In the Middle of a Venn Diagram

Listening to “Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill. Remember that song? Weirdly close to my heart.

Yesterday I jumped between two very different Moroccan worlds. Spent the morning in Rabat, running around town, meeting with two men to hopefully bring kids from my Dar Chabab to a chess tournament, then leisurely sipping coffee opposite the Parliament building with my counterpart. No head scarf, sitting outside on the patio next to a man, the works. He smoked a cigarette while we waxed philosophical and had a brief conversation about wine, if you’ll believe it.

The afternoon was quite different. I got back to site and fell right back into the more traditional female role. I went straight home and ate lunch inside my house, not answering the door when some pesky kids came knocking on their way back to school. In the afternoon I actually did go outside—in order to visit family. I spent the whole evening under blankets watching soap operas and cooking shows with my host aunt (and drinking tea, of course) before we went to a neighbor’s house to pay our respects. An old woman who lived there died recently. The ladies in the house were busy baking sweet things and after making a joke about how I don’t know how to cook but I know how to eat, then awkwardly declining an invitation to stay the night, it was straight back to my house. Eyes downward, keys in hand, hurried steps until I was safe again on the other side of my big metal front door.

The funny thing is I honestly couldn’t tell you which half of the day I preferred. Sure, I’d rather live in a place where I’m free to walk around outside after dark without fear of being propositioned or harassed (or attacked by rabid dogs), but I have to say that hanging out with all the women in my neighborhood was pretty fun, and I feel safer with them than I do in most other situations. At one point a lady I didn’t know asked who I was and before I could answer her my host aunt shouted “she’s our daughter! She’s American and she speaks Arabic!” Felt kinda nice.

So basically I don’t know exactly where I stand here, and probably will never have a solid position anywhere. I think that’s something I can use to my advantage, though, yek?


Side note, totally unrelated, no one in Morocco can shuffle a deck of cards and follow it with a bridge. My ability to make me do this has elevated me to rock star status in the Dar Chabab.