Dinner - Moroccan Fashion

This past Thursday night my workmate Molly and I were invited to dinner by a colleague of ours, Abdellah Lamine. Abdellah picked us up in one of the cutest little old cars I've ever seen. And cute isn't a word I use lightly (nor frequently, as it has not yet gained acceptance in many masculine circles), but this car is simultaneously a chick and grandmother magnet (hey, grandmothers are chicks, too!) I will make sure to get a picture of it tomorrow when I am to take a little trip with Abdellah to a nearby village.

Moroccan hospitality is greater than any I've ever experienced, and it is seemingly pervasive in the country. I was busy with project work until 10pm on Thursday night, so we did not arrive to Abdellah's house until about 10:30pm. In my experience, Moroccan's don't have a fixed time to eat dinner, but rather, they wait until all members are present and dine together. Sometimes this is not until very late, and I have even frequented households where most of the family will make dinner and then go to bed until other members arrive (which can be midnight or later), at which point everyone wakes up and shares a meal together.

Abdellah's wife Naima was charming and joyfully nice. She had prepared a marvelous dinner fit for the proletariat (why shouldn't commoners deserve excellence like royalty?) The side dishes were a salad of rice, tuna, mayonnaise, and corn; a salad of tomatoe, onion, cilantro, and dressing; french fries; lettuce with vinagre and sugar (delicious); and soda, which no Moroccan meal is complete without (the consumption of sugar per capita here must be the world's highest! They even add sugar to fresh orange juice because it is "not sweet enough.") The main course was a beautiful display of two whole chickens smothered in a savory sauce with olives and liver. Of course we dug into this with our hands, as is traditional in Morocco, and were encouraged to eat (kul kul! Ma kliti walo!) until we were stuffed. It's sometimes hard to convince a Moroccan host that you really are full and you're not just being "polite" or bashful, but I used some good ole Moroccan humor and told them halfway through the meal that I had filled both my legs up so that when I was full I could tell them I had filled myself up to my neck. This worked well enough so that our hosts told us "Bsha ou raha" (meaning "with health and relaxation," the expected comment after someone finishes a meal) and proceeded to take away the main course and bring dessert. As my cousin so brilliantly said when she was a toddler: though I was uncomfortably full, my dessert shelf was empty. So I dug into a piece of yummy cake that Naima had also made. See the picture below!

A view of the living room in Abdellah and Naima's house. This is a traditional living room setup, from the arrangement of the furniture to the decoration and art. Moroccan living rooms put the focus on people, as the furniture lines the walls and faces the center. Guests are hosted here and conversations last late into the night.

Abdellah on the right and Molly on the left. The fantastic meal Naima prepared for us.

A typical Moroccan tea setup and the beautiful cake Naima made.

And my humble bedroom. Simple, but containing more than I need. It's the first bed I've slept on with a frame in quite some time. Hamdolilah! (I even made the bed a bit so my momma wouldn't be horrified = )