Thursday, September 8, 2016

Good-bye Larbi Doghmi High School

Wednesday turned out to be our last day with Abdellatif and the students at Larbi Doghmi High School.  We rode to school with our host teacher and had some good class periods during which we told stories about home life and answered questions students had written down on previous days.  Todd was feeling well enough to enjoy himself again.

When the 2-hour teacher lunch break began at Noon, Abdellatif took us to his home where his wife had prepared a huge platter of couscous with stewed vegetables and beef on top of it.  As I recall, it was the only meal we drank water that wasn't bottled.  Abdellatif had a water filter.

We chatted about Moroccan television shows.  Table conversation meandered from how amazing the platter of food looked and tasted to the best strategy to get the beef on top of the couscous to fall to our side of the platter so we could claim it for our own.  Abdellatif told us a story about when he was a boy and his parents would ask how he got all the meat to fall to his side of the family couscous platter.  It was a good laugh.

Dessert in a Moroccan home is generally some very good fruit and this meal was no exception.  Some of the homes we visited had platters of pastries in a variety of shapes and flavors.  They are excellent with a glass of hot Moroccan mint tea.  Our hosts were kind and kept the food flowing until we said the word Abdellatif taught us:  Safi! (saw-fee)  Enough!  Stop!  No more!  We tried.  It wasn't always successful.  I will never forget the hospitality extended to us during the time we spent in Moroccan homes.  I tell my students "If you get a chance to travel to Morocco one day, jump on it with both feet!"

We returned to school that afternoon and frantically passed out what was left of our stock of USA/Morocco plastic bracelets, and U.S. quarters with Oklahoma on the back.  The bracelets were so popular that on Monday we had kids following us into the teacher's break room, which was off limits to students without expressed permission from the staff.  We waved good-bye to several classrooms as we passed by and there were students standing on chairs and cheering us as we departed.  We felt like it had been a successful cultural and academic exchange.

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