On Saturday, Mama, Nissim, Omar, and our “grandmother” (a close family friend) ventured out the Rabat suburb of Temara to spend the weekend with Kaoutar’s parents, Rita and Abdelkader, in their new apartment. This was a big day because it was the first time I had been out of our house with Mama; she leaves a few times every day, but usually when I’m at school. She was dressed in her nicest orange and brown jellaba and she looked beautiful!
We took an hour long public bus out to the country and arrived around 1pm. Kaoutar and Rita had wanted me to come out for quite some time, since I’ve been in Rabat, so they were incredibly happy to have me here. I also love spending time with Abdelkader, because he and Rita are truly like my Moroccan grandparents. Like my own grandfather Victor, Abdelkader wants to show me the whole neighborhood and take me to meet the neighbors. He grabs my arm and tells me story after story after story. He gives me the eyeball of the lamb in the tagine we are eating. He takes all my bones after I eat and “cleans them, because that’s the good meat”. It’s like I’m home...
It also feels like home because of the amount of food we eat at each and every meal. For lunch, we had 3 Moroccan salads, chicken tangine, french fries and cake. For kaskrout (pre-dinner snack), we had hundreds of Moroccan pastries (which I brought as a gift to Rita), tea and cake. For dinner at 11pm, we had harira (my favorite Moroccan lentil soup), chocolate croissants, chubz (bread), and cake. Basically every meal, we have chubz and cake.
Coming to the country here feels like it does at home, and that makes me happy. The whole family is relaxed, everyone is helping with the cooking and cleaning, all the kids sit on the floor, and we play games outside and watch movies all night. All to similar to summer weekends with my family in the Catskills...
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