Other Great Moments in Time

Recently, an old woman chastised me for pouring tea like a city boy. Too much flair and risk, she said, and not enough consistency. The whole thing reeked of a hackneyed comedian, spitting out lines like "white people do their taxes like this..." Unsure of where I could have picked up such metropolitan habits, living in a town of 4000 people, I pressed the matter and realized that by "city" she meant "the part of town that has more than two stores." You know that saying "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king?" Well, in a backwards-ass piss ant foothills town, the part where stuff is open past 7:30 is developed.

The other day I revealed my discovery of the mudir's status as "that guy" in a perversely high percentage of photographs. This week, however, a new facet of his unbearably puzzling persona made itself obvious. As ridiculous as it may sound (and it shouldn't really considering all the other weird shit this dude is into), he is also a crazy cat lady. While eating lunch at his place last Sunday, we began to be approached, slowly at first, by the various kinds of animals which call his little enclosed dirt-patch garden home. Cats, chickens and toddlers alike came to investigate the food scenario, and all were shooed away save for the former. At the height of the meal we were engulfed by an small symphony of meows. Since meals at this dude's house typically cruise tohigher degrees of disorder, such a stagnation, however eerie, was bound to dissapate into further chaos. Enter the mudir's youngest son, aged two, wielding flailing kicks and erratic verbal outbursts. Those little pussies were no match for the terrible-two fueled insanity of little Sa3d who capped of his Van Dammesque performance by snatching a box of tea and hurling it at the last straggler. He then grabbed an apple slice out of my hand, licked it whole and placed it back on the table, never to claim its saliva soaked nutrition.

By this point in our lives, most of us are aware of the all too common, not-so-secret pastime of champions and pervs alike, facebook stalking. Well, earlier I spent a good hour listening to a married friend of mine scour the annals of the world wide web ogling a particular girl who, surprise, he has never met and is actually the equivalent of a junior in high school. Interestingly enough, my initial thoughts were nowhere near the expected "wow this just got creepy" or even the acceptable "ok he's got a point this bridget is smokin." Instead, I couldn't help but be stunned at how someone who types with only one index finger figured out the intricacies of proper online creeping. Remarkable what the man can do when he puts his d to it. This interaction was then followed up by the totally sincere plea to go along with him on a nearly 400 Kilometer trip to Agadir and pose as a wealthy tourist so together we could connive his acquaintance into showing us a pair of gold, diamond inlaid binoculars he had found in the sand but wouldn't exhibit just to Moroccans because of their inability to put in a serious bid for such an item. That last sentence may run on, but it is accurate. Such is my life.

On the day of 3id this year I witnessed the greatest holiday tradition in the history of organized celebrations with my very own eyes. No, not the religiously sanctioned, semi-controlled mass sheep genocide. Old dudes playin' soccer. Apparently, this town has a yearly tradition of gathering up a bunch of old bros and having them scrimmage each other in front of a large percentage of the town's male populace. Honestly, it's absolutely spectacular. These peeps are way past their playing days and have become pretty much sedentary in their later years, but on Independence Day (which happened to coincide with 3id this year) they squeeze into some short shorts and throw down on the dirt pitch. The style of play this yields can best be described as frantic hacking accompanied by crude jokes and constant debate. The entire ordeal was a majestic comedic show put on by some of the town's more respected individuals so that all could come and revel in their bygone fitness. Score and basic rules were barely important as showmanship and misguided attempts at bicycle kicks reigned supreme. Imagine watching the Harlem Globetrotters, except just the opposite. It was truly remarkable to witness so much effort being put forth with such little quantitative outcome. As I watched, I figured those dudes had to have been defying the laws of thermodynamics, energy was clearly being destroyed. By the time the game ended, the official score was pretty fuzzy. But, most in attendance felt that witnessing three missed PKs, a slap fight and countless old men falling was enough reward.

3id Free Agent

At this time last year, my 3id related worries centered mainly around the most plainly obvious obstacle. The whole sheep deal. Who would clean the blood out of my only tie? Would throwing up while eating undercooked sheep lung and heart kabobs hinder my attempts at integration? And lastly, Why did the man carving up a medium sized mammal in our entryway, who did not wash his hands after going to the bathroom and before plunging them into the insides of my extremely raw lunch, just chastise me for coughing into my hand? In short, I was a fool to be concerned over such petty manners.

This year, however, the stakes were much higher. Due to my in-site host family's high rating on the weak-sauce0meter, my plans for the most important holiday of the year were wide open heading into the stretch. I was a break-week bachelor, a religious independent, the Catfish Hunter of 3id in Morocco. I was a free agent. Notice the past tense.

This rare scenario did not bring liberation, but thrust me into the miserable disarray that is Moroccan social life. Only now do I realize the importance of heeding the Spiderman Corollary, "with great power comes great responsibility." Instead of being able to blaze my own trail, my excess of freedom was quickly mopped up by a flurry of invitations (closer to subpoenas really) for any and all of the many sheep filled days. Resistance was futile. Let me tell you something, if there is one thing Moroccans cannot be beat at, it's guilting guests into eating, or more accurately overeating.

So as I look out over my schedule for the next few days I no longer feel like Catfish, chilling as offers poured in, thinking about which ridiculously awesome offer to accept. I feel a lot more like a poor sap who got lit up after entering the wrong side of town thinking how neat and ethnic it seemed. The week now holds a series of commitments which, if broken, will lead to me getting yelled at by lots of fat old ladies. Seriously though they are really good at guilting peeps.

Great Moments in Time

1. I was mercilessly mocked earlier today for not having shaved in over a month. What sort of barbs were people hurling at me you ask? Well, basically it came down to me starting to look like a Muslim extremist. It is becoming an oddly common occurrence for me to walk down the street and have a group of dudes point at me, make a fake beard motion with their hands around their chin, and then laugh uncontrollably. Yes, that's right, Muslims are making fun of me for looking like an Islamist. Clearly these people have never heard of no-shave November.

2. Recently, while visiting one of my favorite families, the resident eight-year old boy decided to gleefully explain the entirety of the 3id AdHa festivities to me while acting out all of its intricacies. As I watched, it seemed spectacularly similar to kids that age back in the states, overcome with joy at the thought of Christmas. The only minor difference, of course, was that instead of being pumped about presents, this little bro was wielding imaginary cutlasses and slicing sheep throats left and right. Then came the Tarantinoesque depiction of blood pouring out of the thing's neck and splashing all over the butcher and any unlucky bystanders. The show, however, did not end there. Interpretations of involuntary spasms and organ harvesting were still on the young thespian's agenda. As is often the case with people here once they discover something which makes me laugh, the stunt was repeated ad infinitum throughout the meal we were having. On the plus side, he did pretend to wash his hands before reaching in for the invisible animal's fresh flesh. And that, my friend's, is what I call youth development.