We’ve talked about some of the things that shock us, but intercultural dialogue is a two-way street, and there are plenty of things that we Americans do that amaze and offend our hosts. It’s easy for us to see the offense or shock in the things I described earlier that Moroccans do because they run contradictory to our culture. Here I’ve tried to present what shock Moroccans in as offensive a way as possible to try and simulate the way many Moroccans would feel them. I won’t be completely successful in that, but suffice it to say that they take every one of these as seriously as we do what shocks us.
1 - In America, a man’s reproductive fitness is judged more minutely than his fitness to be a NASA pilot, and the first criteria is does he still live with his parents. We tend to get out of the house as soon as possible, and our parents tend to echo the sentiment. We often end up living with roommates until we find ourselves judged “fitting,” but Peace Corps volunteers are forbidden from living with each other – if that’s even an option (I, for one, don’t have a site mate). Not so for Moroccans, who live at home until they’re married – unless forced by circumstances to move away – and then only for work, and they’ll do whatever they can to find family in the new location to live with. Sometimes, if they’re men, they’ll stay after marriage. If they’re women, they could very likely move to his parents’ home. Because why would you want to live away from your family? The only reasonable answer is that you want to do things that you can’t do in your family, namely be drunk all the time and have constant extra-marital sex. I had to go through very lengthy explanations of why I felt the need to leave my host parents’ home, most of them centering on how I do in fact love them, despite how things may look. One land lady, upon hearing that I would potentially be living in her rental apartment alone, refused to show it to me. My friends had to explain that I didn’t want it “for that,” I just didn’t have any family.
2 - You might not think to notice it, probably because it’s just so obvious to us, but one of our most sacred traditions is paying our own way (and you yours). Sure we mooch off our parents and significant others, but when a group of friends get together they’d better all bring their wallets with them, or make plans to pay it back later. This is absolute lunacy in Morocco. When guys get together in the café, one of them buys. When dudes accompany each other to the hammam, the first one pays for the rest. They’ve got all sorts of games and jokes about figuring out who’s supposed to pay, aside from “pay for what you drank.” The idea is that the others will pick up the tab next time, and everything will generally all even out. This theory breaks down when you’re with an American, who almost never have to pay because, despite living for two years in Morocco, is still the guest. Our money’s good for just about anything here, but not this. Lately, I’ve taken to fighting back. I once had to have another American friend pull a complicated wrestling move on our Moroccan associate just to have the time to get to the waiter and give him the money first. It didn’t matter that he’d treated the two previous times, he was furious. I still paid, though.
3 - There are a handful of new Americans doing their training here in Freedonia, and before they came, their host families-to-be had pretty much only one question: do they eat meat? These days, it’s not too hard to find a friend who’s a vegetarian; I’ve met only two Moroccans who don’t like to eat meat. It’s just not done around here. Perhaps it’s because a lot of the reasons why we choose vegetarianism aren’t present here. We’ve talked about the general lack of animal camaraderie, so it’s not likely to be caused by having fish who are friends. Maybe more significantly, there really aren’t industrial farms (sheep, goats, and chickens just roam freely through the town), nor is there any considerable use of growth hormones or genetic manipulation – it’s just too expensive. And there’s little dietary health consciousness. In fact, most people ascribe to the belief that the fatter you are, the healthier you are (those are the same word in Darija). With no moral, social, or nutritional pressure, it’s not surprising that Moroccans tend towards carnivorism, or that they’re so shocked to meet someone who isn’t. Moroccan dietary philosophy is that meat is good for you, and, being the most expensive part of the dish, it’s also a special treat. Consequently, vegetarian volunteers often find themselves embroiled in a guerilla war with their host mothers, who do whatever they can to ninja meat into their American.
4 - The Western handshake descends from the tradition of the Norse, who, being largely right-handed, shook with their right hands to represent that they bore no weapons, and, thus, no hostility. The Boy Scouts of America have turned this on its head and shake hands with their left to represent that they trust each other. Moroccans shake with their right because left hands are unclean. It’s a product both of Islamic custom – the Prophet’s message discussed a very broad definition of morality, including public health – and the economic fact that toilet paper costs money that most people would rather spend elsewhere that lead Moroccans to use their hands to wipe. Of course, you wouldn’t want to eat with that hand, especially in a society where your hands and food come in contact unmediated by utensils, so they’ve decided to designate one hand for public life and the other for the bathroom. This becomes a problem when foreigners come and touch their food with their left hands, which is just gross, or touch other people with their left hands, which is gross and offensive. The foreigners who know not to use their left spend all their time worrying about using it at the table or in polite society, terrified that they’ll forget and offend someone. Trust me, though, once you’ve used your left hand to clean yourself just once, you’re going to remember.
