Ramadan Spectacular

21 October 2006

Last night was the best time I’ve had in Morocco yet! I went to the Ramadan Spectacular at the Dar Chebab which was a celebration of the month of Ramadan. As you can see from my pictures, I got the opportunity to dress up in traditional Moroccan clothes. The Friendship Club we started at the Dar Chebab organized a fashion show for the Spectacular and so the Americans got to dress in Moroccan clothes and the Moroccans got to dress in American clothes. I felt bad because the only clothes I had to offer the Moroccans weren’t very “cool” because all the clothes I brought to Morocco are pretty conservative. But, the kids were really creative and wore hooded sweatshirts, backward baseball caps and baggy jeans. They wanted to look “hip hop.”

The day before the Spectacular I had told Mama that I would be dressing up Moroccan and what I thought she had said was that she would give me a head scarf to wear. I guess I totally misunderstood her because that night as I was getting ready to leave, she pulled out this bag filled with beautiful clothes. My family is Amazig (the politically correct term for Berber) and she had the most amazing tkshita (two-piece dress) that she dressed me in. I also wore this really fancy gold belt and another black sparkly belt that they tied around my arms. Chase, another volunteer, came over to my house and did my make-up to look like the kohl that the Moroccan women put around their eyes. When I finally looked in the mirror, I did not recognize myself!

When Chase and I arrived at the Dar Chebab there were already so many people there! We changed back into our plain clothes so it would be more of a surprise for the fashion show. Then, we sat down in the makeshift theater and waited for the show to begin. And we waited. The thing about Moroccan is, that time doesn’t really matter here. So, we waited a long time and then maybe an hour later the show began. There were a lot of singing performances by young children dressed traditionally. There was one group of young kids that marched around while pretending to shoot guns and I’m not sure what that was about, but whatever. Chase and I sat next to the door, which turned out to be a huge mistake. For some reason, there was this wall of fifty kids pushing against the door trying to get in while two or three people held the door closed. The kids were banging on the door, throwing rocks, and yelling really loudly. At one point the doormen let a rush of kids in and it got really crowded, like fire-hazard crowded.

The fashion show went really well and afterward everyone treated us Americans like celebrities! I had a lot of young girls take my picture and made a few new friends. My new friends were two sisters who both sat on my lap for like an hour during the show. Personal space is pretty much nonexistent here in Morocco, so I was sharing half a plastic chair with this older woman and on my lap was an 18 year old girl and her 10 year old sister both on a knee! The younger one was really cute, but she she kind of went a little overboard with petting my face and hair and giving me a lot of neck hugs. Oh, well...