The Mother Cometh
Today started abruptly with me slapping the alarm clock at 3:15am, groggily wondering for a few seconds as to why the hell I was awake. As I became more lucid, I remembered I had a 4:00am train to catch to Mohammed V airport to pick up my mother, who was coming in from Montreal this morning. After somehow managing to drub up enough motor skills to put a t-shirt over my head, I quickly brushed my teeth and started the 15-min trek to the Rabat-Ville train station.
What struck me first about the walk to the station was the eerie calm of the morning - there was barely anyone on the street, and Rabat for once seemed calm, a rare feat in a bustling third-world metropolis. About ten minutes into my walk, the silence was punctuated by the almost unearthly sound of the Muezzins' call to prayer throughout the city, broadcast live from the towers of various mosques. For those of you who haven't heard the sound, it can be somewhat disconcerting at 3:35 in the morning, since it assumes a supernatural quality in its rhythm.
After finding out that the time of the train had mysteriously been altered twenty minutes forward, to 3:40am, I hurriedly grabbed a petit taxi to the next station, where I managed to literally jump onto the last car of the departing train (this one was literally the "Marrakech Express"). I finally made it into Mohammed V Airport, picked up my mother, had a rather heated conversation with the lost baggage guy from Royal Air Maroc (seriously buddy, don't talk to my mother that way), and we went on our way back to Rabat, hoping that the luggage situation would resolve itself before we leave for Marrakech on saturday.
Back at the apartment, Tima came over and spent the next several hours lovingly preparing a chicken tajine - a great intro to Moroccan cooking for my mom. The highlight of that was that we needed some dirt to put under the charcoals to elevate them so they could cook the tajine properly. So, I went on a quest in the Nouveau Ville with a plastic bag and one of our plastic kitchen cups. Soon enough, I happened upon a dirt pile right off of the main road by our apartment. Swallowing my remaining pride as a dirt scavenger, I got down on my knees and began shoveling the dirt via the plastic cup into my plastic bag. In doing so, I can safely qualify that I officially received the weirdest looks I have ever received in my life from the passing Moroccans, a family of four stared open-mouthed at me the entire time (the idea of a Westerner scooping dirt in the street into a plastic bag clearly didn't compute). Anyways, with the dirt collected, the tajine went off without a hitch.
The rest of the say consisted of more mint tea, a trip to the casbah, and a quick jaunt through the medina. For the coup de grace of the evening, I showed my mom the best street food combination in Rabat - 2.50DH fresh-squeezed orange juice (aptly referred to by the mother as the best she's ever had) and 1DH warm coconut macaroons.
One of the most surprising parts of the day has been how regular everything still seems here. I'm really looking forward to showing her more around Rabat and the rest of Morocco, and for the chance to finally be a bona-fide Western tourist for a bit (albeit, one who hopefully has decent haggling skills by now).
What struck me first about the walk to the station was the eerie calm of the morning - there was barely anyone on the street, and Rabat for once seemed calm, a rare feat in a bustling third-world metropolis. About ten minutes into my walk, the silence was punctuated by the almost unearthly sound of the Muezzins' call to prayer throughout the city, broadcast live from the towers of various mosques. For those of you who haven't heard the sound, it can be somewhat disconcerting at 3:35 in the morning, since it assumes a supernatural quality in its rhythm.
After finding out that the time of the train had mysteriously been altered twenty minutes forward, to 3:40am, I hurriedly grabbed a petit taxi to the next station, where I managed to literally jump onto the last car of the departing train (this one was literally the "Marrakech Express"). I finally made it into Mohammed V Airport, picked up my mother, had a rather heated conversation with the lost baggage guy from Royal Air Maroc (seriously buddy, don't talk to my mother that way), and we went on our way back to Rabat, hoping that the luggage situation would resolve itself before we leave for Marrakech on saturday.
Back at the apartment, Tima came over and spent the next several hours lovingly preparing a chicken tajine - a great intro to Moroccan cooking for my mom. The highlight of that was that we needed some dirt to put under the charcoals to elevate them so they could cook the tajine properly. So, I went on a quest in the Nouveau Ville with a plastic bag and one of our plastic kitchen cups. Soon enough, I happened upon a dirt pile right off of the main road by our apartment. Swallowing my remaining pride as a dirt scavenger, I got down on my knees and began shoveling the dirt via the plastic cup into my plastic bag. In doing so, I can safely qualify that I officially received the weirdest looks I have ever received in my life from the passing Moroccans, a family of four stared open-mouthed at me the entire time (the idea of a Westerner scooping dirt in the street into a plastic bag clearly didn't compute). Anyways, with the dirt collected, the tajine went off without a hitch.
The rest of the say consisted of more mint tea, a trip to the casbah, and a quick jaunt through the medina. For the coup de grace of the evening, I showed my mom the best street food combination in Rabat - 2.50DH fresh-squeezed orange juice (aptly referred to by the mother as the best she's ever had) and 1DH warm coconut macaroons.
One of the most surprising parts of the day has been how regular everything still seems here. I'm really looking forward to showing her more around Rabat and the rest of Morocco, and for the chance to finally be a bona-fide Western tourist for a bit (albeit, one who hopefully has decent haggling skills by now).
posted by Isaac at 2:47 PM
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