AFTER LATER

Buffalo is buried in snow / my heart is buried in snow.
We are oscillating between hot and cold, all of us.
Some days the city is so soft you can push into it with your finger like this and other times like a frozen coconut. Exactly like that.
I start with the weather because it tends to sets an order to the day.

I’m back to my old habits and places, a reversion in reaction to my relocation. The new house is basically just like the old one except bigger and colder and with a more constant level of fear settling like a film over my blankets and jaffef- I still can’t figure out how to clean them. Today a centipede crawled out of one of them. I can skip the arm circles now, because of those damn jaffef and my new hobby-by-necessity, bucket-laundry.
The fear is more anxiety, partially because of all the butagaz sprinkled around our kitchen (and when someone takes up a shower it fires up like a small hell) and partially because everyone in the Kasbah has access to our home through the balcony connected to my bedroom. But that also means that I have access to all of them.

(Beautiful Laundry is progressing nicely)

Overworked and Underpaid,
when will it be over?
I fully realize I wouldn’t have this problem if I were better at selling myself.
Interesting that this is the case, considering how often I get mistaken for a prostitute (no I’m still not over it).

LOVE LETTERS

“I need support and a woman to give me what I need to make us both happy.”

One plus two makes three (Mohamed keeps trying to convince me it makes twelve. I argue twenty-one). So I have three jobs now. And third time’s a charm except that since everything is backwards in Arabic it’s like I’m starting all over again as an odd-job-girl out-of-context.
Love assistant is a bit vague, so I prefer Scribe.
I am teaching English to a woman who speaks French and Arabic (if forced to and of course I force her to), learning English for her American love-interest. I started last week and have already written three love letters and translated seven (this is his average per day).

The catch is that he writes to her in English, then emails her through some sort of automatic translator into French, so she receives the letters in French but they don’t make any grammatical sense, and I have to try to slip the word back through the seam-hole and decipher what the original English word was, then respond to him in English based on what she is narrating to me in French, and then to make sure it’s correct I translate it back to my student in Arabic, who then translates it back to herself in French.

Catch #2 is that these are not so much love letters as love games. He uses all kinds of muddy language to avoid saying the wrong thing. He does not so much say things as roll around in a pile of words like a dog and hope that some of them stick. I usually spend the whole lesson with my face scrunched up because his English pains me, miming things like “indirect” and “cloudy.” Yesterday I drew a “ladder of feelings” to explain how “I have feelings” ranks in comparison to “I like” and “I love.” Today’s batch forced me to add “I would like to love,” “I have feelings of love,” and “I think I could love.” When I don’t know how to translate something, I launch into extensive metaphors in Arabic and Mime, and she looks at me in that old familiar way that I used to look at my Derija teacher before I left her for an old textbook, because at least the old textbook didn’t lie to me, or judge me for my taste in pet names (relatedly, Gimpy fled home, Kosovo is not as independent as I initially observed, while Katya- is healing nicely after maiming her leg, possibly in an attempt to imitate her big brother. And Bisoux is too pregnant to care about them anymore.)

I think my student has mostly given up on learning to speak English, and we will just translate and compose love letters all day. Which is basically the best job ever. And comes with free cake, and coffee in zebra-print teacups, but only if I ask.

Hiya Fowda Fiya Dokha

A few things relevant to today:
1. When I was young my mother taught me in all sincerity that hope is presumptuous and with negative connotations attached and they can’t be detached. I was nervous about what it would mean to agree with her.
2. Shifa is not an Arabic name it is an Arabic nothing (that is not something my mother taught me it is just something people in Morocco say)
3. To clarify #1, this may partially be because of a subtle language barrier, but is mostly based on her conviction that devotion involves believing in things that don’t make sense, because they are better than worse.
4. There is nothing worse than the presumptuous rajl-f’-zanqa.
5. Is this perverse presumptuousness just a perversion of hope?

