one of my neighbors' beautiful courtyard after a rainy morning

(written on 10/19/2010)

What follows is what I have come to consider an incredibly successful day at “work”… for those who are curious as to how I pass the average day (though this one was above average, admittedly)

Cup of tea #1: In bed, green tea, NO SUGAR, reading the article in September Vogue about Attorney General Eric Holder, thinking about how I should be kick-starting (literally) that running routine. Just thinking.

Cup of tea #2: In the corner of my nearly-finished new house in town, shared with the three men working on it and the Sheikh, before spending 45 minutes watching them pour and set the concrete floor of my future bedroom and dreaming about making it all 0h-so-homey. Bule walls? Brown walls? A mural or two? oh… choices! (also kicking myself for not photographing the fascinating stages in building a home here… i’ll describe in my “move in” home post)

Cup of tea #3: Immediately following cup #2, after being dragged to the Sheikh’s house nextdoor for lunch, though tea was first (and only for me) as I watched the Sheikh sit at a foot-peddal-propelled sewing machine in the courtyard of his house putting the finishing touches on his white mosque robes…. flagrantly ignoring socialized gender roles, gotta love it!

Cup of tea #4: intercepted en route to the rural health clinic by a really nice father of 3 named Driss. 2 hours and a second full lunch later, his absurdly generous wife, Fatna, was pushing a bag of hand-harvested and processed local whole wheat, two pomegranites and an apple into my hands as she introduced me to her entire extended family of women (around 20 of them) and sent me to the Sbitar (clinic), finally.

tea intermisson: 15 minute catch-up with my local nurse where I copied this school year’s information on the region’s primary school students for health education and we discussed the weather and my parents general wellbeing.

Cup of tea #5: visiting my host family on the way back home, sitting with my host sisters as they worked on the second of two home-made rugs made from hand-spun black and white wool from their 0wn sheep. Initiated plans  to make my own with them someday, inshallah (yesssss!)

Cups #6-10 (not an exaggeration): At the home of my current next-door-neighbor’s extended family as her brother’s wife had given birth to a new baby six days previously and they were planning the “Sbooah” (baby naming party for the next night, the seventh day after the baby was born and traditionally when the child is officially named). I was invited to just hang out with the family for around four hours as they planned the party menu, ate dinner, the women questioned me about my family and America, I asked their opinions about my hopeful work plans, we discussed the popular Mexican soap opera dubbed in Darija that everyone follows- “Diablo”-, the women giggled as they flouted convention by applying khol eyeliner in front of their male relatives, and we ate liver wrapped in sheep fat grilled on kebab skewars, of course.

PASS. OUT. (despite sugar high and FULL, angry stomach)

All in a day’s work.

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