We’ve been in Rabat for a year now, and I am beginning to recognize patterns in likely and unlikely places; weather changes, school, items available at the stores. It’s a good start to feeling settled in a place. There is a huge difference between a new school year in a new school, and a new school year as old hands, experienced in bookstore locations and teacher requirements, with familiar faces welcoming you back, yourself able to befriend the new ones.
Ramadan was not such a shock this year; we knew it was coming, stocked our freezer with bread for lunches, were already prepared for its rhythms and changes. We have not spent our mornings wandering around Agdal waiting for bookshops to open, nor our evenings walking miles because no taxi would stop for us, getting lost in alleyways on the way home. Having a car makes a huge difference, but knowing what to expect even more.
Aside: yes, of course Mauritania celebrates Ramadan as well. But it is different here, and last year we were unprepared for those differences.
Last September, as a newcomer, I was disturbed at not being able to find tinned tomatoes. Great was my joy (don’t mock me; I cook supper most nights and I use tinned tomatoes in a LOT of different dishes) when I found some. I’ve bought them unthinking, casually, all year. But now, early September, suddenly they are nonexistent again. I don’t panic. I know that soon, I’ll start seeing them again. In the meantime, when I found a few cans at LaBel Vie the other day, I bought them all.
Yesterday, a friend came over, and we sat on our balcony in our wooden Senegalese chairs and talked and talked. It was muggy and overcast, and she told me it was supposed to rain. It won’t, I told her. It’s too early. Last year it started raining in late September, and everyone told me it wasn’t normal to have rain before November. But of course I was wrong. When it started to sprinkle, I thought of my clean dry clothes hanging on the line, and decided to leave them. I was sure it was soon be hot again, and I’d let them dry and then get them. Wrong! It poured for the rest of the afternoon. The children arrived home dripping. Last night, after the mosque, the streams of people going up the street were hurrying, hoods and umbrellas up, holding newspapers or plastic bags over their heads for protection. The drummer didn’t make his rounds.
Last year, everyone said it was the wettest winter in 30 years, the end of an extended drought. This summer the fruit was cheap and plentiful, but I have no way of knowing if this was unusual or not, if Morocco was greener than usual. Only now can I have a basis of comparison.
September rain. The lightning flickers rapidly. Last year I compared it to a mischievous child with his hand on a light switch, and that comparison sprang to mind last night. The boys and I stood on the balcony, breathing in gulps of fresh air, watching the glint of rain in the streetlight’s orange glow and the movement of leaves in the trees. Today there was another shower and now it’s back to hot and humid again, with the occasional sudden breath of cool air like a gift. The sky is blue. I find, looking back over my archives from last September, that the sky was deep blue then as well. Friday lunchtime, and the imam is chanting, his voice going up and down melodically. The wind bangs our open windows and doors.
15 comments
September 12, 2009 at 7:51 am
Susan
I feel as though I am there, as I sit on my uncomfortable couch in Zurich. You have a gift, PN … thanks for sharing it with us.
September 12, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Kit
I can’t believe it is a year already that you’ve been there. Time is going by quickly enough here is seems to be flying by even quicker in the blogosphere!! It must be nice to feel more settled with a new year of rhythms repeating.
September 12, 2009 at 5:35 pm
jean
Your words transport me there, it feels great.
September 12, 2009 at 11:29 pm
snacks from the cruise buffet
If you run out of tomatoes, I can sell you some from my basement hanoot.
September 14, 2009 at 12:16 am
gretchen from lifenut
A year from now, will September be the same?
September 14, 2009 at 8:38 am
meredith
My husband has a Moroccan client all day today, who won’t be eating because of Ramadan, but cannot be left alone in my husband’s office over the lunch hour either because of confidentiality issues, so colleagues will take turns staying with him while the others go eat. My husband also has to provide a prayer mat and an east facing room with a window for prayer times. The man is a good client, it’s probably just me that finds his demands exotic.
September 14, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Genny
I loved your comment over at Rocks in My Dryer so much, I had to stop by and say hi. So glad I did. What a beautiful spot you have here.
September 14, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Genny
Thanks for sharing a little about yourlelf at my blog. It’s wonderful to “meet” you!
September 14, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Genny
Oops…I meant yourself, not yourlelf! lol! sorry…
September 15, 2009 at 11:49 am
planetnomad
Gretchen, I have no idea. I hope so. But your first year, everything is new. Your second, you search for patterns, to add rhythm to the chaos.
September 16, 2009 at 4:34 pm
jolyn
*gasp* A year? Really? So hard to believe…
September 18, 2009 at 5:13 pm
KellieS
Hi,
Thanks for commenting on the giveaway! I will most definitely enter you to win. I love your writing. Smooth and stage-setting. I feel inclined to follow you as I need a touch eloquent prose in my life. I hope you enjoy Women’s Life Link in the future as well.
Be well,
Kellie
September 18, 2009 at 9:10 pm
MaryWitzl
The things we can’t get here are porridge oats, pecans, cornmeal, peanut butter — and so many more. But we can almost always get canned tomatoes; if we couldn’t, I’d be in real trouble.
We’re due for another call to prayer here any minute now. It always cracks me up when the electronic amplifier thing they use at the mosque makes that funny little computer ‘bee-bee-boh’ noise, like a mobile phone telling you you’ve got a message. It really takes away from the atmosphere.
September 20, 2009 at 3:23 am
thegypsymama
A friend just recommended I stop by your site since I am a gypsy mama too. It’s lovely to hear your descriptions of life lived straddling cultures. I was in Egypt for Ramadan one year. Those are some of my most well-fed and colorful midnight market memories.
September 24, 2009 at 5:11 pm
surflife
From one global nomad to another. It is nice to read about another westerner in a Muslim country. We are in the UAE and unlike most of the expats here I love Ramadan. I use it as my “slow” time – I stay home and do all those projects I have been putting off. I even enjoy the call to prayer – the immam in our mosque across the road has a nice voice and I find it very calming and when I am busy it is a good reminder that I need to slow down. Looking forward to hearing more of your time there.