I have a friend who works on the corner. His DVD selection is not any better than the next guy but he is young and open late and corrects my Arabic and lets me watch his TV when I’m bored. I visited him to see if he had found the old Egyptian film I requested by means of acting out the first scene, which I had watched at another man’s stall. The boy never actually finds the films I request, but his assurances allow me to continue hoping and I do.
I thought about asking him to accompany me to the Egyptian film at the Cinema Paris later that day. I didn’t ask him in the end, and later found that I had dodged a vaguely bullet shaped almost-bullet when he started telling me what he thought about the Jewish population of Casablanca, or the Jewish population anywhere. I am prone to taking things personally, and despite being Muslim inside and out, (in a cartoonish coloring book sort of way) I did take it personally. How did I manage? It mostly has to do with the presumption he made- the look on his face, waiting for me to agree with him. Like the men on the street that try to hit me with their car, and then ask me to get in the car. I’m sure I have my days when I look as though I can’t do any better, but certainly not often enough to warrant my friendly acquaintances pursuing me with such zeal.

Relatedly, the mentally unstable DVD vendor is at it again. He handed me a letter on Valentines Day and I was too nervous to have it translated until yesterday, but it turned out to be a non-love letter. On the contrary, it was a stay-away-from-me letter. I gladly accepted and felt comfortable passing him by sans-Salam until last night, when he stopped me in the street and caused a scene in front of the egg-shop.
Doesn’t my phone number work? Are you sure you have the right number?
He had written his number at the bottom of a Quranic wood carving and dropped it off at the cinema.
I didn’t call you.
You didn’t call me?
He sort of looked like he was about to punch me and I actually braced myself for an attack. But the bracing only made me more angry. Because why would I call him.
Why would I call you? I see you every day. You are horrible with me. I am not ever going to call you. Understand?

I left as quick as I came, and made my way uphill to the Cinema Paris, thrilled at the prospect of English subtitles and snacks allowed (snacks-allowed is a state of being that can erase any bad memory). As I watched the story unfold, I asked myself (because I had no one to ask in Arabic) if the film was perhaps a sign from God.
The protagonist was a mildly crazed old man, working hard for a living on the streets of Cairo. His only distraction was a beautiful young soda-pop vendor. She ran through and between the trains at the station with a bucket and a dress that was always falling off. She was nice to the poor guy long enough, until he asked her to marry him and she indignantly explained that she was much too good for him, and was already engaged to someone else. Then she laughed at him for a few consecutive minutes while her dress continued to fall off.
I never directly laughed at my crazed admirer but I couldn’t help reexamining my frank reply to his presumptuous inquiry.
In the film, the man ends up trying to kill the girl and accidentally kills her best friend. Then he tries to kill her again but gets caught and arrested, driven completely insane, whereas he started out a 3, on a scale from 1 to 5. A wise old member of the community explains, as though it was the moral of the story, that for the crazy old guy, even very small things were very meaningful, and he simply couldn’t control himself.

I know my life is not an old Egyptian film although sometimes I wish that it was, with all that beautifully contrasting black and white. In this case I pass, and have faith that life is not all that dramatic, really, and there aren’t ever that many occasions on which to say
“Abadan!” Not really.

I finished off my Sunday with a chwarma, not with murder, and found myself at the egg shop once again. There was a man there delivering bread, singing a Spanish song with full vibrato. I was told he is the best singer on the streets of the Socco. He stacked the bread into a pyramid one by one until his cardboard box was empty, and kept singing until the song was over. I told the mool’l hanout that I wish I could record him. He told me the man will come the same time tomorrow and if I come back I can do as I please. I told him I was doing a project. He asked if I would send it to America. I told him no, I would bring it with me, in a few months, when I go home.

Eid l Hub

I found a new café today, set up in a vaguely Japanese sort of way, with eight benchlike chairs set up in squares. It seemed to emphasize when someone was sitting alone, suggesting that there should be seven other people sitting there with you. Presumptuous. A man in a maroon djellaba was sitting by the door watching the girls. They were all wearing headscarves and smoking. I drank half of my juice and finished my book and watched the Al Jazeera report on the bombing in Lebanon. The only fus’ha words I could understand were “walikin” (but) and “aydun” (also). They said those words enough times that I felt like I was catching on.

