2 DAYS POST EID – PART 2
SATURDAY NIGHT – HUNTING FOR DINNER
So after we returned from our exhausting day, I decided to venture out again, solo this time, in pursuit of something to eat for dinner. I headed out toward one of the main boulevards near my neighborhood and plugged in my headphones and just wandered around for a while. It is only about 1900, but its completely dark, and the town is surprisingly full of people. With my headphones in, I barely noticed the street harassment. I should probably introduce another concept here… the trouble with being a young carbon based life form with a uterus and long hair, is that everywhere you go, no matter the country, the outfit or the language, you get harassed on the street. And in Morocco, the men are a lot more vocal about it than in other places I have encountered it. So on this particular night, avoiding everyone’s gaze as usual, I am heading vaguely towards a restaurant I could potentially get some food for take away. There is a man in my periphery who begins to follow me as soon as I pass him. This is nothing out of the ordinary. They’ll usually yell such pleasantries as “zwina” (pretty), “bonjour”, “hello” and sometimes, if I’m lucky “bshHal” (how much), and then when I don’t respond they just fall back. (Keep in mind that even though you picture a sleazy man in his young to mid-twenties, this always varies from adolescent boys to middle aged men with beards.)
I decided to turn left on a slightly quieter street in pursuit of a sushi place Lindsey and I had found to be decent the previous week. I see this man in the corner of my eye still. I walk a bit faster and turn up my headphones. After a block or so he stands directly in my path as a way to get my attention. I can’t ear him over the deafening Stromae song, and I can tell by his shit eating grin that he is still spitting some line. What startles me is that he looks to be nearly 40, wearing dad jeans and a striped pullover. I politely tell him what translates roughly to go jump out a window, and because my music was all the way up and my tone was way on the angry side... I may or may not have screamed it directly into this guy’s face. He reacted as if I’d pulled out a shank and stabbed him in the appendix. He froze and his expression made me, for a split second, feel sorry for him. But then I remembered that he had followed me down an unlit street and harassed me for the past 10 minutes, and would most definitely have done more if he got the chance. I turned on my heel abruptly and walked the other direction.
Now this was not nearly the worst form of harassment that I’d endured on the street. (The worst was perhaps when I was living in Chicago and was groped on the subway. When this happened I mentioned something to the perpetrator about tearing him limb from limb and he looked at me like I was the mentally unstable one. That gives me a chuckle, but I digress.) I gave up pursuit of a decent dinner and headed home. I briefly considered stopping at a tapas bar for a bottle of wine, but I saw the clientele was about 90% male, and I decided I had had enough of that gender for the night, and went on my way.
When I was about a block and a half away, I spotted a Domino’s. What the hell, I thought, and headed over. I’m so pissed off at Morocco right now I think I’ll buy some American food, because that is how my brain works. Its my own special, tiny little way of saying “f*#% you”. I walk in, and it’s completely familiar.
This sounds really cheesy, but every time I walk into a Domino’s I can’t help but just feel happy. And nostalgic. See, I worked at a Domino’s in our dinky little town in Iowa for nearly three years. It was my first official job (after babysitting, of course), and I loved almost every minute of it. I was given an alarming amount of freedom as a 17 year old, and I took it very seriously. I still talk to my old boss from time to time, no kidding.
So when I walk into this Domino’s I have this stupid little grin on my face and I completely forget about the ass-goblin that followed me around. I ordered what I always order in the states (this must remain confidential for my own personal ego), and I sit down to play Tetris while I wait. The fact that I am playing Tetris in a Domino’s in Morocco just tickles me, because I used to play this when it was slow when I worked there in Iowa (and it was always slow). How funny to find myself doing the same thing nearly six years later in a different continent…
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