Age

Today I was sitting in the bakery, visiting with my friend Kabira when her mother walked in. Her mother is Berber and much more conservative than her children. She wears what we call a "milhaf," which is like a long sheet that women wrap themselves in from head to foot. Most women cover their faces, too. In my town, I'd say about half the women here wear milhafs, the other half wear jilabas (like a long pajama gown with a hood). Almost all the women wear head scarves. And the school-aged girls wear Western clothes with a white school pinafore over them. And then, there's me...I don't quite fit in with any of them with my loose fitting Western clothes, but that's another story.

Anyway, back to today. In walked, Kabira's mom. Mother of three daughters, oldest daugher around 26 years old. Sick with leg, back, and teeth pain. Walks slowly. Wrinkled. Her age: I'd guess close to 65 or older. All three of my grandparents in America are older than what I assumed to be her age and all three of them look younger and are much healthier.

WRONG! So, so very wrong. Age came up today when she asked if my parents were well, if they weren't sick, if they still had their youth. I said, yes, still young. She asked how old and I told her their ages. She laughed and said, no, they are OLD! She then told me she was 38 years old. I was shocked.

Okay, sidenote: most people in Morocco don't exactly know their age, but more or less guess. Birthdays aren't celebrated here.

I did the math. If Kabira is 25-26 and her mother says she is 38 that means....she was 12 when she gave birth??? No way, I thought. So, later, after her mother had left, I asked Kabira how old her mother was when she married her father. She said 14 years old. And a year later Kabira was born, so that would mean her mother had to have been around 15+26=41 years old now.

I'm not sure what my point is here. I guess, it's that women here age faster than in America. When you get married and have children so young, work outdoors on the farm, tend to the animals, do all the laundry by hand, kill the animals, cook the food, it puts some years on you.

Yesterday I watched the movie "Volunteers" with a group of fellow volunteers here in Morocco. The movie is from 1985 starring Tom Hanks and John Candy who sign up for the Peace Corps and are basically dropped off from a helicopter in Thailand without training, and get into all kinds of trouble. One scene shows Tom Hanks meeting the town elder who looks about 100, but John Candy says to him, "He's probably 30 years old." We all got that joke.