Back at Café Paris the crowds have already started to gather, mostly Spanish. There are usually a few elderly women sitting with young men, perhaps their sons, and a few young wives with their husbands, or maybe brothers. I learned from a library regular that Café Paris used to be known for its fine breakfast menu, and perfect martinis. She used to sit in the wicker chairs outside and watch the crowds and have a martini. The same goes for cafés all around town. I can’t even imagine this.

I’ve been listening to people more, trying to understand the peripheral conversations. Dean’s is good for this because the men are usually talking too loud, and I accept the risk of using their slurred speech as a substitute for an Arabic tutor. And in any case, I have to start speaking Fus’ha. It feels like moving backwards. And unnatural, because it is not really spoken anywhere.

My old neighbors miss me. I heard it through the grapevine. It’s just as I’d planned. And I miss them too. I went to the Fnduq today to peruse the rug selection and rekindle a small relationship from last spring, with Mohamed the custom-scarf maker. I found him after passing through several shops asking men “Do you remember me? Do I know you?” They all answered yes, but a few minutes conversation would prove that I did not know these men at all. When I found Mohamed he was younger than I remembered him, but I recognized the bright blue countertop of his display case. We discussed possibilities and eventually got to designing a rug that fits my financial limitations, inching down on levels of comfort and beauty gradually until we reached my lowly dwelling place. It was like measuring my worth in rug-form: not exactly what you would expect of a rug, but makes do.

I am allergic to the flowers I bought myself, so my eyes match my shoes and I look awfully sad. Maybe I'll score a free pack of tissues or something equally as good.

AN EXERCISE IN LADY FITNESS

I’ve given up bitter for bitter sweet, taking sugar in my coffee and all that.

I explored Lady Fitness just for kicks. It was a horrifying scene of feigned decadence and desperation. They built all of the rooms too big for the amount of equipment they actually have- the women were all scantily clad and unusually skeletal. One of them stuck to me for the duration of my visit. I wanted to feed her a sandwich. I insisted I couldn’t afford the club and tried to flee but was forced to take a detailed tour of the creepy premises. The praying mantis took my phone number. She showed me her favorite room in the back. If she calls I will hang up on her.

I have been frequenting Café de Paris daily now, like an irresistibly comfy sweater. Although today, sitting there in my ICS I surveyed the man to my left and his beautiful blue and white striped djelleba and it made me want to put on my djelleba- maybe become all striped and serious and baby-blue pure like that. A certain peace arises from this man like an uncanny odor- he is there every morning. He is a blind man, and the other men in the café always lead him to his special spot. My stomach turns when I am accidentally sitting in his special spot and I sit there and chew my lip and hope he doesn’t bump into anything on the detour. On those days they lead him to the seat to my left.

Cold showers lately leave me scouring the city for ways to warm my heart. Today my efforts led to a wasted hour of a beautifully crisp February morning, flirting with the mool-l violin to no avail. I refuse to buy it, even if it costs $70, and have been trying to rent. I didn’t go intending to flirt my way through it but sometimes the spirit catches you and there is nothing around to stop it. Men tend to steer the conversation without my noticing, to their liking until it covers the neglected sore spot aching for an inappropriate oral exchange, and I am concentrating too hard on my conjugations to pull out early. I even played the cancan for the man! He spent the hour pretending he was going to let me rent, and in the end, walu.

Repairs on the house are racking up into a pile of no-Arabic lessons, so I keep saying the same words over and over, asking people what shtta means so I can watch them wiggle, saying what I like and don’t like, and trying to learn the difference between things that look the same, and learning the difference, except when it comes to nuts and eggs and all that.

HARD TIMES ON RUE IMAM LAITI

I keep calling it “Imam Rue Laiti” by accident.

The man on the corner confronted me today. I was standing with Safia, chatting about the weather and drinking the juice she made for me. He came in like a wave of bad fever, jittery and missing pieces. Disjointed like his extremities were dangling from little strings. I felt sorry for him and then he started talking and I felt sorry for the situation we were in. Safia buried her head in her face and they muttered awkwardly placed niceties to each other, to allay the hostility, or to place it more directly where it belonged. I caught some phrases- “talk to the woman,” “across the street,” and some more- the bits but not the guts.

