at Ibn Sina Hospital. Iman and Nabil are both students in the humanities faculty at a university; classes were to start on September 15. Iman knew some English and was especially happy to meet an American. The apartment was Rabati middle-class, plain with scruffy furnishings and cement or tile floors, but with a sleek, silver flat planel television set tuned to a local station. Plastic, held in place with a rubber band, covered the remote. The salon (sitting room) was furnished in the usual style with a shelf stand with television on one end, low sofas with pillows lining the other three sides, and a table in the middle. A breeze blew in from an open window over the sofas. I was met with great hospitality and insistence that I stay and visit and have lunch. Since it was that time and I hadn't found my contact, I decided "why not?" Iman prepared round table in the salon. An embroidered tablecloth was brought from storage under a small carpet at one end of the sofas. Napkins, sewn to match, were placed around the table, which was then overlaid by a lace covering, followed by a plastic one. Mint tea and bread were brought out, as well as Moroccan salad (chopped cucumbers), rice with chopped carrots (served in individual dishes), pepper pickles, olives, and roast lamb with quince and a tomato, vegetable sauce. I was shown how to dip my bread into the sauce of the lamb entrée and break away pieces of quince and lamb from the mound in the middle, using the bread as a utensil.. The typical bread (ksra) here is about 2 1/2" thick and 8' round, cut or torn into pieces for eating. It's chewy, soft-crusted, and absorbent. I remembered my manners and didn't eat any meat until offered and then only a little and took small pieces. A dish towel placed across my knees, I was continually encouraged to eat, to feel at home, to make their home my home, to visit at any time. I ate slowly, since I knew I would have to insist that I didn't want more. After more tea and a glass of water, I was shown about a hundred pictures on Iman's Nokia cell phone– of her with friends, relatives, or in different poses and some taken off the television of her favorite singers. She likes Beyoncé. I also saw photos of her older brothers in "hip" poses–in the back seat of a white stretch limousine, another wearing a trendy sports jacket. All looked like attractive young men ready to enjoy the world, yes even the western one. One photo was of Iman and her brother in black leather jackets.. Khadija assured me that none of her children caused her any trouble and were very easy to get along with. She also asked me if I liked couscous and said that any time I wanted we could make it together at her place. I, finally, decided that I should get on with my other work and insisted that I had to leave. This was followed by protestations to stay, questions about whether I knew any Americans who would like to marry Moroccans, whether I would like to get married, where was I staying so we could continue to be friends, would I please take their phone numbers. In a last minute flurry, Iman pulled an elasticized, plastic bangle bracelet from a box on the bottom shelf of the TV stand and presented it to me as a gift. La viola! Another day in Morocco and another unexpected episode. However, I felt I had learned more about Morocco and its people and wouldn't have wanted to have lunch in any other way. At 5:00 PM, I met with Chaoui Hakima, founder and director of the Centre de l"Education sur les droits de la femme. She is a secondary school teacher and poet and has faced considerable harassment from Islamists for her work. Nonetheless, she is working courageously to change a mentality hostile to women's rights in Morocco.