Rihanna is performing in Casablanca this month! WOW! It rained today and I was having lunch with a family that lives a little outside the main part of town. They were trying to convince me to stay for tea, but I had told my host mom that I would be home to go to the hammam with her. That explanation wasn't working, so I used the rain as an excuse to go. It was barely drizzling, but the storm clouds were rolling in. Their son Said was telling me I needed an umbrella, but I didn't know the word for umbrella and it sounds like the word for “later,” which was confusing because I thought he was telling me to stay later. We had a somewhat circular conversation until someone straightened me out.
Their daughter, Naima, walked me home and I was explaining to her that I always slip on the steep path that leads to their house and that the boys hanging around always laugh at me. Just as I finished telling her this, I slipped on a relatively easy portion of the trail and landed on my butt. We both had a good laugh about this and when we got to the steep part, she showed me a shortcut that is more manageable than the trail I knew and runs next to a couple houses, so the boys don't congregate there.
This path went past a fig tree, which has good figs. Naima had pointed out a couple trees where the figs were “no good,” and I told her how much I liked figs and that it was sad that we couldn't eat the figs. This tree with good figs had quite a few that were ripe and Naima hiked her skirt and started climbing among the branches to pick them. Both her and I had large handfuls of figs when Hafida, the tree's owner, joined us! I offered her the figs in my hand and she just laughed. I guess Naima regularly “steals” her figs! Hafida kindly gave us each a bag to carry our figs home and told me to come to her house whenever I wanted a fig.
Have you ever eaten a fig straight from the tree? It is a heavenly experience and the figs at home pale in comparison to these. I shared the figs with my family when I got home and told them that I love figs, but we don't have them where I live in the U.S. They were somewhat shocked by this information and then told me to eat the rest of them. I happily obliged.
Rihanna is coming to Casablanca....this is completely irrelevant information except for the fact that the TV commercial for her concert featured her Umbrella song.
Happy 4th of July! It doesn't feel like it can be this late in the year already. My parents and sister leave this weekend to spend a week with my extended family in upstate New York. It is slightly surreal that life continues as usual back home and everyone is going to BBQ's and fireworks and enjoying a 3-day weekend, while today was just another day in Morocco. Some of my PC friends who live near the Mediterranean are camping at the beach this weekend. I am a little green with envy.
We PC volunteers do not observe American Holidays, we observe Moroccan holidays, so today is just another work day. Plus, the new volunteers like me are not allowed to take vacation time during our first 3 months of service. The beach is too far away for me to get there and back in 2 days. Have I mentioned I'm a little bummed?
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