Yesterday he warned me that if I continue to dine at H&M&M&M, I am dead to him. So I’m dead to him. But he has since proved that though I may be dead, he will continue to poke and prod with interest and disgust and resentment and anger and mild obsession.
Safia reluctantly advised me to start taking the alternate route home. I looked back and forth between my usual route and the Socco with a pout. “Not today, not today,” she insisted. “But later.”

There are two alleyways and one set of steps leading from "ex-fish street" to Rue Imam Laiti. Of course I could start taking the alternate route, but it would mean missing Safia, the perfectly hardboiled egg shop, H&M&M&M, the shady glue sniffer and his daily wranglings, and the cat gang, when I stop home, every couple of hours. But I am an American girl at heart, whatever that means, and I won’t be stepped on. Whatever that means.

It is horrible to know that someone hates you. It is worse to know that the person that hates you has stopped taking his medication.
He has so many stories to tell and I still want to hear them.

THAT FILM OVER THE MILK

We finished our second day of filming. We went looking for Iris fields and as it turns out, all of Tangier is an Iris field this month.
I was deathly ill and grossing everyone out, with the exception of the men working the chicken shack on the route to Tetouan, probably because they spend most of their days staring at recently butchered cow meat hanging from hooks and bleeding on the floor.
The disjointed progression of artistic process ran like the jagged edge of quilting scissors, just as painful but not nearly as playful, moving up and down the small mountains, between high and low spaces as the opinions of two stubborn Europeans collided and exploded and set things on fire then put out the fire.

I found some floral gems and some non-floral gems. The herdsmen knew Zohra from the cinema, finally convincing me to go ahead with my long delayed pursuit- an audio project revolving entirely around men that “know Zohra.” I meet them all the time. They always look alike.

On the last Iris field a small child gang performed their kung fu moves on the Iris heads, then later gave Yto a bouquet of all the heads. I have a pot of them in my room. The stems are too short to properly “vase” them. It looks more like purple stew than anything else. It attracts flies.

Who do you think you're Fooolin' ?

The sirens in Tangier are a mix between a NYC ambulance and an ice cream truck. Like penguins waddling. The way Abdulnabi used to dodder his way into the classroom with a boyish smile on his face, inappropriate for the morning and for the season, geared up to teach us about the drug trade in the north or the ignorance of women in general. Accompanying his belly and constant “meeeeezyaaan” was the comfort of knowing he would always be wearing the same sweater, the next day and the next day.

Depending on where you are standing the sounds of the city are always changing and being carried. The communal cheering for evening football is pretty standard and can be heard from anywhere. Quranic recitation is maintained from DVD vendors on some streets, while Jojo plays out on others. Cars don’t honk as much as in the summer months, but more boys think it’s funny to almost run me over as a way of getting my attention. The weather is changing in funny ways, as though it’s not sure which would make it more well-liked. It goes both ways at once, weaving into ribbons of strokes of warm air moving through a cold front. Like the murals of ships and sky lining the walls on the walk up the boulevard.

The consistency of appearance of the daily passers-by feels like a cartoon or a very realistic video game. It presents this way of living (weaving in and out of lives with mysterious status, like a warm front or a cold spell) like a narrative and sometimes a bad joke (very rarely, a good joke)- alongside the motorbikes and baby strollers in the streets is this phenomenon of “men that always wear the same sweater.” More comforting than a coat because everyone always wears the same coat. The sweaters often involve lightning bolts, neon stripes, and patched elbows. I know that I can take my leave, come back a week or a month later and there it is- old brown and green sitting on the bench outside the petit socco chicken shack with the man in the turquoise djellaba. He preaches in the medina. I think he would remind me of my mother if I could understand what he was saying in all that mumbling and shouting, but for now he only reminds me of himself.

An integral detail of the public space is the uphill and downhill. Uphill tends to monopolize the warmth, so I have taken to sitting in high places and watching the slope of the road. Watching people in general- I don’t usually do it but lately I can’t help it. A good accompaniment to the soy lattes at Café Paris (victory!) And downhill serves its purpose when I’m caught taxi-less, up the old mountain, or leaving the Qasbah house (not home yet)- I am thankful for it but I need to learn to be more delicate with my steps before I lose all use of my legs. These hills were not made for Buffalo snowboot stomping. (It’s partly the fault of Mary J Blige, I also have to keep the beat) And since I am always finding myself beside young girls (beautiful and heavily made up ones) wearing three-inch stick heels and doing just fine, I might give in to my inner librarian and unpack the gems I hid away for the rainy season to decrease chances of public embarrassment.

