Morocco Time

Have you been wondering where I’ve gone? [crickets chirping] Hm, probably not.

Regardless, I’ve spent much of the last month and a half having loooong discussions with my husband. His life, my life, our life, what we want, when we want it, if we want the same things, etc… It’s harder than I thought to be married, really. It’s not that I expected all beer and skittles, but sometimes he and I want such drastically different things that it’s hard to reconcile them. Isn’t that why people sometimes have problems staying married, actually? They get together at a certain point in their lives, spend a few years doing this and that, and wake up one morning to find a stranger in the bed. I think the hardest thing is to grow together as a couple, and not off in individual directions.

Anyway, he and I are almost on the same page - except I have all kinds of ideas about further education and travelling, and he’s content with the status quo. He’s also my best friend, despite how much he irks me sometimes - for example, just yesterday we took our lunch break over at one of the local dams, and spent about 15 minutes companionably arguing about whether one could survive being swooshed over the edge.

So that’s what I’ve been up to - I haven’t even been looking at Morocco blogs because they make me a bit homesick. Isn’t it some kind of sign when my husband and I both have dreams about Morocco, and wake up surprised to find we’re back in our bed in the States?

I do have several Moroccan updates to write about - an attempt at unionizing in hotels in the South, some great local recipes on video, and other things…just have to get out of the winter funk and get back to it.

Of all the movies supposedly set in Morocco, this is the worst - I’m watching it right now on TCM, and I can’t look away, it’s that bad!

Boyer, playing a Trappist monk on the lam (Boris Androvski), wants to live and love, after feeling, well, trapped in the order. Yet he is the only one who knows the secret recipe of the monastery’s famous liqueur, not to mention that his marriage to the church is a vow unto death. Meanwhile, Dietrich, as heiress Domini Enfilden, is newy freed from her own prison of caring for her just deceased father and also seeks the frisson of the North African desert to nuture her soul (actually, Yuma, Arizona), travelling on a comically rendered model steamship.

They inevitably meet, and strike up sparks that, while not exactly visible to the viewer, are attested to in speeches with a wooden fervor. Perhaps marriage will cure their separate sadnesses? This is duly, if reluctantly, arranged by the local priest (odd, in this Muslim land), after which the newlyweds are whisked off in a preposterous camel-mounted billow of fabric into the scorching desert- a trip that the local sand-diviner has inconveniently forecast will come to a bad end.

Perhaps I should have consulted a “sand-diviner” before my own Moroccan marriage - must suggest this to Hamou tomorrow. Also must tell him that I was only seeking the “frisson” of the desert. He’ll think it’s a bad word.

Aimee recently commented that she was sorry to have missed my earlier posts (perhaps when I was still over at Blogspot), but believe me when I tell all of you that they were entirely forgettable. It consisted of me mooning over Morocco and my new Moroccan prince, who both turned out to be less than I thought but more than I imagined. Or something like that.

After all that schmaltz, I dove right into the five stages of culture shock.

The honeymoon, or tourist, stage
Me to self - “Oh, don’t I look cute in a head scarf, it makes my eyes stand out, eh?”

The irritation-to-anger stage
Me to husband - “Why are your friends always around? Can’t we have a single date to ourselves?”

The rejection/regression stage
Me to husband - “If you don’t buy me Pringles at the shop in town, I’ll starve. I hate tajine, hate it, hate it, hate it! And if you don’t replace the gas bottle in the heater, I’ll make sure you suffer.”

The integration/assimilation stage
Talking to husband on my mobile - “I’m at your father’s house, honey. Yes, they invited me for lunch. Pick me up when you come to town this afternoon.”

The reverse, or reentry, stage
Talking to husband on my mobile from Essaouria - “Honey, I’ll probably stay another couple of days here by the ocean - yes, I know which bus to take to Marrakech. [pause] Yes, I have enough money. [pause] Yes, I’m sorry you have to work, next time we’ll go together. [pause] What’s that? You won’t invite any of your minions, just the two of us? [pause] Ok, deal.” Interrupted by passer-by - “No, I’m not Muslim. The head scarf is to protect my hair from being turned into a red frizzy mess by the sun and wind. Now go away, will you. Seer!” Back to husband - “Gotta run, the vultures are starting to circle. N’moot alik, ohaibuk, ciao!“