I got up early today and rode the transit from my village to Khenifra. My friend Miriam was waiting for me at the bus station in Khenifra. She used to live in my village but her family recently moved to Khenifra, so we had made plans to spend the morning together. She loves my pumpkin bread, so I had brought some with me and we went to a cafe to have coffee and catch up with each other. Miriam is 16 and has had a pretty rough life. Her father died a couple years ago leaving the family in a tough spot financially. Miriam is the youngest of a bunch of children and only her and an older sister are left at home; all of the other siblings have married, but none of them are helping to support their mother and sisters still at home. They moved to Khenifra so Miriam and her sister could work to support themselves and their mother. This meant that Miriam had to quit school, which broke my heart. She was one of my most enthusiastic English students and was visibly upset when she told me she had to quit school. I was a bit pessimistic about their move – many young women looking for work often end up in prostitution. Thankfully, both Miriam and her sister are working in cafes.
Today, I had a glimmer of what it must be like to be a parent. The last time I saw her, Miriam had told me about her new boyfriend, who is in his early 20's. He sounded like a nice enough guy, but men are men no matter what country you are in and I couldn't help but wonder what his motives were. While we had coffee, Miriam told me that she broke up with him because he wanted to sleep with her! Oh how my heart swelled. I have her a huge hug and tried to explain how proud I was of her. My Tamazight is not that good, so I told her in English. I'm not sure she fully understood, but I did my best to explain. Miriam went on to tell me that she was done with boyfriends for a while because all they do is cause trouble.
A little background on male-female relationships in Morocco: they aren't supposed to exist outside of marriage. While Morocco isn't nearly as strict as other Muslim countries, like Iran, sex before marriage is still not accepted. Well, its not accepted for women. A women who is discovered to be “making relations with a man” must either marry the man or face the consequences which include being shunned by your family and being essentially a “marked” woman. Then she must support herself, which often means turning to prostitution. Its a little easier for the man, since its culturally acceptable for men to have sex before marriage. Now I know you are thinking, who can the man have sex with if there are all these consequences for the women. Well, this is why prostitution is lucrative.
A side-story on this issue. I recently ran into a young Moroccan women who was friends with a previous PC volunteer. She lives in EEK and I hadn't seen her in a while. Turns out, she was visiting her new boyfriend and her old boyfriend saw them together. He called the gendarmes (the local police) and sent them to “catch” her and her new boyfriend together. The gendarmes found them alone (not necessarily in a compromising position, simply alone together), which resulted in a very quick wedding. Her choice was to marry this young man she barely knew or be turned out of her family's home. Just like that, her life changed forever. She is 19 years old, speaks English fairly well and had plans to attend University in the fall. Gone; all of that is gone. Now she lives with his family in a small village near mine and spends her days tending the house.
All of this was to frame Miriam's story. She is a bright, energetic young woman who wants to be a police woman! I would hate to see her dreams shattered and for her to start married life at 16. I was thrilled beyond words to learn that she had stood up for herself and not succumbed to pressure from her boyfriend.
We had a rather busy day together. We went to the Oued Srou Association, which led the SIDA workshop, to pick up more brochures for the event in my village. While we were there, another PC volunteer from Midelt showed up with a couple men from an association there. They are planning a month of SIDA-related activities, so we all met with Khadija together.
Miriam and I met another volunteer, Linda, for lunch. Linda has an Obama action figure, so we took pictures with Obama and our tagine. Miriam was a good sport through all of this because Linda and I spoke English as we caught up with each other. Tory met us and we went to tutoring. Miriam helped with our tutoring session by asking questions and answering our questions.
It was after 4 when we got to the bus station and the transit was already there. Miriam and I said goodbye and she made me promise to visit her again soon.
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