So I am adopting new habits to keep the company of the old ones- compliments to match what I have already appropriated. Tracking down the orange spots of the blue city like a gumshoe- so far: the mandarins and the calendula, in full bloom now beside the narcissus and tongues and ears of the Iris Tingitana. We found them growing on the side of the road on the route to Tetouan and again back in the city, in armfuls and handfuls of farmers trying to sell them for much less than they are worth. In my case, the floppy purple ears peek out of my purse where the zipper is open because it’s too full, bordered by wool because the sun is just a cheap trick- it is still winter.
You can’t fool me like you used to.

Heart-shaped Blues

There are bats. On my street. I have to duck when I walk. I do anyway because the boys playing soccer never stop for me and actually start kicking the ball harder when I walk by. Sometimes I envision deflating their ball with a knife and it making a sad wooshing noise as the air seeps out along with all of their hopes and dreams.

I have two houses in Tangier. As of yesterday neither of them has hot water. I sleep in the one that has an oven, it feels more "open to possibility" in general. Possibility of pumpkin cakes, toasted bread, happiness etc. The important things in life are still possible at the other house, only performed publicly, and now that the possibility of cleanliness has also shifted over into the public sphere (at least I can be thankful I have the option of the public bath) I think I am finally ready to get a move-on. I have spent about 33% of the past year in transition, I am used to it but I still make faces at it.



I ventured out to the city beach this morning, in the hopes of capturing the morning light on film. Fat film for a fat morning. All full of things. The dawn breaks like a pinwheel, each hazardously sharp edge taking turns rising above the silhouette of the little mountains. I adore those little light beams.

The city beach was empty except for a few homeless men emerging from the fog every ten minutes or so, with bags for collecting things. I think they got all the good stuff because I found nothing awesome except a bag of something buried too deep to get at 'er. Everything was calm and wooshing until the chaos of the birds announced the arrival of the teenage hoodlums with their soccer balls and overdramatically performed masculinity. Four of them surrounded me as I walked down the beach, occasionally grabbing, and eventually kicking their soccer ball at my ass from afar. I squealed and wished I hadn't. It was a cute sort of squeal. Occasionally it occurs to me that I should learn how to swear in Moroccan but I feel like it will have the same effect as when french people say "shits." Just laughter. Pity, depending on the tone.
It took me a few minutes, but I managed my way through the sand slowly, off the beach onto the boulevard, with no damage done or cameras missing, only angry like a tiger.

I wandered the streets for some parts of an hour, since Delta Fitness does not open until the decent hour of 7:30 and doesnt allow bellydancing of any kind before the decent hour of 3pm (I still dont understand who bellydances in the middle of a work day?). O Morocco!

Some very hip moroccan girls walking arm in arm, skinny jeans and all, stopped me with an "o binti!" as i approached the all-new, unnaturally placed public garden (it just looks like a big interupption). I turned to look and paused my noise-canceling-Jens Lekman (but he's so quiet and quivery how could he!). One of the girls pointed to her bum with a gesticulation signifying both effacement and purification. As it turned out, the kiss of the force of the object of hostility and harassment had left a heart shaped mud stain on my bum. I tried to remove it and only made it less love-ly. I did not feel defeated, but I did decide to go home. And despite the lack of hot water, it felt like a home and not just a house devoid of warmth in the face of the events that had unfolded that morning.

Isn't that what you meant?

The dead mosquito splotches aren’t shaped like anything this year. I’m leaving them soon anyway, for the new ones on the new walls in the new house.

