Life As It Comes

Of My Time in Midelt (Part 1)6 Comments

The first afternoon/evening in Midelt was spent running errands with Cory. We went to see some artisans in a close-by village, still considered Midelt, Ait Gharyat. He picked up some purses, which I learned were in exchange for free medical services an American doctor in Midelt had lent to some of the ladies. To get to this village/neighborhood, we had to cross a wheat field, and Cory would sing “Now We Are Free” from the Gladiator soundtrack.

Once there, we came back to Midelt and met with Moha. He was kind and jovial, laughing with Cory and looking like a wise old man. We saw his photo album and looked at various pictures of his life. A higher-up or an elder was there too (a Haj), who happens to be the man from whom Cory rents his room adjacent to the mosque. After this, we walked out to deliver some CDs and the purses to an American doctor, but he and his family were not at home. Cory knew of another family from a different part of the continent that had just moved into town, and he figured they might be with them for the evening. We were in luck, and we were treated to the remnants of dinner - beef, carrots, and potatoes over rice, cucumbers, bananas with cream, and some custard and tapioca-like dessert.

We walked home satisfied and spent some time on the roof talking and praying before bed.

On Monday, we went for breakfast and tea with Moha before setting out on various errands for Cory’s Midelti ID (carte sejour). Lunch consisted of two types of melon, garlic cheese (which we had purchased at Marjane in Fez), bread, and orange Fanta on the roof above Cory’s apartment. In the afternoon, we went out to Ait Gharyat again for a meeting with the artisans, where we spent some time talking with them, watching them work, having tea, and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in French. Then, as the evening wore on, we did a few more errands and walked over to Hayat’s carpet shop. Cory informed me that Hayat (22) owned this shop herself and bought and sold all of her inventory, basically making a killing. Hayat’s English was astounding - she had been taught by Cory. We came home for a bit afterward and then headed over to Hayat’s family’s house for dinner. Hayat and her sister and Cory and I danced to some videos of Moroccan ceremonial music - some of it for weddings, some of it for other ceremonies. We had a good laugh at each other over all of this. Hayat’s mother served us tea and cookies, then dinner with bread for dipping into this steamed or baked pile of vegetables over chicken. Everyone was treated to a hand-washing by Hayat’s sister first, then we dug in. There was also rice and some mixture, seemingly of tomatoes and cream, on separate plates to accompany the food. Then for dessert, there was more melon and apricots. Everyone left relatively soon after. Many conversations and interesting happenings took place while we were at Hayat’s house, but one particularly noteworthy thing was when Hayat talked to Cory about her idea for starting a “nursing home” of sorts for some of her “old friends” around Midelt who had nowhere to go. She said, “I do not want a car for myself yet, or anything like this. Instead with God’s help, I will take care of these people and give them a place to sleep and eat. This is my idea.” She asked Cory what he thought of it, and he seemed very touched, telling her, “I think it is a wonderful idea Hayat.”

Wednesday, we got up and had tea with Moha before headed out to run a few more errands and do my laundry at the American doctor’s house, since they had left for two months to go back to the states. Then, we walked many miles through the outer villages and then the foothills of the High Atlas. We caught a couple rides for maybe 2 minutes one time and 10 minutes another time, but the journey took us well over 3 hours on foot (mostly because of me stopping to take pictures and walking a little slower than Cory). We stopped at one point to sit on some concrete soon-to-be power poles and had some candy bars we had bought at Moha’s store as well as some turkey pepperoni that the doctor’s wife had left for us on the washing machine.

The last leg of the journey (which included the second short ride) involved us fording a river and then winding up a path through the foothills to a wooden and adobe cottage of three nuns. The first nun was Irish and spoke French, Spanish, and Shilha (as well as pleasant English); the second was Polish and spoke Polish, French, and Shilha; the third nun spoke French and presumably other languages. We were joined in the hut by a Moroccan as well as two Spaniard mountain climbers and another Moroccan who spoke Spanish, French, and Arabic. This was amazing to me - a house of many languages. The first nun made everyone English tea and spoke to the mountain climbers in perfect Spanish while showing us around their home. Juan Pedro, one of the Spanish, said that he was a doctor and he wanted to donate medicine to the village. Later, he visited with a mother who had just recovered her child from the nuns who had been treating her for a nasty staph infection which had caused her to have boils and her throat to nearly swell shut. The first nun then talked with the mountain climbers about the mountain and said that she usually takes two days to climb up and back down during the summer when they go to treat the nomads that live up there, but she pointed to the third nun and said that she makes it up and back down in 24 hours. She is 85.

Cory wanted to take me up river to show me the old French dam that had lasted since the 30’s to 2005. We walked up to the remnants of the dam and then hurried back to catch a Grand Taxi back to town with the nuns who were going into Midelt to celebrate the 50th anniversary of another sister’s final vows by going to a restaurant. “We have never done this,” the first nun told us.

After Cory and I got out of the Grand Taxi (which had all been on strike that day, so it was particularly thrilling for us to not have the 3 hour walk back through the desert foothills - the first nun had apparently called for one in advance), we hopped out and headed back to collect my laundry. It began to rain though and hail. We saw Hayat’s father as we hurried through the storm to the American family’s house. We pulled my clothes inside to let them dry, and we cooked 9 eggs that the wife of the house had left for us, eating them from the skillet with some bread the first nun had given us shortly before we had all gotten into the taxi. Then, we headed back to Cory’s apartment for the night.

Wednesday morning Cory got up and went for tea with Moha and errands. He came back for me around 10:30 or so, and we went up to get my clothes and then out to have lunch with another American couple. We had chili and cornbread as well as melon, apricots, and loquats for dessert, followed by tea and coffee with cookies.