Don't bother packing a watch

Today was a lesson in Moroccan timekeeping, and I think the title of this post should give you a hint as to how much value the Moroccan lifestyle places on the concept of time. Every week we get a schedule from our Program Assistants (PAs) and it tells us when we’re supposed to show up for one thing or another. Because a lot of our lectures take place off-site, if you lose that schedule you’re going to be left alone in a dark classroom while everyone else is at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. So far I’ve been treating it like a sacred document, showing up on time to class, eating lunch at 12 on the dot, and getting home in time for tea with Mama Z at 4:30. Today, my American “time is money” approach went up in flames, and I had my first real lesson in the Moroccan “oh, stay just a little longer, no one’s dying” mentality. According to our schedule, after lunch finished at 1:00 we were supposed to meet in the conference room for a seminar on the hijab, and after that ended at 2:30, a discussion on the previous day’s conference with Dr. Ahmen Abbadi (one of the top religious scholars in Morocco) was supposed to take place until 3:30. Well, that’s not really how it went down. The lecture started relatively on time, only 15 minutes late, but instead of ending at 2:30 it continued on until 3:30. The discussion then went until 4:45, which at that point my butt started to go numb from sitting that long. The laundry list I had of places to go, people to see, shops to visit seemed unconquerable. My friend Lea and I were planning on attending a play at 8:00 pm on the Years of Lead, so we assumed we could drop stuff off at her house, stop by my house, run to the souk to pick up a few things, hit up the bank, meet a friend at a café to write up a dialogue for tomorrow’s Arabic class presentation, and then make it to the play, all without a hitch. That was waaayyy too ambitious. We showed up at her house, and her mom immediately started to make us tea. But not just tea. It also included bread and jam, bread and sugared peanut butter, bread and cheese, bread and olive oil (have I mentioned they eat a lot of bread here?), and some kind of chicken pastries. This whole process, while it was certainly delicious, took a nice hour and a half chunk out of our evening. Next stop, my house. Mama Z was waiting for us and it took me a good half hour to convince her that we had already had tea and would be able to live for at least another hour without another glass. After she finally conceded on the tea issue, she moved on to trying to feed us bread. We managed to make it out without being stuffed full of food, only to meet up with our friend at a café to drink, yup, you guessed it…more tea. After throwing a quick dialogue together for tomorrow’s oral presentation, Lea and I dashed out in search of Mohammed the 5th National Theatre, which neither of us had bothered to look up directions to. We arrived at 8:10, only to discover that someone decided to have a reception (thank goodness it wasn’t a tea reception!) before opening the doors to the theatre. The play, which was supposed to start at 8:00, began at 8:45 and continued on until 10:00 pm. Getting home was an adventure in itself…the medina’s not the best area to be walking around late at night (read: don’t do it), but after donning some headscarves and calling one of our guy friends to escort us home, we made it back safe and sound after a long day of unscheduled detours.
For the record, the play itself was amazing. It was all in Arabic, but I could pick up a few words every now and then (definitely a satisfying feeling), and it was good to see how Moroccans are dealing with this kind of blemish in regards to their venerated monarchy. I ended up talking with the wife of the main actor who wanted to know how I liked the play even though I couldn’t understand it that well, and she gave me her contact information--I think I’ll definitely make use of when I start interviewing for my ISP. It’s hard to think about the fact that I’ll be working on such a large research project when I’m in the middle of such an amazing country that I just want to explore. I guess this is where the true test of work ethic comes in…