Ashora was yesterday, all the kids roamed the streets in a candied stupor in their miniature djellabas and babouches. Mohamed gave me some mixed nuts wrapped in wax paper and I felt vaguely Moroccan and included. I’m so pathetic on holidays, wishing everyone a happy one just so they’ll wish me one back and perhaps tell me what I could do later on, to appear more Moroccan (saunter the streets, comb hair, etc). I am forever fond of this particular celebration, as it brought the return of the packaged dried fig, so I can stop buying the mushy Ramadan leftover ones where each little stringy strand of fruit is actually a live worm writhing.

A short and festive attempt at fasting had put me in a sluggish daze, or perhaps the sleeping sickness caught up with me, but I managed to leave my laptop on a bench in a Grand Socco food stall after a late night snack that I had asked Mohamed to put aside for me earlier that day. Macbook slept there overnight. She was frightened and had wild nightmares of what men might do to her when they found her all alone. I didn’t realize she wasn’t with me until around six am, at which time I began to have similar visions and paced my street and the surrounding streets (does that count as pacing?) until someone showed up to open up shop, where Macbook was perched on the same bench where I left her, beside a box of half-eaten bread, cornering a splash of soup on the black vinyl cushion.

I pushed a little further in the same direction by locking myself out of my apartment a few hours later, and then spent two hours trying to get back in. It was in this interim that a kitten named Nora (because it rhymes with Ashora and because I was looking for something to name Nora) sat on my feet for a nap for no reason I can think of except that she loves me and knew it would keep me warm. She kept me company while I got through three chapters of Portrait of a Lady, stirring for nothing, not even the tipsy, oversized banana truck and Nora didn’t run away either. Eventually another tenant of the building showed up to open the street door and I made it back just in time to meet Miriem so we could walk to the mosque together and even managed to find a comfortable wall-spot before it was stolen by the miscellaneous limbs of surrounding women. Whenever I see a Rifi straw hat hung up on the spikes of the partition, complete with the multicolored tassels around the rim, I try to guess which woman it belongs to and I always guess wrong. This leads me to suspect that they don’t wear the red and white striped towel/sheet/blanket/rug (I’m tempted to refer to the as thneeds) for weddings, and this intensifies my mission to see a jbool wedding.

friendly sidenote: If I start doing this with ordinary words, could it be like a trick poem?

To encourage a mental recovery I made the short trek to the Oasis grocery store in hopes of splurging on my favorite cookies. I ran into my Spanish neighbor, on an actual “treasure hunt” designed by her boyfriend for her birthday. I can’t decide if this is romantic or adorable or a ploy to get her to buy all the necessary items for the dinner he had planned (when I spotted her she was holding several varieties of fancy cheese). It pushed me over the edge into a lovey mode, and got me asking my DVD vendor (only one of three left standing) for a movie “about love. A good story.” He searched for a few seconds before pulling something out with a confident thumbs up. The English translation of the Arabic title read “About love and affection. A good love story.”

The second day of Ashora was the first day of Spring in Tangier. Heartwarming, seeing as how I can assume my bedroom at home is still overlooking dirty mounds of snow and sludge. I celebrated by taking the three dirham taxi to Sweni. I must have been delirious from my flu meds to have ventured so close to Casa Barata on a Sunday, and a holiday, to boot. Something inside me could anticipate the nightly greeting from the cinema staff “where were you all day?” and just wanted to be able to respond, “Sweni!” I base a lot of my decisions on words. It’s a dangerous business.

The ride ends right across the street from my favorite apartment building in Tangier, all white with a row of nine windows with red shutters and the most beautiful laundry stuffed in the frames or hanging in the droop of the line tied between two frames. I brought all of my cameras and stole every angle of its rectangular soul. Groups of boys haggle me like I’m a spectator sport. Most of the harassments amount to “she’s taking a picture she’s taking a picture…she’s still taking a picture still taking a picture.”
Miriem lives across the street –that’s how I discovered the building in the first place- but I was still surprised to run into her. I’m thankful for it, I think it helped my street cred. She walked me to the main road and left me roaming free to photograph the men selling odd pairs of things, like cabbage and sheep, or cauliflower and sheep.
I wandered that street, flagging taxis that never stopped, long enough to see the bus stop crowd triple. I did eventually make it home in time to say goodnight to Bisoux and her brood, all nestled like sisters beside a pile of deep fried fish heads.