5 - People in the states go to great lengths to decorate their bathrooms. We have whole stores, magazines, and expositions dedicated to just this. We concern ourselves with the lighting, color coordination, ready availability of entertainment, and general homeliness of our bathrooms. Heaven forbid we find ourselves in the bathroom with nothing to do but what nature intended. Americans count the bathroom along with the other areas of the house, Moroccans tend to treat their bathrooms the same way people treat their insane aunt locked in the attic: everyone knows where it is, but pretend that it doesn’t exist. This is most difficult, however, when someone’s in there, especially since there’s no insulation to prevent sound from travelling from one part of the house to another. The sound of someone using the bathroom is one of the most shamefully embarrassing noises in Morocco, so they’ve set up a system of turning on a water faucet into a small bucket to cover it all up (we don’t need to debate the point that this sound is very similar to the majority of sounds it’s there to mask). We run into other problems too, though, in that entering the bathroom is like entering a pocket in the fabric of the universe, and we should seem to temporarily fade out of this plane of existence. Thus, it is very offensive to speak to someone while in the bathroom, even to respond to someone calling for us, nor should we even consider whistling or humming to ourselves. There’s no singing in the shower in Morocco.
6 - Morocco is a very strongly Muslim country, and, as in many other societies that have a single religion so blatantly dominant, there is little separation between the public and personal aspects of faith. The majority of Moroccans has a similar concept of their religion and come to take many of its tenets and prohibitions for granted. In the case of Islam, all aspects of life are divided into five categories: required, recommended, open to the individual, discouraged, and forbidden, or haram in Arabic. Moroccans know what they’re not allowed to do, but, more importantly, they know that Christians (meaning “foreigners,” as the two are represented by the same word in Darija) do them. And it’s not uncommon for to a local to conspiratorially inform you that Westerners are known to drink alcohol and eat pork. You’ll find yourself in a café when someone will announce to you that Americans drink whiskey (whiskey and vodka, like “Hotel California” and “My Heart Will Go On” with English-language music, have a monopoly on the Moroccan knowledge of spirits), or a student will sidle up to you and discretely ask you if it’s true that Americans do, in fact, eat pork. Some volunteers fear their community’s censure and deny these things, others try to explain that America is home to all faith systems and that there are some Americans who are forbidden from engaging in these activities. I, and probably a minority of others, tell them that these things are true. Almost all find ways to acquire alcohol in Morocco and could answer the question through example. A few try to get permits to hunt the many wild boar and have a pig roast.
7 - With so much Islam everywhere, it’s easy to imagine how it can be difficult for non-Muslims in Morocco. The majority of volunteers are Christian, but even more than that many claim to be. This is because Moroccans are used to foreigners being Christian, Christianity is within the Abrahamic family of religions, and it’s a lot easier than claiming any of the alternatives. Judaism is similarly approved by the Qur’an, but current political situations have resulted in pretty whole-scale ignorance concerning Judaism, a void that has been filled with a general enmity. There are enough Moroccans, however, who will gladly claim the Jewish people as part of their theological family. The biggest problems come from people who dispute the central premise of Islam: there is no god but God. One of the most powerful forces behind the create of Islam was a reaction against traditional polytheism, and thus visitors who believe in non-Abrahamic religions (Hindus, Buddhists, Wicca, etc) cause a bit of stir. Similarly, and more common, is the conflict caused by being an atheist or agnostic in Morocco. It’s bad enough that Christians and Jews don’t recognize Muhammad as being God’s messenger, but to believe that God isn’t God at all can be grounds for some serious debate to say the least. And if there is one truism here, it’s that there’s no halfway compromise. To argue for a general spiritualism is the same as saying that Islam is wrong, and very few are going to accept this from you.
8 - Everyone sneezes, but what sets Americans and Moroccans apart is our much higher tendency to blow our noses. Blowing your nose in Morocco not only requires tissues (a hedonistic luxury), but is also extremely offensive to polite society. It’s the sort of thing that you have to excuse yourself to go do, like using the bathroom. This is a constant source of tension between us, particularly when we first arrive and are bombarded by all the Moroccan illnesses. To make matters worse, that’s the time when volunteers are living with host families. The absolute pinnacle, however, of nose-blown rudeness, is when it is done while eating because now both your hands are befouled and you’re going to reach back into the collective plate. It’s enough to make everyone else lose their appetite.
9 - Moroccan girls and boys don’t really interact with each other as chums, and so it’s a little shocking when Moroccan boys and girls do. For example, boys and girls shared the same floor at my university, which isn’t unheard of in this day and age, but in Morocco would mean only that we engaged in constant debauchery. Boys are supposed to stay with boys, and girls with girls. Not just in the dormitories, but everywhere. Consequently, you see dudes hanging with each other on the street, and packs of girls walking by together. Rarely do you see boys and girls teasing or hanging on each other; in fact, this only really happens when foreigners are in the room, in places such as youth development summer camp. What’s really surprising for me, though, is that the guys I’ve been able to talk to about this don’t really want to be around girls, at least not in that sort of way. A guy I know wasn’t going to his classes after Ramadan ended last year because he said that none of the other guys were back yet, it was just him and a bunch of ladies. Normally, I would tell him to take advantage of the situation, and I did, but he replied that he can’t feel normal when girls are around. He understands guys and they can just be themselves. Girls are a confusing mystery. Unfortunately, it’ll probably stay that way.
