My Favourite Thing About Morocco

I haven’t been as active on this blog as I should/could be but here’s to reviving it!

My life has fallen into a routine of the Cafe, home, and school, which has been nice but makes blogging about new things hard. However, in this routine, I’ve become settled in Morocco and for that I am thankful. In the last couple of months, people have asked me what my favourite part of Morocco. Initially, that was a really hard question to answer because everything was still so new and it was hard to contextualize things. Now I think I have an answer.

My favorite thing about Morocco is the people

Here’s why: Moroccans, by and large in my experience, are super hospitable, and will go out of their way to make sure that you are alright. Nowhere is this more clear than in just greeting someone. In our first darija lesson, we learned four or five different ways to say how are you. Initially, I imagined that you just pick one and ask it. But experience has shown that you ask all of them ion succession, and that everyone has a different order for how they ask. People ask how you are, if everything is okay, how the family is, how school is, how the parents are, how Morocco is treating you, and a host of other questions before the subject changes. While this may seem cumbersome, and somethimes it is when you just have a small question, it creates a feeling that people really care about you and want to make sure you are well. I love that.

This greeting ceremony is always accompanied by the two kiss business. This was a shock for me initially, because in North America you only kiss people you’re super close to. But here when you first meet someone, you lean in and kiss the air next to them on both sides while touching cheeks. When you get to know someone well, you kiss their cheeks properly and usually give them a hug as well. It’s super cool, but I really miss the Canadian culture of giving hugs.

The only time the kiss kiss culture is different is when it’s between a guy and a girl, when one or the other has a religious exception. This is rare, but when it happens you’ll know because the objecting one will hold out their hand for a handshake. For me, I just wait for the other person to make a move, then follow along.

That’s all for now folks!