Stagnant

“Tony” is getting tired. “Carmela” has been in London for over a month now with her oldest daughter and the new grandchild. His gestures are getting wider.

It was a lot of work getting to the salon and back those four days. The walk to City Center put me back at least a half-hour. Then there was the hailing down of a cab, explaining in Arabic to the driver where I needed to go, fighting over how much the ride would cost, shooing at least the first two taxis away because they would insist on two rial when I was NOT going to pay more than .5, and when all that was finally negotiated and settled, there was the taking of the LONG way because the driver in fact didn’t know the Hamid bin Hamood Mosque like they had claimed. Or Binayat al Faisal. Or, god forbid, Khamis Shoes.

Hend was pretty fabulous. Tall, 300 lbs, and absolutely in love with Spandex, the manager of Al-Mona Beauty Salon and I tried to communicate something, anything, in our broken-Arabic-French-English. I spent four days at the establishment, talking with women and passing out surveys. By day-two Hend was making me cuttlefish pasta and having me write out customer receipts.

I’m getting ready now. I’m excited to get on that plane, to touch down in some place new. December 12th-25th I’ll be spending in the Casablanca Youth Hostel. More completely and utterly independent than I have ever been in my life. And in Morocco no less. On Christmas Day Mom, Dad, and Lin fly in and stay till New Years. At this point I’ll move to the Rabat Hostel and remain there until my second semester begins on January 31st. An entire month and a half traipsing around Morocco. Mashallah, God has willed it.

But I haven’t left yet…

At the beach a few nights ago my aunt turned to me.
“I think you are understanding?” she asked, motioning toward “Tony”, his voice raised, arms churning, spit landing on the plastic table before him.
“Shwaya,” I responded.
“He is saying, I don’t know how to, uh… you know here a man can have four?”
I nodded, “Four wives? Na-em, arif.”
“He is saying, how long can a man go without his wife, or a wife without her husband.”
“Ahh.”
“‘Tony’ he is saying three months. He is asking everyone like to study, like you are doing.”
“Oh, ba-hath? Researching it?”
“Yes. And I want to know for you, how long... you are here how, three months? If you have boyfriend at home, what do you say?”

“Tony” turns toward us, the whites of his eyes strained in their sockets.

“I say that if you won’t wait, than kha-las. Goodbye.”

“Ahh…” she says, translating for the rest of the group.
“Tony’s” brother looks at me from his denim camping chair, teal tracksuit failing to hide the thick belly underneath. A cigarette in one hand, he lifts the other and gives me a thumbs-up. “Good, Sarah,” he says, laughing beneath his mustache.

I walk out to the boat ramp afterward, the air smelling like those fat, scented markers we used to have in art classes and at Candlelighter’s camps as a kid. The brown one maybe. Or the black? The young people have pulled up chairs, encircling an Arabic Monopoly board. Aunts and Uncles walk back and forth between the huts, collecting Styrofoam plates and packing up the tahini dregs, the lone cucumbers.

My feet are drying off. I resituate them to create new saltwater stains on the cement and “Tony” is still seated at the small table, back to the water. He is the only adult immobile, next to but excluded from the tight circle of board game enthusiasts. I realize he is sad.

Fighting the battle against “the world today”, against immorality, against the digression from Islam, against modern behaviors and loss of tradition is his eternal and self-inflicted cross-to-bear, no pun intended.

“Do your parents prefer how things were in the past? Or how they are now?”
“You know, I’ve never thought to ask. I think they are just happy wherever they are. You prefer the past?”
“Oh definitely. Things were better.”

He holds what can never be regained in the highest esteem. Constantly trying to revert back, to maintain a clenched grasp on what old-fashioned customs he can.

“Tony” is overbearing. He is intimidating, strict, domineering. His expectation for everyone’s undivided attention borders on arrogance. And he is so, so tired.