And then, finally, earlier this year, those long-awaited papers were granted. A passport held hostage was returned. A date was set for a wedding celebration and that vague invite became something far more concrete. I debated with myself about the cost and the climate. I reminded myself that such opportunities don't come along every day. I booked flights, bought sun cream and got ready to go.
At some point I mentioned this possibility to Lydia and in the end (somewhat unexpectedly if I'm honest) she and her mum and sister all joined me for a Moroccan adventure. I very much appreciated their presence: firstly because it was lovely to spend the time with them; but also because not being the sole non-Moroccan, non-Arabic-speaking guest in the mix reduced the intensity and probably made things easier for both my hosts and me.
Of all the reflections I have brought away from my time in Morocco, the warmth and generosity of the hospitality we experienced is top of the list. People we did not know opened their homes and hearts and ushered us in. We were unquestioningly invited to share in both everyday life and a very special occasion. It is hard to put into words how, but it felt like we were simultaneously treated both as honoured guests and as members of the family.
Much of this welcome centred around the meal table. There was always so much food! Not having a shared language didn't prevent us from very quickly picking up on the instruction to "go on, eat!". Without in any way wanting to offend my Muslim hosts by saying so there was, for me, something almost biblical about the way in which food was shared. Everyone ate together, with our hands, from a common plate in the centre of the table. Bread was broken and passed around. The pouring of tea was an act of ceremony and service. Often there was one or perhaps two water cups on the table from which everyone drank. In this context, communion made so much sense.
As someone who spends much of work and life trying to create spaces where others are, I hope, made welcome, there was great value in experiencing hospitality done so well; and also to take my turn on the other side: the reminder of the feeling being the outsider, the one who doesn't quite understand the expectations, the one for whom the gestures of inclusion make all the difference to help them feel at ease.
I also want to find the right words to say something about my observations around gender: which I do with the caveat that these are simply my reflections of how I experienced my own particular brief stay.
We spent a lot of our time in all-female or female-dominated spaces. Whilst there are, of course, times when I end up in female-dominated environments (or for that matter, most notably during my year in the Philippines, in male dominated ones), in my normal life it is very rare that I spend time in intentionally gender segregated spaces, and to do so gave me plenty of food for thought.
Whether or not it is universally true, in the various home environments we experienced it felt like these were spaces where the terms were dictated by the women. They also felt like they were spaces of joy and laughter and conversation and community. To say a 'woman's place is in the home' has, probably rightly, hugely negative connotations and it would take more than ten days as a relative outsider in a culture I probably barely understood, listening in to conversations I mostly couldn't comprehend to make me re-evaluate that assessment. But equally, I can't deny there was much that felt very positive and empowered about these spaces. I saw nothing, obviously, of the other side of the coin: of what was going on in the male dominated spaces, relatively little of the spaces where genders interacted with each other, and nothing of where those whose gender identity doesn't fit neatly in to those boxes found themselves.
To go out my Moroccan friend conscientiously covers up, and I have rarely seen her with her hair or any part of her body uncovered. But then we were at home and the contrast was stark. Head scarves and outer layers were discarded and it felt like everyone was entirely comfortable with one another other. People did not hesitate to get changed in front of each other or to sit wrapped in a towel to drip-dry after a shower. We shared sleeping spaces with people we had only just met. Towards the end of our stay in Morocco we visited a Hammam (a kind of public bathroom). It had been held up as a fantastic experience but to be honest I was expecting it to feel extremely awkward. Public nudity is not really my thing. Conversations with Lydia and Helena before and after betrayed that we all felt similarly: an expectation of awkwardness, a surprised discovery that it really wasn't, and was indeed the positive experience we had been promised. I experienced girls and women of every age seemingly at ease in their own bodies in a way that I am not sure I have ever seen before.
Not that all the locals were covered head to toe out in public. I have always had the sense that my friend's choice to cover up was entirely her own, and my limited experience of Morocco was to witness a whole range of different choices (I mean true, I didn't see anyone in skimpy tops and mini skirts!) and it really didn't feel like anyone was watching or judging anybody else. Even as an obvious outsider I didn't feel watched. Even for our guided tour of the Casablanca mosque we were told head-covering was optional and while Lydia and I decided we would seeing it as a sign of respect for another culture into which we were being welcomed, I noted our Moroccan guide did not.
Like probably many of my culture I have questioned the need of women to hide away their bodies, to feel the need to erase their physical presence from public space. But this was my first real experience of the corollary: of how it then feels in spaces where those bodies are uncovered and it contributed something new to my perspective. I have never been sure that our theoretical wear-what-you-like environments which have descended into a highly-sexualised culture in which everyone's body is being constantly judged by others and even more critically by themselves is the answer either. Perhaps, like gender, none of these things are the binary positions we have often been guilty of turning them into.
Another thing that I was really struck by was how differently time worked there: I know it is a stereotype, one which I have to say many of my international friends do live up to, but the whole approach to time and time keeping and the importance of time was just completely different. I learned to relax into the not knowing and the vagueness of what terms such as 'morning' might mean! I was on holiday, and so the relaxed approach to time really didn't matter but I suspect it would take some major adjustment to live in such a culture. Perhaps it should remind me to be more sympathetic to those who really struggle to get used to our expectations of time-keeping where two really does mean two!
Morocco isn't, at least in the summer, in a different time zone to the UK ... but the way I felt when I got home did have some recognisable parallels to jetlag: because though it wasn't a different time zone, everything did happen in an entirely different time frame and my body clock was certainly very out of sync. The first evening was a case in point. Having landed well after 9pm, one might have thought a cup of tea, perhaps a light snack, and an early night ... but we arrived to a full meal and then an invitation, which we duly accepted, to go out and see the city. It was after midnight by the time we arrived in the square in the old city but there was no sign it was quietening down for the night, quite the contrary. It was the first of a series of very late nights!
The wedding involved the couple making five dramatic entrances, for the first two of which they were carried aloft in what I can only really describe as fairy-tale carriages, wearing five entirely different stunning outfits. There was music and drumming and lots of dancing as well as, of course, lots of food. Everyone made sure we felt fully included and even people we had never met were insistent we should get up on the dance floor.
It was a truly amazing experience, quite unlike anything I have ever experienced before and as well as having a lot of fun, I was aware throughout of the incredible privilege of being there and not just witnessing, but being invited to be fully part of such a beautiful occasion.
Morocco is, of course, a popular holiday destination, and we did do a few touristy things in the mix of our stay. We were mostly based in Marrakesh with a couple of days by the sea in Casablanca. In Marrakesh we took a day trip to the mountains, and visited the famous markets of the old city both by day and by night. In Casablanca we did a guided tour of a very impressive mosque, had a day at the beach, and had the location of "that" famous bar from the film pointed out to us.
But we also spent a lot of the time simply being welcomed into people's homes and lives. We were invited into conversations. We ate a lot of very good food. We drank many, many cups of Moroccan mint tea. We spent a lot of time being part of a community, of a family. And I really wouldn't have wanted to do it any other way.
