Heaps of Shit. We call it 'poops'

Aziz’s words of wisdom are: if you do something to hurt somebody purposely, then you feel sorry, but when you don’t know then its ok, haven’t it sometimes happened to you that when you’ve bought something to the house for your mum and its hurt her and she didn’t like, and then you learn. You can go and hug her and feel fresh and its alright, we learn, don’t worry its ok.

I didn’t go and hug her, I went back to my room to burry my bright red face under a pillow of shame.

To hurt somebody whose house you are living in, whose hospitality you are taking advantage… I have never felt so terrible and so humiliated.

Here’s the setting. Lunch time, a debate about whether we are to accompany Aziz into the city that afternoon. Kay needs to go to the bank and Anrie and I don’t feel the need to spend hours there and would rather stay at home. Especially because the garden that we’re starting in the backyard needed work, and we had to practise our Arabic and prepare the presentation about the compost heap that we were creating for Aziz’s mom to explain the benefit of us chucking her organic garbage into the back yard, something she seems very disappointed about.

And so it began that Kay and Aziz left in a hurry for town, their day resulting in an argument about the connotations of ‘whatever’ and a debate with the imam about homosexuality- but that’s her story.

Anrie and I chilled, attempted to play cards with Rashida and cleaned our room, and then it was time to go and get the manure (which Aziz calls poops) from the next door neighbours. It turns out they have 4 cows in their house and we shovelled up a wheelbarrow full of grass and fresh manure.

We are beaming with pride at ourselves, what a cool thing to be, in a village in morocco with a skirt and a scarf wheelbarrowing poops from the house next door, through our front door, through the courtyard and towards the garden. Aziz’s mom walkes out of the kitchen and looks with distaste at the full wheelbarrow of fresh poops we’ve wheeled through her house. We struggle for a good 10 minutes, trying to manuvure it in to the small back yard (leaking a little all over in the process). Finally its in but as Aziz’s mother looks heartbroken about the situation, we decide not to put it into the compost heap until he arrives. We then attempt to make chalk to paint the periphery and leave to wash our hands.

 Suddenly I hear screaming “Rashida! Rashida!’ Aziz’s mom Fatima is calling from the kitchen. I run in to ask if there is anything I can do. She is sitting sobbing tearing at her face shouting in Arabic. I ask what I can do to help whats the problem who should I call should I get some water- but of course she couldn’t understand me and kept just mopping at her face, gesturing to the garden area. She was in crazy crazy pain.

Eventually the pain seems to subside and she gets hold of herself and continues to make the teatime meal. Woman here never cease to amaze me. I try to ask her what was wrong, what happened and I begin to get the impression that she is allergic to the manure…  I call Aziz again and again but I cant get hold of him.

Eventually she summons me. “Zhor” she calls, its time for tea. Most awkward tea time of my life.  She kept scratching at her face and anrie talked to me in English musing on what could have been the problem, whether she was just cutting onions or whether it was because of our compost heap or because of the flies and every time we said our chorus of lemekla zwina bzef’{ very nice, delicious food} she just looked at us. I eventually got hold of Aziz who said ‘don’t do anything I’ll be home in 10 minutes’.  Uhhh.. too late. . .

He came home, hurried angry conversation in Arabic, we get informed that she is in fact allergic to cow dung and strong smells.

Here, have an uncomfortable situation: There is one smell/ thing you cant stand in the world. A bunch of foreigners living in your house take it upon themselves to collect a whellbarrow full of the stuff and drag it through your house, dumping it in you backyard to add to pile they already created of trash which attracts flies to your home. Turns out your face feels like its falling off because you’re allergic, and although you tried to tell them to get rid of the stuff they couldn’t understand you as they don’t speak  your language. They even have the audacity to put a hand on you to try to comfort you when smelling them is the last thing you want to do.

We kept trying to apologize, but she couldn’t understand our pronunciation.

Turns out we have to return the pile of poops to the neighbours tomorrow. Here guys, thanks for the poops but turns out we can’t handle them, please feel free to take them back to your cows.

By the way they actually have cows inside their house. Now I understand it when people I ask say that their animals are and inside their house, they don’t mean in an enclosure next to their house or in an enclosure on a farm adjacent to their house.

 

Rashida out neighbour who is getting married, who btw I thought was 19 but is in fact 17, came  to visit during a moment of all of us venting and freaking out.  Oblivious to out English-bound stress she came with her uncles camera phone and made us pose for lots of pictures, and played us all sort of Arabic music and taught us to dance. We gave up on low whispered conversations saturated with problems and accepted her invitation to the roof where we hung up laundry and watched the stars. She sang me what she knew from the Koran and then Aziz brought up baby Fati-zala and I held her and suddenly Rashida shouted out and pointed up and there, right there was a shooting star, clearer then I could have ever imagined, whizzing past all the other shiny specks and finally disappearing.

No, I didn’t become a princess and marry a Moroccan king and live happily ever after, yes we eventually returned back to our room and its whispered grumbles and troubles and the stress of the day, but hey, there was that, and it mattered.

 

Next morning we went for a morning jog and came along a bag of dry sheep manure or poops along the way. Aziz wakes his neighbour asked for the poops and lifts the bag onto his head. It spills all-over his clothes and hair. I guess that’s what farm life is all about huh;

 It’s all in the smelly stuff.