Today in Fes: Couscous, Women's Talk and a Car Accident

It is officially close enough to the start of the month of Ramadan that I am beginning to hear people use the traditional Moroccan phrase " Awashir Mabruk" or " Mabruk al-Awashir" which is used to signal the entering of a holiday period.

Today I was invited to a friends house after the Friday prayer for what we were all aware was one of the last Friday Couscous lunches before the start of Ramadan. It was a group of 8 women of varying ages, many of whom have know each other for decades, and there was an amazing montage of conversation topics. We began with talking about the Afterlife and Judgement day and Hell. We moved from that to the idea of gossip and slander and the unnecessary extra things we let our tongues get away with that are truly sinful and hurtful to others.

And then eventually we made our way to marriage - which always seem to happen in Morocco if you talk to someone long enough. A few of the women were recounting stories of engagements that did not work out. I was surprised to hear them talk about how when Moroccan men are interested in a woman they might go and ask the guy who runs the corner store in her neighborhood and even her neighbors what they know about her. I was disgusted at the idea that the guy who runs the corner store might be a character witness for me. I mean for the most part they are nice guys, but they do not know me.

And then some how the conversation tapered into a talk about the spirit world and dreams. I left the gathering a little after that to meet another friend and we did some of what we jokingly called Ramadan preparation which was going out to get ice cream. It is something we will not be able to do soon during the daylight hours.

We decided to walk the ice cream off by strolling through her neighborhood and as we were finally heading back towards her house, a car sped out of control scrapping the car we were standing next to and then swerved to the left and crashed into a tree. It was very jarring. A crowd gathered and eventually got the driver out of the car and moved it. It seemed like the driver was drunk. Not a small accusation but a living reality even here in Morocco where technically liquor can only be sold to non-Muslims, but where I see people whom you would not imagine drink alcohol buying it at the grocery store.

My friend walked with me a little bit before heading home,.She was in shock about how close we had been to the car, and how easily we could have been killed. I told her that it just wasn't our time - yet. Then i headed towards the closest mosque, stepping inside just as the call to prayer for the sun down prayer was being called.