Watch out, y'all -- Morocco is a crazy place!
I’m afraid I couldn’t contain this Culture Shock! to just one aspect of my Morocco trip — if you’ve ever been anywhere within a 50-mile radius of North Africa, you’ll understand there are FAR too many contenders for that singular award.
Let’s try a top five, shall we? And y’all can let me know if I’m forgetting anything.
1. Everybody is so damn … nice.
No offense to Spaniards, who still molan mucho, but I’ve never felt so welcomed anywhere as I did in Morocco. For the first two nights I stayed with a Moroccan woman named Aoufiya, who insisted we eat mountains of couscous, take afternoon naps (… in her bed) and gave us her address at the end of the stay — with strict instructions that we were to call her and stay with her if we ever came back to Rabat. Outside of the homestay, old ladies and little kids stopped us on the street to say hello, welcome or whatever other English words they knew.
2. It would take years to learn these table manners.
… unless, of course, you already possess the singular gift of eating couscous with your bare hands. Moroccans traditionally eat out of a communal bowl and without utensils, even when the food is really tricky — say couscous or shredded rghaif. If this wasn’t difficult enough, it’s also considered unclean to use your left hand. Righties of the world may shrug that off, but I was in a state of near-panic when I saw the “no left hand” commandment in our guidebook.
