Christmas in Morocco

I suppose everyone has a memory of their first Christmas away from home and family. They remember where they were and what reason it was that resuluted in their being away. I imagine for some, it was a welcome change and for others sort of, well, devastating. For me it was neither. But it was strange.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas I took comfort in the thought that almost everyone, at some point in their life, for whatever reason, has to venture off on their own, even on a holiday deeply rooted in home and family. I took greater comfort in knowing that everyone who joins Peace Corps signs up to make these sorts of sacrifices.

Normally, by no decision of my own, I am forced into a Christmas “mood.” Musac (sp?) in the grocery store, displays at Target, and lights in the streets all draw forth old memories of Christmases past and force me to think about the Christmas present months before the actual day. Without trying, the holiday bears down on you in the States. But that sort of hysteria doesn’t exist in Morocco. At least not for Christmas. No Santas hohohoing their way through city malls. No shivering bell ringers by all department store doors. Nothing to suggest that the holiday exists outside the confines of our Western, Christian culture.

While, out of habit more than anything, I felt a slight empty space where all the hype was missing, it was almost refreshing to be away from it. Not to say that I didn’t miss my family and home more than usual (I definitely did), but, for me, it was nice to celebrate simply a holiday that originally celebrated the significant, but simple birth of Jesus, and later became a holiday for simple reunification of family and friends. While I didn’t have my blood family with me here, I did have some of my Peace Corps family. With them Christmas was everything it should be: simple, gratifying, and fun.

Many of my Peace Corps “family” went home for the holidays, but I was lucky to coax my neighbor, Socorra and another friend from the other side of Morocco, Isabel into joining me in Tafoghalt to celebrate the day. It was probably the plane tickets for the flight to Belgium from the Oujda airport more than my coaxing that actually brought them this way, but oh well. Anyway, to make up for the lack of Christmas spirit preparation, from the moment they arrived to the moment we left for Brussels, we spent almost all our time locked up inside; our Christmas stronghold against the indifference of the Moroccans outside. With some decorations, a few presents, and shared memories and some traditional foods of past Christmases we bolstered (in my opinion) a respectable amount of “cheer.”

If Christmas was a downsize of what I am accustomed to, New Years was quiet the opposite. The morning of the 26th we left Tafoghalt by taxi to make our way to the Oujda airport, all fostering doubts that the snowstorm in Europe and the general standard of Moroccan transport would allow us to make it successfully to Brussels.

We were forced to depart from the plan even before we got to the airport when the souk bus driver, thinking, as we did that the airport that had been in use for years was the one we were flying out of, dropped us off at that airport. As soon as the trailing exhaust of the bus cleared enough for us to see, we could all sense the eerie stillness of a recently abandoned place. The parking lot was empty, there was no bustle, and the few cars that we saw coming in we soon saw leaving again. Despite these omens, we continued walking from the highway where we had been dropped off to the front doors of the airport. Not until we got there were we informed by a nearby group of lazing gendarmes that this was now the “old” airport and that the new one about a mile and half away was now open. Oh, and no we couldn’t take the shortcut. They of course were too busy to help us further, so we started the long trek to the “new” airport by foot, sticking out our thumbs whenever a car happened by. As luck had it, we finally approached a guy sitting in his car (for the sake of PC it was an official taxi) on the side of the road, who without hesitation took us the rest of the way to the airport. Oh Morocco.

By the providence of God or Allah or whoever, we made it to Brussels with no further hassles aside from a flight delay, and on arriving we were fortunate enough to find our other companion from Fes and have Isabel’s distant uncle pick us up from the airport and take us directly back to his apartment. As it turned out, despite it being his and very nice, he didn’t actually spend many nights there so it was all ours for the week. So after a brief introduction and inauguration into Belgian beers and a tour of the place, he left us alone to our Belgian adventure.

One day we visited one of Belgium’s oldest and most traditional breweries, but, in large, we spent most of the week just wandering around, checking out museums and shops, and eating waffles and drinking beer whenever the whim took hold of us.

Towards the end of the week, after an almost devastating mix-up, my friend from home, Megan, joined us for New Years Eve and Day. No description of these last couple days is necessary. In the end, after having to pay Ryan Air 80 Euros for two forgotten pieces of printer paper (a lovely sendoff), we made it back to Morocco. I was expecting a sort of bitter departing from Europe and an even more bitter return to Moroccan life, but the opposite actually materialized. The 80 Euro fee was one last reminder that, although it is the culture that I am most comfortable with, we in the west let ourselves focus way too much on profit and business. We forget to treat humans like fellow humans. It is one of the most important lessons that Moroccans have been teaching me over the last year. As a culture they live life with a certain amount of pride and selfless humanity that we, in the west, seem to be losing to the pursuit of success and profit. At no time since I have been here has that been clearer than when I came back from Brussels. It’s good to be back!