I must have learned something from Laura and I's disastrous taxi ride around Lima at 3:00 am because my arrival into Africa has felt like a plush vacation.
I feel like Rachel from The Poisonwood Bible, the blond girl soaking up upper class life in the midst of a continent filled with poverty. Or so they say, I haven't actually witnessed any of this said poverty in the day I've spent secluded in the rich neighborhood of embassy officials and princesses with distant royal connections.
Instead of trying to find a cheap taxi from the airport, I arranged to have Jane give her driver 600 Dirhams(80 dollars) to stand with a sign waiting for me at the airport. He gave me bonus French lessons on the 75 minute drive between Casablanca and Rabat.
I arrived to Jane's boss's house where she works as a nannie and was greeted by a large very American looking refrigerator full of very American looking foods. I ate some pancake like crepes that the full-time housekeeper had cooked that day.
We enjoyed the chocolate chip cookies Annie baked for personal delivery across the Pacific on the porch of the very large beautiful house Jane lived in. The moonlight was enough to see the backyard filled with hibiscus and fountains.
The next day I had my choice of Chex, Cheerios or Frosted Mini Wheats and the housekeeper did the dishes that I very reluctantly left in the sink after asking if that was indeed acceptable behavior.
After falling back asleep we awoke to the sounds of workers redoing the kitchen. This necessitated that the driver Ashid take Jane and the two children to their choice of lunch. After fighting over going to the Mcdonalds at the Megamall or McDonalds with toys the youngest won by virtue of whining the loudest and we went to the McDonalds with toys. I considered ordering the McArab just to be different but ended up with a chicken sandwich at Jane's suggestion. One would think ordering at McDonald's would be easy but since the last time I went was while celebrating "American Day" when I studied abroad in Budapest I wasn't really sure if there was anything that I really wanted. The 800 calories and 39 grams of fat I probably consumed was not worth it's weight in chocolate. I would have much rather indulged in something sweet.
After lunch we made a quick stop a the grocery store and although we only had one item we ended up in line behind a group of young men buying multiple cases of cheap hard liquor. They handed the cashier so many small bills that she took at least five minutes to determine that they'd underpaid and needed to start sorting through a heavy coin purse to make up the difference. After two managers came to help count money we were finally on our way. I almost felt the need to offer my services as an expert counter but since I'm on vacation from teaching math I just sat back and wondered about the state of cashier's math educations everywhere.
After McDonalds I donned my swimsuit and headed to the French neighbors villa next door with the kids. Luckily my suit wasn't in my lost check baggage thanks to a world traveler mom with good advice about what to pack in carry on luggage.
I gave a lecture about skin cancer to the 8 year old girl Yasmine who didn't want to put sun screen on that was also straight from my mother's mouth and ended up lathering her up with 50 spf waterproof lotion that looked like it was straight from the United States. She decided that I looked like a "sea beast" and that riding me back and forth across the pool would be great fun. I agreed to keep up the routine lap after lap thinking that although I was tired and out of breath from diving to the bottom with her on my back it would be good training for hiking, running and surfing with the superstar athlete Laura who is about to join me and doesn't want to lose all her fitness while on vacation.
After swimming Jane's Moroccan boyfriend drove us to the park by the Hilton to run on a shady trail in his fancy car and we ended up getting home just in time for pasta with spaghetti sauce. The owner of Jane's house works for the United States Embassy in Rabat and we had a lively dinner discussion about if creating an Embassy facebook page could serve any sort of recruitement purposes. He also reassured me that "Moroccans are really friendly to American's despite the fact that we have awful policies...oops, did I just say that?!" We continued to talk about the International Music Festival I'm attending in Essoaira this weekend with Jane and he assured me that I wouldn't be arrested for the contact high I was about to receive because so many people would be smoking at the festival.
After dinner Yasmine convinced me to watch Harry Potter with her and thoughtfully offered to turn on French subtitles so I could practice my French. I guess she'd heard Jane poke fun at me over dinner. I'd given the chauffeur one of Annie's cookies and tried to explain that they were cooked in the US by our friend and he approached Jane with the cookie saying "you're friend just gave me this and I have no idea what she was trying to say."
After Harry Potter we were off with Jane's boyfriend to Palentino a brightly colored bar with American music blasting so loudly we could hardly talk. When the DJ stopped the music momentarily I was impressed with how well everyone sang along to the English lyrics. They didn't even seem to have accents.
Now I'm back trying to pick a movie to watch from a huge collection of classic American films. Maybe Casablanca will be a good end to my very American Moroccan day. They weren't kidding when they whined about globalization.
