Dinner With The Neighbors

Last night we had tea with our neighbors.  We rented our apartment from a Moroccan resident of Montpellier so we did a lot of our business through the next door neighbors.  Last night we went over for tea at 6pm.

Elena and I brought little cold cakes from Aswak Assalam which looked yummy to us.  The neighbors have a 4 kids--3 boys and 1 girl.  Tarik is the son who helped a lot.  He is in high school.  He studied Spanish in high school and not English, but he speaks English very well.  We says it from movies.  While Elena talked with his mother in French, I talked with Tarik in English.  I'm amazed that you can learn English with movies.  Maybe that's why so many people speak English so well.  His favorite movie is a John Travolta movie called The Punisher.  He likes it so much, his friends nicknamed him The Punisher.  He has a laptop and reads English and French sites with ease.  His experience is a testament to the power of the internet to transform a nation.  Because of the internet he has fallen in love with Johnny Cash.  He is literate in at least 3 languages--more likely 4 since he studied Spanish.

His sister came out with a Senegalese hairstyle--sort of like tight braids where half of the weave is dyed blonde and half is black.  She bisoued me just like in Montpellier--3 times.  Fascinating.  It's only 2 in Paris.

I recently read about a book about young Arab youth called Muhajababes.  I'd like to read it.  I think I am seeing something here in Morocco that runs along the same thesis.  There seems to be a generation gap.  Of course it's hard to really tell.  One of the nice things about coming and going to Japan over many many years is that you can see trends rather than just snapshots at a single time.  In Morocco, I just see a snapshot.  In Japan I saw changes through time that I couldn't have seen just going there once.  The question of how much to the youth revert to the ways of their parents is a question that you need time to see.  But the girls here seem to see more of an opportunity than in the past.  They seem more independent.  It's hard for Westerners to understand.  We seem to get hung up on expectations of dress.  Feminists seem to dislike the "requirement" that women wear headscarved even when women in Muslim countries like to wear scarves and are working for their interests in their own ways.

Anyway, it was interesting.  The cake, which looked absolutely yummy to Elena and me, didn't go over as well as we'd hoped.  The family we had tea with is very devout.  Devout to a degree that's almost scary.  Yesterday was a day when they had to go out and sacrifice a lamb.  Apparently, all over the Muslim world, people sacrificed a lamb--bad day to be a lamb in the Middle East.  Tarik asked where I've traveled.  I started to show him my facebook page.  I'm sort of happy the whole thing didn't come up, because I'm not sure they would want to know that I don't even believe in the Christian god.  Tarik would like to travel, I think, but it is very hard for Moroccans to get visas.  One of the best things about being American is that an American passport gets you almost anywhere.  He asked if I have ever been to Mexico or Cuba.  I had to tell him that I am not allowed to go to Cuba.  It was a shameful admission.  I felt very ashamed to tell a foreigner that my government doesn't allow me to travel to Cuba.  It seems so counter to the American ideal of freedom of movement.  It is a very shameful thing to have to admit and I had no idea how shameful it would be until I had to confess that my government doesn't allow me to travel there.  Tarik seemed a little amazed that I consider Germans to be good after WWII.  He seems to think we should be still angry with them. I made a note of it because one of the things that seems to inhibit Arab countries is this transgenerational grudge holding.  He seemed almost surprised that my attitude toward Germany could be "they were our enemy in the early 40's and our friends in the late 40's".  I wish that intergenerational grudged didn't exist.  I won't go too dep into what Tarik's mother told Elena about what she would do if she met an Israeli. She made a point of saying they have nothing against Jews--many Jews in Morocco.  But Zionism is a hot button issue in the Muslim world.  I can certainly understand their point.  They feel that the Jews of Europe wanted a safe haven and that their land was stolen to create a state for them.  I can't doubt that there is more than just a grain of truth to their belief.  I certainly oppose the creation of new settlements and the closing of Palestinian schools and universities.  I see too many similarities between how Israel treats the Palestinians and how the United States treated the Indians.  The Trail of Tears of the Cherokee is still being played out in Israel.  I have a Palestinian friend in Vancouver who want Israel gone.  I tried to convince him that the best he can realistically hope for is a sort of status quo, but he would have none of it.  There is no satisfactory solution.  Status quo seems to be the only one, and that is why I oppose new settlements.  But, there is going to have to be an end to intergenerational grudge holding, too.  Someday, hopefully, people will decide to play the hand that's dealt them and not kill because your great great grand-dad spited my great great grand-dad.

One other thing was interesting.  Elena and I were talking about food.  We tried to explain in French what we cook.  There were two foods they didn't understand.  One was lentille.  They didn't know what they were.  The other was aubergine--eggplant.  Both are widely available.  So it was interesting that a typical Arab family perfectly fluent in French didn't know the French words for these common foods.  I guess in Morocco, they only go by their Arabic names.  It took a google images search to explain what they were.