Immediate celebrity status, the
children from the village stared in awe at the bus full of new faces. They
swarmed and laughed and shook our hands and begged to be photographed. We went
inside the school building and were served lunch before being picked up by our
village homestay families.
Rachid came early to pick up Sutton
and I. He had eyes that seemed to always be longing for something and a lanky frame
in rolled up blue jeans. His smile was friendly, small teeth and big gums and
eyes that would squint when he laughed. Although we couldn’t really understand
what he said, he was both stern and soft-spoken, quickly moving from a friendly
laugh to a firm command. What we didn’t know when we first shook his hand
(which was strong and stiff and well-callused from working on his farm) was
that he would be with us at all times for the next 144 hours of our lives.
Rachid took us back to his house,
which consisted of a courtyard with 6 rooms surrounding it, a barn, a chicken
coup, and maybe an acre of land where the cows, dog, and mule spent their free
time. He lives there with his mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, brother, nephew, and two or three other women whose relation to him is still unclear. Rachid is 26 years old but looks closer to 30.
Sutton and I were led into a 14x12 ft. room with a small futon against
each wall, a 14-inch television, and a small table in the middle. Rachid,
Sutton, and I would eat every meal, sleep, and spend all our in-door time
together in this room. We walked around the property for a bit, helping Rachid
water his olive trees and enjoying milk straight from a cows utter before
leaving to go spend the early evening working in the field. On this evening we
picked onions, packed them into crates, and loaded these onto the mule-drawn
carriage. We hopped on too and rode (setting sun burning brilliant
orange-red-yellow-blue behind mountains, miles of field lying flat between
mountains and us, body sore and the sweet sweaty smell of onion stuck beneath dirty finger nails) back to the house.
We dropped off the mule and walked to the café where we sat and drank Fanta and
watched soccer on the TV, Real Madrid against another team that I forget (not
Barcelona). Real Madrid won. The night ended back at home with a delicious
dinner, some star gazing, and sleep.
The next day we woke up and went
back to the schoolhouse where we spent the morning painting and planting trees.
It was hot and the work was exhaustive but we left the place looking better
than it was when we got there. Sutton, Rachid and I went back to our house and
took our afternoon siesta (it’s too hot to really spend time outside midday).
In the evening, we went back out to the fields and pulled dead squash plants
from the ground. The plants aren’t tough to pull but they do sting, like nettle,
and cut your hands and leave a burning irritation in your palms that doesn’t
leave until you fall asleep hours later. Rachid laughed when we complained, holding his
cemented palms up for us to see, saying “meshi mushki” which means no
problem. It’s still unclear what emotional reaction he was going for from
Sutton and I. We left the fields after a few hours and walked around the
village for a bit before returning home for dinner, star gazing, and sleep
(a nightly pattern that would become known as DSS between Sutton and I).
On Sunday, we woke up early to go back
to work. This morning, our friends JP and Ishan decided to join us for the fun
and so we rode the mule to their house to pick them up before heading out to
the fields. One of the real joys of being in a place where no one speaks your
language is the fact that you can say anything you want while knowing
that you won’t offend anyone. As you can imagine, this was quite helpful when,
after finishing a row of pulling dead squash (which you would always hope was the last for the day) Rachid would look at us and ask “wahid (1)?” and do
the rotating finger thing like he was ordering another round from us at a bar. Our responses were uniform: "ah waha (yes, okay)," a smile and a thump sticking straight up. At the halfway point of any given row, we would begin to play the game “what would I rather do than pick squash for another hour in the
burning midday sun.” Although I won’t get too specific, popular answers normally included bringing about pain onto oneself in the most horrifically gruesome
way you could imagine (often involving the amputation of ones own genitalia) or the oral
consumption of various forms of human bodily fluid.
Looking back on our
complaints now and sitting inside writing this and thinking about how, at this
moment, Rachid is probably out there picking squash or onions or weeds, it's interesting to think about why we complained and what we accomplished by doing it. I think that we complained because the
work was miserable – back breaking, knee bending, pain inducing repetition of boring and simple physical movements – and we were in search of the world’s pity. We
complained because the work we did with Rachid was some nightmarish vacation,
something that we wanted recognition for but knew we only had finite time to get it.
There's no point in complaining if nothing's going to change. Simply put, the four of us complained because we could.
After work that evening, we went
back to the café and hung out with Rachid’s friends while they taught us
inappropriate things to say in Darija. After this, we walked home and DSS’d.
On Monday, the group met and rode
the bus to the Basma center for mentally and physically disabled boys. All the boys who went there were from the Commune the village was located in. We got a tour of the center
before they arrived and, when they did, we broke up into groups and played
games and sang songs with them before having a massive dance party. (There will be more on this experience in the non-play-by-play post, it was really pretty
amazing). We said sad goodbyes and went back to the village for lunch, nap
time, an afternoon in the fields (we picked weeds), an evening at the café, and
then DSS.
On Tuesday, Sutton and I worked in
the morning before we were taken to a town near the village called Moulay
Yacoub. The town is known for their sulfur spring baths, in which we all got
the chance to bathe for the first time since getting to the village. We got to
walk around the town for a while afterwards and watched the sunset from a
beautiful, grassy hill. Back at home, the evening was simple:
DSS.
Wednesday was another full day with
Rachid. Sutton and I worked the morning and evening shift (which canceled out any hygienic progress made the day before) and then went to the café
before that night's DSS.
Thursday was our last day in the
village, Sutton and I woke up and worked before lunch, the walk home on this
day was especially sweet since we knew it was our last. In the afternoon we
went to a local soccer field where we played against the villagers, one game for the boys another for the girls (the Moroccans won both of them). We didn’t get home until well
after nightfall so it was a quick DSS that night. The next day we woke up and
met the bus. We were given the option to spend Friday night in
Fez if we wanted. 4 friends and I accepted. We spent the afternoon walking
around the medina and hanging out on the hostel’s terrace, which had a stunning
view of the city. We were all pretty exhausted so we took it easy that
night. On Saturday we explored the Royal Palace and the surrounding
neighborhood before taking an early afternoon train back to Rabat.
There are some photos on Mark's blog of us working in the field. Below you will find a link to the photos that JP took of Rachid working. I will also post the article I wrote about him and the challenges of rural farming once it has been edited. Lastly, there’s a non-play-by-play blog
post in the works that will include descriptions of the sheep slaughter
tomorrow so stay tuned! Until next time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpkeenan/sets/72157636511329393/
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